April 15, 2007 New England Revolution beats Toronto FC 4-0 (from Associated Press and Canadian Press)
POSTED ON: 15/04/07
Toronto FC still winless and scoreless
Associated Press and Canadian Press
FOXBOROUGH, MASS. — U.S. international Taylor Twellman scored two first-half goals to lead the New England Revolution to a 4-0 victory in its home opener against Toronto FC on Saturday night.
Twellman, who has 13 career multiple-goal games, took a cross from Adam Cristman and beat Toronto goalie Greg Sutton in the 12th minute. Six minutes later, he headed home a cross from Steve Ralston.
"I thought our defence did a tremendous job of keeping everything in tact and not really giving much upaObviously (on) the second 1/8goal3/8, it's Rally (Ralston) and I doing what we do best, and Stevie (Ralston) played a dime. All I had to do was put it on goal a All 11 guys today were on the same page, and it showed," said Twellman.
Shalrie Joseph scored in his return to the lineup after missing the season opener with a right calf strain. The midfielder, who has requested a trade because of stalled negotiations on a contract extension, made it 3-0 on a penalty kick in the 61st minute.
Andy Dorman finished off the scoring for New England (1-1) before 18,184 at Gillette Stadium.
"It was a real team tonight. Every single person played their part and gave everything they had for the team. It was a real team performance," Revolution coach Steve Nicol said. "We couldn't have asked for a better start. Not only did we control the game, but we made chances and put them away."
Toronto coach Mo Johnston didn't feel the same way about his team's performance. "New England was by far the better team in the first 17-20 minutes. And then we couldn't string any passes along. Our defence was very poor other than Jimmy Brennan."
New England outshot Toronto 14-10 with 9 shots finding the goal compared to 6 for Toronto. Sutton made 5 saves, while his Revolution counterpart Matt Reis stopped all 6 for his first shutout of the season.
Andrew Boyens, Jim Brennan, Edson Buddle and Paulo Nagamura picked up yellow cards in the loss. Avery John received the only booking for the Revolution.
The game was Toronto's second in club history. Toronto lost 2-0 to Chivas USA last Saturday in Carson, Calif. New England lost 1-0 on the road to Chicago last Saturday.
"We've lost the last two games, and we've not scored. We have guys on this team that can score. We're just not gelled properly at the moment," said Johnston about Toronto FC's first two games. "Tonight (there) was no positives. Tonight's a night you go back and look at the game tape and point out all the mistakes you've made."
Toronto plays the third game of its season-opening three-game road trip on April 25 against the Wizards in Kansas City before debuting at home April 28 against the same Wizards.
Johnston made no secret of his club's main priority heading into these two matches.
"We're worried about ourselves right now. I think that's our biggest goal: to become more of a cohesive unit defensively and offensively. We're going to have a week-and-a-half off to prepare for Kansas City and hopefully we can get a good result on the road and then come home to an exciting crowd."
.
.