Lee Nguyen strikes late to salvage the Revs a point vs. Portland
Lee Nguyen scored in the 85th minute to pull the New England
Revolution into a 1-1 draw with the Portland Timbers on Sunday night.
Nguyen's goal, his third of the season, was the first ever for the Revolution at Providence Park.
Diego
Valeri scored his fifth goal of the year early in the opening half to
give Portland a lead that lasted until Nguyen scored on a rebound when
Timbers goalkeeper Jake Gleeson was down.
The Timbers had won
three of their first four matches of the season going into the game.
They lead the league with 13 goals overall.
Valeri scored on the
volley in the 12th minute, eluding leaping New England goalkeeper Cody
Cropper. After the goal, Valeri pumped his fist for the Timbers Army
supporters' section before kissing the crest on his jersey.
Valeri
was side-tackled in the 25th minute by Xavier Kouassi and was prone on
the field for several minutes but returned. Kouassi was handed a yellow
card in the final minute of the first half for a foul on David Guzman.
New England's Kelyn Rowe was issued a yellow card because of a foul on Marco Farfan early in the second half.
After
wins in its first three matches, Portland dropped a match at Columbus
last Saturday. It was one of just three matches last weekend because of
international play. The Timbers had two players on international duty:
Darlington Nagbe with the U.S. national team and Guzman with Costa Rica.
The
Revolution were coming off a 5-2 victory over the expansion Minnesota
United last weekend, the team's first win after opening the season with
two losses. Juan Agudelo scored a pair of goals in the victory and won
MLS Player of the Week honors.
The Revolution are opening the
season with five straight matches against Western Conference teams. New
England's game against the Orlando Pride on March 11 in Foxborough was
postponed because of weather until Sept. 2.
Portland was without
injured defenders Liam Ridgewell (foot) and Vytas Andriuskevicius
(calf). Both were missing their fourth straight game.
The Revolution lost rookie defender Josh Smith late in the game with what appeared to be a right leg injury.
Timbers
forward Fanendo Adi still needs one more goal to pass John Bain as the
franchise's all-time leading scorer. Bain scored 45 goals for the
Timbers from 1978-82, when the team was part of the North American
Soccer League.
POR
NWE
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