SEATTLE – Like the rest of his teammates, New England Revolution forward Juan Agudelo found himself bitterly disappointed with the Revs’ 3-3 draw against the Seattle Sounders at CenturyLink Field on Saturday – a wild contest that saw the Sounders equalize with three goals in the final 15 minutes.
But even with the disappointing ending, the Revs can take encouragement from another productive outing from their 24-year-old attacker, who bagged two of their three goals and has looked increasingly dynamic dating back to last season.
Agudelo has 12 goals and three assists across all competitions since last September and has already netted six times in 2017, an impressive run of form that bodes well for New England.
“Excellent. I thought Juan was awesome [tonight],” Revs head coach Jay Heaps said after the game. “I thought he did everything we needed. He was hard when he needed to be. He came back and closed the ball down, held the ball up, scored two very good goals and I thought, for us, he was one of our best players.”
For his part, Agudelo said his focus is on parlaying his recent success into a season’s-worth of production – and hopefully helping his team secure a postseason berth.
“I don’t want to talk too much about myself right now but, on a personal level, I feel very good,” he said. “I feel like I’m able to help my teammates, whether it’s holding the ball and keeping possession or scoring goals.
“Hopefully I can keep this run going and because the most important thing is to make the playoffs.”
Agudelo’s heroics on Saturday were somewhat overshadowed by the final result, which saw the Revs cough up a three-goal advantage after conceding goals to Seattle’s Nicolas Lodeiro, Will Bruin and Ozzie Alonso.
While Heaps said he was pleased with the opening 75 minutes that saw the Revs jump out to the 3-0 lead, he said the late collapse was equally frustrating.
“We’re gutted in [the locker room] in the sense that we had it in our hands. It’s one of those ones where we let two points slip away,” Heaps said. “That said, I think it’s tough to come in here and get three goals. So, focus on the positive but we have to correct the negative. We have to go back and really spend a lot of time reviewing it.
“It’s not going to be one of those ones where we can just forget,” he added. “There were so many little things that we noticed during the time, where if we could have called a 20-second timeout, I think we could have corrected it and made the plays. I just wish we would have been able to do it in the course of the match.”
