{"id":46422,"date":"2023-03-31T13:53:42","date_gmt":"2023-03-31T17:53:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/?p=46422"},"modified":"2023-03-31T13:53:42","modified_gmt":"2023-03-31T17:53:42","slug":"eastern-conference-leaders-revs-host-nycfc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/2023\/03\/31\/eastern-conference-leaders-revs-host-nycfc\/","title":{"rendered":"Eastern Conference Leaders New England Look to Reignite Rivalry With NYCFC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The New England Revolution turned their clash with D.C. United on its head in the last outing. Coming out of the international break and the Eastern Conference leaders have another team on their side of the bracket next up. <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/category\/mls\/nycfc\/\" target=\"_self\">NYCFC<\/a> have began 2023 slowly but they remain a very dangerous outfit.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Eastern Conference Leaders Look to Continue to Soar<\/strong><\/h2>\n<h3><strong>How Will the Revs Lineup?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>That win over D.C. may have taken the Revs to the summit in the East, but there are still injury worries in their ranks. <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/2022\/08\/30\/carles-gil-difference-maker-chicago\/\" target=\"_self\">Carles Gil<\/a> didn\u2019t even make the squad for the Nashville game and then, we he returned to the fold, he made an instant impact. His perfectly accurate cross found <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/2023\/03\/19\/gustavo-bou-goal-revs-nashville\/\" target=\"_self\">Gustavo Bou<\/a> who had the composure to equalize against Wayne Rooney\u2019s D.C. side.<\/p>\n<p>Bruce Arena admitted that the Revs are \u201ca lot different when Carles is on the field, so we do have to make adjustments\u201d. This begs the million-dollar question of whether the Spaniard will be in the starting XI against NYCFC and with Arena keeping his cards close to his chest, it remains to be seen.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Helper: With his assist against D.C. United, Carles Gil joined Steve Ralston and Lee Nguyen as the only players in the New England Revolution&#39;s history to register 50 career assists.<\/p>\n<p>He is tied for fifth-fastest player to reach the milestone in MLS history (105 games). <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/cmA4cHNIF7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/cmA4cHNIF7<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; MLS Communications (@MLS_PR) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MLS_PR\/status\/1639801444638371845?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 26, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/2023\/03\/26\/noel-buck-scores-revs-dc\/\" target=\"_self\">Noel Buck<\/a>, despite his age, is someone who has stepped up in the absence of the Revolution captain. The teenager scored the winner in the last game and so has seen his stock rise even further. He is intent on staying grounded and has a positive outlook on his career so far, specifically saying that, \u201cgetting these starts and some minutes early in the season will be very helpful late in the season.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Coach Arena has been echoing these sentiments on Buck\u2019s success for the Eastern Conference leaders. \u201cHe&#8217;s been good, very reliable defensively. But he&#8217;s been good in possession. He&#8217;s helped us create some chances in the attack. He&#8217;s been pretty well-rounded in this game.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read More:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/2023\/03\/26\/noel-buck-scores-revs-dc\/\" target=\"_self\">Noel Buck Fires New England to the Eastern Conference Summit<\/a><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Can the Eastern Conference Leaders Impress Once Again?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>It is a very strong team on paper that stand in the way of the Revs this weekend, but times are tough for NYCFC. Following the loss of manager Ronny Deila and star striker Taty Castellanos to Europe, there have been teething issues in this next era.<\/p>\n<p>So far this season they have bounced back and forth, winning two, losing two and drawing one from their first five fixtures. Last time out,<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/2023\/03\/06\/bobby-wood-revs-houston-dynamo\/\" target=\"_self\"> an opponent that New England had previously conquered<\/a>, the Houston Dynamo, stood in the way. Moroccan Amine Bassi scored the only goal of the game for the Texas team, leaving NYCFC down in seventh in the East.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">NYCFC is my boogie man. They probably shouldn\u2019t be, but still <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/4VARZ3uIVn\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/4VARZ3uIVn<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; DJ Bean (@DJ_Bean) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DJ_Bean\/status\/1641840361524822024?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 31, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Even without <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/2022\/07\/24\/nycfc-possibly-castellanos-last-game\/\" target=\"_self\">Castellanos<\/a>, Nick Cushing has a plethora of attacking dynamos in his arsenal, as Arena recognizes. \u201cThey have a combination of good, talented attacking players with [Talles] Magno and [Santiago] Rodriguez and I believe [Gabriel] Pereira.\u201d The team have only scored four times to date with this trio each scoring once alongside Thiago Andrade.<\/p>\n<p>It is still early days, after all \u201cwe&#8217;re only five games in and we haven&#8217;t found ourselves yet, so they&#8217;re a team that in the end is going to be there.\u201d Either way, the Revolution, the Eastern Conference leaders, will fancy their chances to grasp another three points tomorrow night.<\/p>\n<p>Featured image credit: Amber Searls-USA TODAY Sports: March 25, 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The New England Revolution turned their clash with D.C. United on its head in the last outing. Coming out of the international break and the Eastern Conference leaders have another team on their side of the bracket next up. NYCFC have began 2023 slowly but they remain a very dangerous outfit. Eastern Conference Leaders Look [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3891,"featured_media":46424,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11,4],"tags":[115,2895,3716,3694,5038,5202,4530],"class_list":["post-46422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-revolution","category-nycfc","tag-bruce-arena","tag-carles-gil","tag-gillette-stadium","tag-gustavo-bou","tag-nick-cushing","tag-noel-buck","tag-thiago-andrade"],"modified_by":"Jamie Rooke","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3891"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}