Jones Talks Physicality of Eastern Conference Final

Despite sporting a black eye, Jermaine Jones maintained his sense of humor after Saturday’s match between the New England Revolution and New York Red Bulls.

"That was [Thierry] Henry, I hate him for that," Jones joked. "Nah, he tried to cross the ball, he catch me face. He catch it perfect. Blue eye, but it looks good, no?"

The Revs tied the Red Bulls 2-2 at Gillette Stadium, which allowed the home team to advance to the MLS Cup. It will be the Revolution’s fifth try at capturing the league title, an accomplishment that has been elusive so far.

It certainly wasn’t an easy road for the Revolution as the Eastern Conference Final was hotly contested with plenty of hard challenges. In the first leg, 29 fouls were called, resulting in 10 yellow cards, The return match only featured three yellow cards despite 26 whistled fouls.

The most controversial foul occurred in the 60^th minute when Dax McCarty committed a "scissor tackle" on Jones. The harsh foul resulted in a yellow card. Ironically, Jones committed a similar challenge last week that led to a Twitter complaint from McCarty after the match.

Jones jested that he might post a grievance on Twitter before revealing that he understands the physical nature of the MLS playoffs.

"This is playoffs," Jones noted. "Everybody wants to go. It was a final, we win it and I’m cool with that. It’s normal. We tackle hard. We play hard. He try to get the ball and he missed the ball. He catch me. I’m not the guy to cry about something."

Head coach Jay Heaps agreed with his Designated Player in regards to the game's physicality.

"I didn’t think there was anything malicious out there," Heaps explained. "The last game was physical, coming into this one was going to be physical and I think both teams really went after it."