A milestone home opener for Revs II

Revolution II were victorious in their 2022 MLS Next Pro home opener on what was a special day for many involved.

Besides picking up the victory, Revs II hosted fans for the first time and two players scored their first professional goals.

Brazilian midfielder Michel was the first Revs II player to find the back of the net in front of fans.

“It was amazing because this is what I’ve been working for my whole life,” he said about scoring the goal. “And I’m glad, because I work so hard and I put myself in a position where I could make it happen.”

Michel also was able to complete 90.6 percent of his passes, was fouled three times, and played all 90 minutes in the 3-1 victory over Rochester New York FC.

“Michel worked very hard and has been eager to score, so I’m happy he finally got the monkey off his back,” head coach Clint Peay said after the victory.

The Brazilian wasn’t the only player who showed his skill. Sean O’Hearn scored on a beautiful free kick just before halftime.

“And then for Sean [O’Hearn], great free kick,” Peay added. “He’s always talked about how he should be the guy taking it and he proved himself correct.”

O’Hearn also added an assist to his tally on Sunday and is likely to get some more free kick opportunities after a beautiful goal.

“Well, I’m the one who thinks I should take it, but I’ve let Esmir [Barjraktarevic] and other people like Tico [Damian Rivera] take it in the past because they feel confident and I stepped up and I took it,” O’Hearn said. “It was a tall wall, like probably everyone in the wall is like 6-5 or 6-4. I just got it up over the wall and I was really excited to get my first goal on a free kick like that.”

Similar to the first team, Revs II heads into a bye week banged up. O’Hearn hopes that his teammates can get healthy during the break. Goalkeeper Yannik Oettl, Marzuq Puckerin, and defender Michael DeShields were all ruled out of Sunday’s match due to injury.

“Yeah, a lot of the guys have little knocks and injuries, so really the most important thing is getting healthy and just being ready to take it to the team we play next,” said O’Hearn.