On a misty Wednesday night at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro with a 50/50 supporter split of 3 thousand fans the New England Revolution had their most dominant performance in Concacaf Champions Cup/league history.
The Revs manhandled Alajuelense for 90 minutes. Goals from Nick Lima, Esmir Bajraktarevic and a brace from Tomas Chancalay carried the boys in Blue.
Alajuelense from Costa Rica got a bit of a break with the weather. At kickoff the temp was around 50 degrees and the rain held off for the entirety of the match. Alajuelense had the first chance when a cross came in clearing Nick Lima. Former Arsenal man Joel Campbell miss hit his strike and sailed the ball out of play letting the Revs off the hook. It wasn't long after that when Dejuan Jones put in a lovely left footed cross into the path of Nick Lima who ran onto the ball and volleyed the shot into the side netting beating the Alajuelense keeper.
New England doubled the lead when Nacho Gil found Tomas Chancalay with a sumptuous through ball and Chanc calmly slotted the shot home making the game 2-0. That is where the game stood at the half.
The 2nd half was more of the same with New England having much of the ball and creating the better chances. The third goal came from an Alajuelense penalty for handball. New England worked the ball nicely into the box and the ball was handled by the Costa Rican side. Tomas Chancalay took the ball, placed it on the spot and with a lengthy run up blasted the ball down the middle trippling the lead and giving himself a 2nd goal on the night.
New England's 2024 to date star boy capped the scoring when Nick Lima crossed the ball into the path of Esmir Bajraktarevic who had an open net to tap in to. That was the 4th and final goal of the evening. Revs play Atlanta this weekend before heading to Costa Rica for Leg 2 next week. If New England takes care of business they will face the Chivas Guadalajara vs Club America winner in the CCC quarterfinals which begin in April.
Revs play by play announcer Brad Feldman was encouraged by the performance and said after the match that MLS and the Revs have made great progress. "20 years ago these are the teams that were beating the Revs, Now the Revs are convincingly beating them."
This was anther positive step for the team with everyone playing well tonight. New England must fix there MLS league form. New England has yet to secure any points through 2 MLS matches.
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