By DJ Harding
On Saturday Night February 18th the New England Revolution would face Orlando City SC in their final preseason matchup at Exploria Stadium
Homegrown Players Jack Panayotou and Damian Rivera both started the match for New England, each registering 45-minute outings.
Fellow Homegrown Players Justin Rennicks and Noel Buck also appeared in the contest with 45-minute performances off the bench.
Forward Bobby Wood made his first start of preseason playing 45 minutes which was his second appearance, his first was on Tuesday when he played 30 minutes
Giacomo Vrioni who subbed in for Wood at Halftime would open up New England’s scoring. Vrioni would convert on a header in the 70th minute, his header would be on the receiving end of an assist by Emmanuel Boateng.
Defenders Henry Kessler, Dave Romney, and Brandon Bye, goalkeeper Djordje Petrović, and midfielder Carles Gil would be the only players that logged a full 90 minutes in the match.
Petrović had some impressive saves on the day which included a double stop in minute 64 which helped the Revolution on the way to a win.
The Revolution took a 2-1 lead in the 82nd minute via an Orlando own goal as Brandon Bye found Vrioni’s run in the box to create the winning goal.
New England Midfielder Matt Polster after the win commented on his performance saying “It’s always important to get a win and build off that, but I thought tonight we were quite sloppy for a majority of the game, so hopefully that doesn’t bleed into the Charlotte game. But I thought in terms of effort and the team banding together to get a good result is important going into the season.”
Fellow Midfielder Noel Buck would also give his thoughts on the win saying “ I think we had a lot of running in that game. That’s very good for a preseason game. We’re here to get fit, and it’s obviously great to end out with a win.”
New England returns home to Foxborough this week to prepare for the 2023 MLS regular season opener on Saturday, Feb. 25 at Charlotte FC.
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