Late Sunday night, after the Crew put a bow on its 2014 regular season campaign with a thrilling win over Philadelphia, it was official: the Black & Gold were through to the Conference Semifinals by virtue of New York's win over Sporting Kansas City. Now that the match-up is official and the Crew is slated to play the Revolution in a home-and-home aggregate series, the club is excited to get going on Saturday.
"There's clarity, for certain we know who we're playing, we know when we're playing and that's important," said Sporting Director and Head Coach Gregg Berhalter. "We were hoping that we wouldn't have the short break, that we'd have the extra time to rest. We got it, and that's good. New York put a really good performance in."
"We were pretty excited," added Justin Meram. "It's going to be a tough match against [New England], playing them home and away, but between us and them, we have been kind of neck and neck, so it is going to be an interesting and exciting matchup."
The Crew took the overall season series between the two sides by a 2-1-0 record, but the Revs won the last meeting, on October 4 at Gillette Stadium. These two clubs are also perhaps the two hottest in MLS overall, with the Crew having gone 10-3-2 over its last 15 matches and the Revs going 9-1-1 over their past 11.
"I wasn't in elation, there wasn't a huge celebration," said defender Tyson Wahl on learning the Crew's opponent would be New England. "Obviously, it is great because of that result we don't have the play-in game, but I think the bigger focus now is our form and playing better than we did over the weekend. It's definitely good news, but we have got to start focusing on ourselves and prepare."
The past two meetings between the Crew and the Revs have featured some chippy moments, tension that has the possibility to spill into this series given the heightened stakes. That only adds to the intrigue of the Eastern Conference Semifinals, kicking-off Saturday at 4:00 p.m. here in Columbus.
"We've had a fun series in the regular season, we've created what feels to me like a mini rivalry," said Wahl. "We've had some great games, some competitive games. It's a team that we respect and we know they are good, but we are also confident that we can beat them and we aren't scared to play against them."
"I just think it is two really good teams that battle on the field," added Meram. "They're going to say their strengths and we're going to say our strengths, but at the end of the day, it's the 90 minutes we play on the field."
Kevin Noonan contributed to this story.
