Ilsinho strikes early, sets tone in taking down Columbus
CHESTER » Somewhere between the wrong colored card being shown and CJ Sapong jogging to the bench to lodge a formal complaint in the 35th minute, the Union’s affair with the Columbus Crew Wednesday night threatened to descend into farce.
Sapong, though, with a bit of personal history that he doesn’t often acknowledge, wouldn’t allow his evening to plummet into the depths.
After a pair of post strikes, Sapong finally hammered home a richly deserved goal, his careerhigh 10th of the season, to compound a superb Ilsinho strike and Marcus Epps’ first MLS goal in a 3-0 over the nine-man Crew.
Sapong set a raft of records with his goal and two assists. The marker, off a ball from Giliano Wijnaldum and originally volleyed off the post before Sapong tidied up the rebound, is his 10th, surpassing the nine MLS goals he scored in 2015 with the Union and 2012 with Sporting Kansas City. The striker’s assists give him a career-high tying five, even with his rookie campaign in 2011.
“It’s interesting because I think in the moment it meant more for me than I would’ve thought,” Sapong said. “It’s always good to break any barriers. But again, that’s still just a stat. I want to continue to keep helping my team. This next half of the season, I need to keep performing and producing to help my team.”
The win is pivotal for the Union (7-9-5, 28 points), who move back to five points behind the Crew (1011-1, 31 points) for the sixth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, in winning the back half of a home-and-home. The Union sit eighth ahead of a visit to 10th place New England Saturday.
Sapong’s richly deserved goal banished the moment of controversy, when he was denied a chance to attempt a penalty he earned, the result of an acrimonious summit with Roland Alberg, who’s spot kick was ultimately saved.
The atmosphere deteriorated in the 35th when Columbus center back Jonathan Mensah was shown a straight red card for clattering over Sapong in the box in a denial of a goalscoring opportunity. (Adding to the fracas was referee Ismail Elfath inadvertently brandishing a red instead of an intended yellow to defender Lalas Abubakar, who would get his marching orders in the 76th for violent contact on Ilsinho.)
Alberg quickly retrieved the ball, despite the tenets of soccer etiquette and common sense saying that Sapong — who drew the PK, is 3-for-3 on spot kicks this year, has seniority on Alberg and was one goal from said career-high — should’ve taken the kick. Sapong drew a penalty kick in Sporting KC July 6 and relented for Alberg to take it in front of Sapong’s former fans, the forward deferring to the Dutchman’s need for a goal to jolt him from a fitness-lacking slump.
After several moments of heated discussion between Sapong and Alberg and the mediation of captain Alejandro Bedoya, Sapong made a frenzied dash to the bench to chat with manager Jim Curtin while fellow veteran Haris Medunjanin threw a calming arm over his shoulder.
“Of course he wants to take it,” Alberg said. “Bedoya came and said Roland you gotta take it because you never miss … until today. Every player wants to take the PK. CJ is specialist and I’m also a specialist, until today I never missed. It was a good opportunity for me to score.”
“I saw them arguing over the penalty kick, they are two goal scorers, as the captain I thought I had to go over there and just tell them to give it to who wanted it more,” Bedoya said. “Roland had the ball. In the past, we have decided if Roland is on the field, he would be our penalty taker so that’s what I said and I let Roland take it. Obviously he missed it unfortunately. I tried to diffuse that situation before so we don’t need to focus on it, but the next one is CJ’s.”
Alberg stepped to the spot and saw his effort pawed by Downingtown native Zack Steffen off the bar, his first miss in seven PK attempts.
Any lingering intrigue, Curtin said, was quashed at halftime. And the clearing of the air facilitated an aggressive second-half performance that put the game quickly out of reach.
“Obviously we’re both guys that, it comes down to the root form that we’re both guys that want to help the team,” Sapong said. “I was confident. I felt like I wanted to take it. He was confident he felt he wanted to take it. Ale came in and was like, hey he’s got the ball; he feels confident and let him take it. Thankfully we ended up getting the three points anyway.”
“Guys are angry. Everybody wants to score goals,” Curtin said. “At the end of the day, that’s the name of the game. It’s not the first time in soccer that a situation like that has happened. Ale’s designated as the captain to select who shoots in that time frame. And at the same time, they’re going to be upset because they all want to help the team. It’s all for the same cause, for the Union getting three points. If we score, it’s a non-issue and no one’s really talking about it now.”
The kerfuffle overshadowed a delightful goal by Ilsinho in the 20th minute. Sapong mishit an overhead kick that drifted near the penalty area where the Brazilian lashed it with his left on the half volley for his third goal, in front of a large family contingent.
Epps strafed eight shots at net, finally getting his goal on an Ilsinho cross knocked down by Sapong for the rookie’s first MLS tally. The assist is Ilsinho’s first of the year.
The woodwork intervened on the Union’s behalf, John McCarthy nudging an Ola Kamara drive in the 62nd off the crossbar, McCarthy logging the team’s eighth clean sheet of the year.
That provided a harmonious end to a game, which owed heavily to Sapong’s resilience.
“Every time we step on the field, we’re trying to make an impact and try to help the team,” Sapong said. “Today, I can go home and know that I did that and just try to get better for the next game.”