New England Revolution play at Red Bull Arena Saturday night

The New England Revolution remain on the road and will face the New York Red Bulls Saturday at Red Bull Arena. Kickoff is scheduled for 7:30 p.m.

The Red Bulls are currently in fourth place in the Eastern Conference and remain undefeated at home. But last week they got crushed by Inter Miami, 6-2, a result that left a bad feeling in their locker room.

“We can’t accept that,” Red Bulls captain Emil Forsberg told frontrowsoccer.com after the loss to Inter. “We have to demand more from ourselves. We will have a good [training] week, and hopefully come back stronger. We have to learn [from] this. We have to raise our standards, to get out on our home field at Red Bull Arena and win. We need to give our fans … We have to make ourselves proud and to show what quality we have.”

Despite being in last place, the Revolution realize that, with 24 games remaining, they can still salvage the season as they are only seven points in back of the final play-off spot.

“I told the guys today, it’s great we got a win and had a good performance, but we can’t relax,” Porter said after Tuesday’s practice when previewing tomorrow’s game. “We have to stay hungry. We have to keep focused on improving every single day, like we did last week. Last week, we had a great week of training. I think you saw it in the game. We're still scratching the surface of the team that we want to be, that we need to be, so have another good week of training. That’s the key.”

The Revolution have only netted seven goals, but Tomás Chancalay has scored in consecutive games and believes that the worse is over.

“We feel very confident. Last season, like this season, we’ve found ways to score goals,” Chancalay said. “This year, we’ve scored less than last year, but I think we’re feeling good, and we are acclimating to Caleb’s ideas. I think the guys up top can help support this team to win more [games].”

“I think the main thing is just playing our game. I think when you look back at most of our games, it's kind of us beating ourselves rather than the other way around,” midfielder Esmir Bajraktarević added. “So, it’s kind of just making sure that we're doing the best that we can, and the results will come.”

Revolution earn first road victory of the season, remain in last place

Tomás Chancalay scored the lone goal of the game in the 62nd minute, on a fantastic shot from 25 yards out, to lead the New England Revolution to their first road victory of the season over host Chicago Fire, on Saturday night at Soldier Field.

Inclement weather forced a delay to the start of the game, but after the opening whistle the hosts assumed control and pressured the Revolution defense.

But the Revs held on. They absorbed the pressure and succeeded in denying true goal scoring opportunities as the Fire failed to get a shot on target during this period.

In the 21st minute, Chicago had one of their better plays in the game, when they put together an impressive string of passes. It all started with goalkeeper Chris Brady serving Mauricio Pineda. After a series of passes, defender Andrew Gutman found himself unmarked on the left side. Because nobody from the Revolution stepped up to try to deny his penetration, the Fire defender ran towards the area and then unleased a blistering left footed shot that sailed just over the outstretched arms of keeper Aljaz Ivacic, who was making his Revolution debut in this game.

The Revolution tried to respond and, in the 32nd minute, Captain Carles Gil made a run down the left side and then sent a cross towards the far post, seeking Chancalay. But the pass was just a couple of inches too deep, and the Revolution forward was unable to get any power on the shot that keeper Chris Brady grabbed with ease.

The hosts threatened again seconds later when Allan Arigoni’s cross from the right side sailed over the Revolution central defenders and landed right in front of Brian Gutierrez, but his first-time volley sailed over the crossbar.

Revolution storm out in the opening minutes of the second half.

“My assistant, Blair Gavin, he does a great job of finding clips in the first half,” Porter answered, when asked about the changes after intermission. “He showed four clips to the team at halftime. We have kind of a rhythm of doing that at halftime, clipping things in the first half and showing guys visuals of it, so that was a real key.”

Apparently, Gavin’s analysis really worked as it seemed to immediately inject some life into the Revs. A mere 30 seconds after intermission, Esmir Bajraktarevic took on a couple of defenders inside the Chicago area, had his initial shot blocked by Andrew Gutman, controlled the rebound and then dropped a pass back to Nick Lima. But his cross towards the far post fell short and Georgios Κoutsias was able to head it away before the ball could reach Chancalay.

