By Tiffany Williams –
Saturday afternoon at Gillette, New England Revolution hosted Atlanta United FC to win their final home match of the regular season 2-1. Bruce
Arena made three changes to his Starting XI from the club’s most recent match on Sept. 17 against CF Montreal, with defender Ryan Spaulding, midfielder Nacho Gil, and forward Giacomo Vrioni all starting in place of Jon Bell, Christian Makoun, and Justin Rennicks.
In the thirty second minute Giacomo Vrioni, who made his first MLS start Saturday, converted a penalty with a left footed shot to the center of the goal to put New England on top 0-1. In the 81st minute Atlanta United made this a 1-1 match with a right footed shot by Josef Martinez from the center of the box to the bottom left corner. New England made this a 1-2 match in the 85th minute with a right footed shot from the center of the box to the top right corner by Gustavo Bou.
With the win, Bruce Arena is now the first MLS coach in MLS history to record 250 regular season wins. His record with New England improves to 48-26-34 in regular season play. The Revolution closed the home slate with a 7-4-6 record at Gillette Stadium.
Top 5 highlights from Saturday’s match are:
- Gustavo Bou netted his eighth goal of the season to move into the team lead with one game to play. The Revolution are now 6-0-2 when Bou scores in the 85th minute or later.
- Nacho Gil made his first MLS start and his first appearance in front of the home fans at Gillette Stadium alongside older brother Carles Gil, marking the first time in club history siblings have started a match together. Nacho finished the day with two chances created.
- Carles Gil registered his 100th MLS appearance in today’s match, all with New England. His five chances created on Saturday raise his league-leading total to 111 on the season, the sixth-highest mark for a single season in MLS since Opta began tracking the stat in 2011.
- Andrew Farrell collected his 300th MLS start this afternoon, all with New England, becoming the first player in Revolution history to reach the milestone. The veteran center back was voted New England’s 2022 Defender of the Year for the fifth time, a team record.
- Christian Makoun returned from international duty with Venezuela and played 45 minutes in the second half, winning all three of his tackles along with three clearances and two shots.
Following Saturday’s match Revolution Sporting Director & Head Coach Bruce Arena was asked about Gustavo Bou’s performance, and Arena said “Well, you know, he [Gustavo Bou] is not a lone striker, like he has had to play for a large part of the season. So, we put him in a position he is a little bit more comfortable in. However, it requires that he plays on both sides of the ball, which is not completely in his DNA. So, he made a real good effort today to do that and it was a solid performance. Certainly, he capped it off with a very good goal. He had a chance, I think, maybe 10 or 15 minutes earlier, on a similar play with Carles [Gil]. It was great to see him get that goal and I think it’s going to do a lot of good for his confidence as well as Giacomo’s.”
New England will close the 2022 regular season next Sunday, October 9 at Chicago Fire FC. The MLS Decision Day clash at SeatGeek Stadium kicks off at 2:30 p.m.
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