Djordje Petrovic salvages a point in Vancouver

The New England Revolution left Canada with a point and there is one player who deserves credit for the club getting that point, Djorde Petrovic.

It was the Serbian goalkeeper’s first start after the departure of Matt Turner and it was a doozy. Petrovic made numerous impressive saves and was a brick wall in net for New England.

The 22-year-old made six saves and collected the first clean sheet of his MLS career. Petrovic is now 2-0-2 this season. Head coach and sporting director Bruce Arena even thought that the goalkeeper was the man of the match.

“He played very well,” Arena said. “He might have been the player of the match. He made a couple of big saves in the second half. He’s doing very well. He’s going to be a very good goalkeeper.”

While Petrovic might have been the man of the match for Arena, the head coach thought that the back line as a whole had a quality performance.

“They did a good, solid job,” Arena said. “I thought [Jon] Bell and [Andrew] Farrell were real good. Obviously, our goalkeeper [Djordje Pertović] played well. They had a good game and we had to make a couple of saves.”

The head coach then went on to talk about the Revolution’s struggles in the attack.

At the other end of the field, we had a real good chance with Carles [Gil] in the first half, but he didn’t get it off his feet quick enough,” Arena added. “Second half, we had some really good chances. Dylan [Borrero] had one that was saved, and we didn’t hit the target. We had some decent opportunities where we just didn’t hit the target and you’re not going to score goals if you don’t hit the target. And obviously, Dylan hit the crossbar as well.”

One of the better defenders on the night was center back Jon Bell. The Revs II product got his third consecutive start in 2022. Bell completed 88 of his 96 passes and registered team highs in clearances (7), duels won (6), and aerials won (5).

Bell was pleased with his performance when speaking to Brad Feldman and Charlie Davies after the match.

“From my standpoint, I think I did a lot better with my passing, playing into channels, and getting the ball off my feet a lot quicker and winning a lot of my duels,” Bell stated. “But obviously, I can still improve a lot. I’m still trying to get comfortable and I’m still trying to get that confidence back with playing the ball coming back from a long injury. But overall, I’d say I did pretty well today.”

Even with Matt Polster, Brandon Bye, and Henry Kessler missing the match, the back line looked solid. While at one point they were the focus of fans’ criticism, that now seems to be focused on the attack.

But Petrovic clearly showed why Arena is so confident in the goalkeeper and why he has been pegged as the replacement for Turner. When you have such a talented player between the sticks, points will always be for the taking.