One minute later, Carles Gil took a corner kick, left it short for Bajraktarevic and the youngster’s cross found Xavier Arreaga unmarked at the center of the box, but keeper Chris Brady stretched all out and pushed the header away.

Seconds after that, Arreaga reached Carles Gil’s cross, but this time his header struck the side netting.

In the 52nd minute, Carles Gil made a strong run and then slid a pass to Bajraktarevic, who first froze defender Rafael Czichos with a sharp cut and then fired a low left footed shot that was sneaking in just inside the near post, but Chris Brady dove and slapped the ball over the end line.

Right after that, Gil tried his luck from long range, but the ball sailed just wide of the left post.

The Revolution were finally rewarded in the 62nd minute. Keeper Aljaz Ivacic’s long punt was deflected by forward Giacomo Vrione, bounced off defender Andrew Gutman and landed right in front of Tomás Chancalay, who cut towards the middle to find space and then, from about 25 yards, lifted a curling left-footed bomb that flew past keeper Chris Brady and landed near the top corner.

“I think in the past games it was different,” Carles Gil when discussing the start to the second half. “Many times, the opponent had better moments in the beginning of the second half, so we wanted to change that, and we did. We had a very good 10, 15, 20 minutes until the goal. I think that’s important for us.”

To try to get back into the game, Chicago Fire coach Frank Klopas immediately went to his bench and brought on Swiss international Xherdan Shaqiri and forward Tom Barlow.

The move nearly paid quick dividends. In the 73rd minute, Shaqiri took a free kick from about 25 yards and lifted his shot towards the top corner, but keeper Aljaz Ivacic jumped, stretched all out and tipped the ball over the crossbar.

Klopas made two more changes in the 79th minute, this time bringing on forward Omari Glasgow and attacking midfielder Gaston Gimenez. And the hosts created a couple of close calls in the final minutes, both by Hugo Cuypers, first when his header sailed just wide and then when, just outside the small box, he slid a weak shot right at Ivacic.

The Revolution had a golden opportunity to kill the game deep into injury time. With the Fire caught up field in desperate search of the equalizer, Chancalay had a breakaway. When the Fire keeper came out to try to cut down the shooting angle, Chancalay slid a pass to a wide-open Carles Gil, who had an empty net staring at him. But the pass went too far to the captain’s right and by the time Gil was able to chase the ball down, the Fire defense had recovered.

Caleb Porter has been trying to get his team to play out of the back, but so far the results have not been very encouraging. However, it appears that new goalkeeper Aljaz Ivacic is comfortable distributing the ball and looked confident spreading it up field, and new central defender Xavier Arreaga, the other addition in the recently closed winter transfer window, also looked like he has the ability to pass out of the back. Once wing backs DeJuan Jones and Brandon Bye return from injury, they will also provide the ability to make runs from the back and glide down the wings, so Porter might finally begin to see results, something that he pointed out in his post-game remarks.

“Yeah, better, not still where I want, but it's step-by-step,” Porter said. “It's brick-by-brick. It's a process and if everybody could play out and control games, then everybody would do it. That's what we want to evolve into. I thought we made steps forward today and we created a structure to play.

“So, I thought, yeah, it was improved today, and it does help when you have guys like Aljaž [Ivačič] and [Xavier] Arreaga, because both of those guys are very good on the ball, and they are smart players.”

Team captain Carles Gil was also encouraged by what he saw in Chicago.

“We need to improve in those things, trying to keep the ball better, finding the open man, the free man,” Gil said. “It’s never easy, but we are working on that, to make better decisions and keep the ball. If you’re not doing this well, you need to try to defend well like today, to have some counterattacks like we did and win games.”

Despite the improvement, the Revolution managed to get only three shots on target and remain the lowest scoring team in the league, with only seven goals in 10 games.

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: New England Revolution play at Red Bull Arena Saturday night