Delamea on matchup with Crew SC: “We need to show more bravery”

Last week’s 3-3 draw with the Seattle Sounders still irks Antonio Delamea.

“The most important [thing] in football is you need to play 90 minutes, not 75,” he said on Wednesday, days after returning from Seattle. “This was a big lesson for us, I hope. This will never happen again."

Up 3-0 in the 75th minute, the Revolution looked destined to pick up a convincing win over one of the league’s premier clubs. And then the Sounders scored three unanswered goals to force a 3-3 draw.

Following the match, Juan Agudelo, Jay Heaps and several other members of the Revolution identified fatigue as the root cause of the meltdown. Delamea echoed that thought this week.

“In the last 15 minutes, it looks like we were out of energy. If you look on the possession, it was almost 80-20 for them, so I think that was the biggest problem,” Delamea said.

Tired legs or not, the Slovenian center back has committed to learning from the second-half collapse—and fighting for a rebound performance against Columbus Crew SC.

“Now, we have a new road game in Columbus. We know their strengths, so we have a whole week to prepare and we need to take every training [seriously],” Delamea said. “We need to focus on improving every day and to fix these things we didn't do [at Seattle]."

This list of mistakes isn’t exactly short, according to Delamea; the Revolution have plenty of work to do between now and kickoff.

“We need to show more focus, more composure on holding the ball so we can rest,” he continued. “We know what went wrong. We need to improve on many things."

When asked about facing Columbus forward Ola Kamara, who has scored five goals in just nine appearances this season, Delamea pointed toward another list of virtues he hopes his team will display.

"We need to show more bravery. We need to be more sharp, the whole team. We need to play more,” he said.

Speaking like a 10-year MLS veteran, Delamea sounds poised to help his club right the ship.

“For now, today, we are just focusing on our mistakes from the last games and the things we need to improve in the future."

The Revs kick off in Columbus at 7:30 p.m. ET on Saturday.