Revs Seek Home Cooking

Look to Feed Off Large Crowd Friday

June 6, 2008

By Sean Donahue

Despite sitting at the top of the league, the New England Revolution have been mediocre at home this season. With potentially their largest crowd of the year at Gillette Stadium on Friday thanks to a doubleheader with the Brazilian National Team against Venezuela, the Revs will try to feed off the surge to change their fortunes against a struggling FC Dallas team.

Steve Ralston and the Revs will try to feed off the large crowd Friday. (Photo credit: Joyce Furia).

Dallas on the other hand, will surely have plenty of motivation coming into the match after losing, 1-0, at home earlier in the season to a depleted Revs squad. This just a year after losing 3-2 at home in the US Open Cup Final last season.

The over 50,000 spectators expected won't see Revolution star striker Taylor Twellman, who is still out with an ankle sprain, or Kenny Mansally, who is away with the Gambian National Team. Adam Cristman, who came off the bench last week and helped spark a comeback with his second half goal, is questionable with a toe sprain but expected to play. He watched the Brazilians practice at Gillette the other day.

If Christman's ready to go, it seems likely he'll be paired up with Kheli Dube up top. If not, Revs’ coach Steve Nicol will have some tough choices. Sainey Nyassi started up top last weekend, but didn't look very comfortable in that position and with so many absences the team is short on options at forward.

The Revs are 6-3-2 overall this season, but only 2-2-1 at home and have only won once at Gillette Stadium since March. The team is, however, currently on a four-game unbeaten streak and up against an FC Dallas side that sits in fifth in the Western Conference with just one win on the road.

The Revs are also a perfect 4-0-0 against Dallas in the past two years. But that may not be indicative of what happens on Friday night as the teams have yet to play since Dallas fired coach Steve Morrow and Marco Ferruzzi took over on an interim basis. Ferruzzi is 1-1-1 since taking over.