Any sort of victory would be a relief for the New England Revolution, particularly after a rough start to the week.
The Revolution meet visiting Charlotte FC on Saturday night at Foxborough, Mass.
New England (0-4-1, one point) owns the worst record in the MLS.
“We need to keep pushing collectively as a team,” midfielder Mark-Anthony Kaye said. “We’ll figure it out. We’ve seen teams bounce back from worse starts from this.”
Charlotte FC (2-2-2, eight points) open the April portion of their schedule coming off a 2-0 victory against the Columbus Crew and a 1-1 draw with FC Cincinnati.
The Revolution already have played this week, falling 4-0 to Liga MX’s Club America in the Concacaf Champions Cup quarterfinal first leg Tuesday night. That means another match next week in Mexico to try to advance.
“We just need to hold ourselves to a higher standard as a team,” Kaye said. “There’s not an easy way to put it — not good enough. … The plan is to go out and perform well and get three points at home. We know how important the first win of the season is. I’m sure for a lot of guys it has been challenging to not have that yet.”
The MLS outing is a chance to get things right by week’s end.
“We’ll have to take the game, learn from it and move on,” Revolution defender Ryan Spaulding said. “We just have to bound back and come out strong against Charlotte.”
Last week’s 1-1 draw with Chicago might have been an encouraging sign for the Revolution, but the team needs to string together more points.
Charlotte FC have been encouraged after their 1-1 draw with highly regarded Cincinnati. Converting on a strong number of scoring chances is something the team needs to do to take the next steps.
“I’d be a lot more worried if we weren’t getting chances,” Charlotte coach Dean Smith said. “When teams aren’t getting chances, then you know you got problems. We don’t have problems because we have people who are willing to run and get into areas where you are going to get opportunities. Our job now is to make them better finishers and be good in those moments.”
Saturday will mark the second MLS match for Charlotte’s Liel Abada, who previously played for Scottish club Celtic. He was used as a substitute in his MLS debut.
–Field Level Media
