FC Cincinnati win second straight with shoutout over New England Revolution

FC Cincinnati continued to make an early-season statement in Major League Soccer with a 2-0 win on the road against the New England Revolution on Sunday in Foxborough, Massachusetts.

Cincinnati (2-1-1, 7 points) -- an expansion team this year -- won its second straight match, while New England (0-3-1, 1 point) continues to struggle in the early going.

Both sides were missing players who were called in for national team duty over the weekend as New England was without rookie forward Justin Rennicks, while Cincinnati did not have Kendall Waston, Allan Cruz, Darren Mattocks and Alvas Powell.

After a sluggish first half that saw Cincinnati take a 1-0 lead into the break, New England turned up the heat in the second half, including two great chances in the 61st minute.

Carles Gil and Diego Fagundez both had shots from within the penalty area, but Cincinnati goalkeeper Spencer Richey was equal to take the task each time, knocking the ball away.

The inability to get one into the back of the net was magnified a short time later when Cincinnati doubled its lead and iced the game.

Cincinnati ultimately put the game away in the 65th minute when the two players that combined for the game's first goal went to work again.

After New England struggled to clear a ball out the box, Kekuta Manneh was able to get a foot on it for Cincinnati and drill a pass to a wide-open Kenny Saief, camped four yards out from the goal. Saief made the most of the chance, putting it way on a first-time touch for the 2-0 lead.

Cincinnati opened the scoring in the game with a goal in the 44th minute of the first half.

Manneh hit a pass down the left side to a breaking Saief, who never broke stride, got to the ball and hit a cross back to the middle where Manneh ran onto it and put it away for the game's first goal.