In the early portion of the season, one win can have a big impact on the standings. Especially so with how tight the Eastern Conference is to start 2019.
As such, after the New England Revolution's 1-0 win over the New York Red Bulls on Saturday, the Revs jumped above the Red Bulls and Atlanta United into 10th place in the conference. It may be early, but they're looking at the standings.
"It's awesome to see our logo move up the table," attacker Juan Agudelo said after training on Monday. "We check it every time the weekend is over. For us to move up just shows how hard the boys have been working."
Cristian Penilla got the game's lone goal, his first of the season. The club created a host of chances, an encouraging sign after scoring just six goals in their first eight matches.
"We had a lot of chances again, we had enough chances to score three of four goals on the day," head coach Brad Friedel said. "We've just got to keep working, trying to give the players lots of confidence in training. I'm sure the balls will find the back of the net soon because we're getting into a lot of really good positions."
The Revs are set to embark on a busy stretch of games, with three-midweek matches carpet-bombed over the next portion of the schedule, including a friendly against Chelsea.
"It was an important game for us to win," Agudelo said. "Going into these fast stretch of games, we needed that. It's awesome that we have another home game coming up and we're just really excited to do the same thing that we did Saturday, which was get three points and move up the table."
Now, New England are focused on more of the same as they welcome the Montreal Impact to town on Wednesday (7:30 pm ET | TVAS — Full TV & streaming info).
"They've been a very resilient group," Friedel said of the Impact. "They've tried to get themselves into positions to counter, we're going to have to be at the top of our game in moving the ball very quickly."
