New England Revolution vs. Vancouver Whitecaps: Live Game Thread

Tonight, the New England Revolution take on the Vancouver Whitecaps at Empire Field in Vancouver, British Columbia. It will be the Revs' first trip to the west coast of Canada and the second of three matches over a seven-day span.

I was expecting Steve Nicol to shuffle the lineup a little bit in light of the quick turnaround between last Saturday's match and this weekend's tilt against Real Salt Lake, but as you'll see in the lineups I was mistaken. Perhaps, however, we'll see some different substitutions.

Some quick game notes:

• Wednesday’s match will be the first-ever meeting between the New England Revolution and Vancouver Whitecaps FC.
• This will be the first of two regular-season meetings between New England and Vancouver this season ... the Revs will host Vancouver in the return match on Saturday, May 14, at Gillette Stadium
• The Revs are 9-8-5 all-time against expansion teams in their inaugural seasons ... that record includes two draws with the Houston Dynamo, which was considered an expansion team after relocating from San Jose in 2006.
• Since 2005, New England is 8-3-5 against expansion teams in their inaugural seasons ... the Revs went 1-5-0 against the Chicago Fire and Miami Fusion in 1998, just two years after MLS’ inaugural season.
• Since 2005, the Revs are undefeated – 5-0-3 – in their first meeting against expansion or relocated teams, including last weekend’s 1-1 draw against Portland at home.

As previously noted, Matt Reis, Franco Coria, Marko Perovic and Ousmane Dabo did not travel with the team and therefore are not in line to make appearances. Bobby Shuttleworth will get the start between the sticks. I'm actually not sure if Andrew Sousa traveled; he's been listed with the same status as Dabo and Coria for the last few weeks, but he is not included in the injury report at the moment.

The key to today's game is going to be getting out to an early lead and holding it against Vancouver's bruising attack. Eric Hassli (on the bench to start) is more of a handful than anyone New England's back line has had to deal with yet this season and Atiba Harris is a seasoned MLS forward, but the creativity and potency of players like Chiumiento, Wagner, Wingert, Khalfan and Camilo cannot be ignored. It also will be interesting to see if Shalrie Joseph can be his usual imperious self with Terry Dunfield shadowing his every move.

I'll have lineups when released after the jump.

Lineups

Revolution: Shuttleworth; Alston, Cochrane, Soares, Domi; McCarthy, Joseph, Phelan; Boggs, Schilawski, Nyassi

Bench: Murray, Barnes, Kinne, Dube, Tierney, Mansally, Stolica

Whitecaps: Nolly; Leathers, Boxall, Rochat, Wagner; Knight, Dunfield, Koffie, Khalfan; Camilo, Harris

Bench: Cannon, Duckett, Thorrington, Chiumiento, Salinas, Hassli, Harmse