Busy stretch teaches Revs a thing or two

New England Revolution defenseman AJ Soares is a guest contributor to Corner Kicks.

By AJ Soares, Boston.com Contributor

Hello all. As everybody knows, we played three games in the last eight days. This was the first pocket in the season for us, where games seemed to be coming one after the other without much time in between. It was a great learning experience for us rookies, and definitely a good thing for the team overall because we will have this same situation a few more times later in the year.

People always ask me what the biggest transition to Major League Soccer has been. After these last eight days, I realize that the travel and quick turnaround time in between games are definitely something that is different than college soccer. At Cal, I would have a game on Friday and Sunday, which is a quick turnaround, but there was only one or two plane trips more than two hours each season, and never in between games that were only a few days apart.

The author defended Atiba Harris of the Vancouver Whitecaps during their game April 6. Vancouver and New England tied 1-1. (Jeff Vinnick/Getty Images)

The Revs earned two points in the last three games during this stretch, and it is very important that we gathered some points during a tough run. This is going to be vital for us in the later parts of the season when we have to play games in a short amount of time again.

We now know what it takes for this team to get points during the tough stretches. Of course the guys who have been in the league have experienced these periods of games before, but each new team has a new dynamic and it is important for the new team to have its own experiences together.

Something that we have learned as a team is that we battle no matter what the circumstances. There has not been one minute of play this year that all the players have not given 100 percent effort. Regardless of how tough the stretch of games, the Revolution fight for the entire time, and teams will know that they are in for a hard fight when they play us.