Postgame: KC Wizards 4 – 3 New England Revolution (And the Secret to Beating New England)

By: Michael | May 29th, 2007

In Summary:
So once again the Wizards go into New England, get the job done in a tightly-contested match, and go home… we STILL haven’t failed to leave Gillette Stadium with points. The first half featured five goals, including three in three minutes (in case you were wondering, this is not as uncommon as you thought in the MLS – it has now happened ten times). After New England scored the first two, the Wizards stormed into the halftime lead with a goal from Davy Arnaud (his third straight game with a goal or assist).

As Promised… the Five Things You have to do to Beat New England:
1) Start the game with five starters on the bench, preferably your three most seasoned defenders, last season’s scoring leader, and your playmaker.
2) Be sure to go into the game on a scoring drought.
3) Play your space along the flanks against the 3-5-2. If you can put the ball through past the midfielders, there will be plenty of room along the flanks to exploit… call up Curt Onalfo to get more details.
4) Keep Twellman to one goal, score a double in two minutes or less, make sure your marquee goal-scorer nets three, avoid giving up any more than one late PK goal and oh yes – did I mention you should do all that with five starters on the bench?
5) If all else fails, keep the most important factor to beating New England in mind: score more goals than the Revolution.

The Two Guys Not Named Eddie Johnson or Davy Arnaud Who Deserve a Nice Pat on the Back:
1) Jack Jewsbury. If the KC Offside took you aside during the preseason and told you when you went to New England in May, you would be the backline player with the most career minutes, would you have believed me? Thanks for “growing up” into the back wing so quickly, Juice.

2) Carlos Marinelli. Carlos, if all you did this entire season was come in late, control the pace of the game, and hook up Eddie with a game-winning, hat-tricking tally, you’d still be worth twice what we pay you. I bet they never told you that over at Middlesbrough, did they?

I Don’t Mean to be a Broken Record, but…
Those who have read this blog before know how much I value the final ten minutes of each half, and the Wizards could not have validated my point more against the Revs. Without Johnson’s goals at 36′ and 82′, we would have left 3-2 losers. If our defense had been any flatter going into halftime, the game would most likely have been a tie. Way to push through to the whistles!

Prediction Time:
My prediction: KC 2 – 2 NE
FIFA ‘03 prediction: KC 3 – 4 NE
Stop kicking my predictions around, FIFA ‘03. You’re going to embarrass me! After eight games, I am currently a paltry 3-3-2 against the four-year-old software.

The Final Word:
A win like this against in New England with so many injuries should serve as an open warning to the Eastern Conference come the end of the season. Assuming we at least maintain our number four seed for the playoffs (which are 22 games from now, granted) and can somehow get our entire first team on the field at the same time, this is a team built to win big games. The game even has many MLS pundits/bloggers finally given the Wizards some respect, e.g. MLS Underground, which brought Kansas City up to 2nd place. ESPN is still not convinced they’re a top two team.

Perhaps even a greater test than this weekend will be the next, as RBNY come to town. While Angel vs. Johnson may be the biggest story to many, a game of “which version of the Wizards will Onalfo have at his disposal this week?” may be a more apt headline. With early indications good that Garcia and Burciaga will be back, we are poised to see quite the showdown come June 2nd.

If you’d like to submit any comments/stories or add a question to my accumulating “Ask the KC Offside” article, don’t forget to e-mail KCOffsider@gmail.com.