Can’t rain on this parade; fervent fans tuned in
The satellite dish failed at 7:50 p.m. Sunday night. A hundred people, maybe more, screamed at once. It was the primal yaw of tortured souls.
Endeavor Brewing Company was packed with Crew fans. The MLS Eastern Conference semifinal against New York City FC was being beamed live from Yankee Stadium. The game was in the 72nd minute. In Grandview, it was raining, hard, and the Endeavor dish did what dishes do in the rain. It died, then there was the scream, and then a woman yelled:
“WHAT DO THE SOCCER GODS HAVE AGAINST COLUMBUS?”
The soccer gods are not the problem in Columbus. The soccer Satans might be, but, in any case, these are
The Crew entered Sunday with comfort and two goals to spare. It begins a 16-day layoff physically and emotionally spent after four games in 14 days capped off by a second half Sunday in which it spent much of its time surviving.
“The guys are tired, they’re fatigued, but one thing I can say is they left everything out on the field,” Berhalter said.
Crew SC will host Toronto FC at Mapfre Stadium on Nov. 21 and travel to Toronto for the second leg Nov. 29.
Nightmare started to morph into reality in the 53rd minute Sunday. A high-velocity shot into the center of the box from Andraz Struna found the head of Jonathan Mensah, who in an attempt to clear the ball bounced it past a diving Zack Steffen to cut the aggregate deficit to one. Struna was credited with a goal.
“It’s just how we drew it up,” center back Josh Williams said jokingly. “When that one went in, it was just about rallying the guys. We got an unlucky bounce off (Mensah), but at the end of the day I have all the confidence in the world (in the defense).”
Steffen made a fullextension save to send away a New York header in the 61st minute. Rodney Wallace produced a shot from the left side of the box in the 70th, hitting the near post in the process.
Rookie center back Lalas Abubakar subbed in in the 76th and helped stabilize the Crew’s defense, which firmed up enough down the stretch as New York ran out of time.
A shaky start to the second half followed a first half in which NYCFC made it clear it was up for a fight.
New York capitalized in the 15th minute, as Wallace drew a foul from Williams in the box and forward David Villa buried a penalty kick a minute later to make the leg score 1-0.
“The penalty deflated things a little bit, but we have to be better,” midfielder Wil Trapp said. “Toronto’s a good team and they’re going to capitalize on some of these chances. We have to be smarter, we have to be cleaner in the back and then just be calmer.”
A 12-game unbeaten streak three months in the making came to end Sunday. The reward beyond that is much sweeter.
“At some point it was going to end,” midfielder Justin Meram said. “We’re moving on and that’s the bigger picture.”
Columbus 10; New York City 16. Columbus 1; New York City 6. Columbus, Steffen 4; New York City, Johnson 1. Columbus 7, New York City 13.
Columbus 4, New York City 6.
Columbus 1, New York City 1. Abu, Columbus, 63rd; Wallace, New York City, 74th. 23.246.
Zack Steffen; Harrison Afful, Jonathan Mensah, Josh Williams; Mohammed Abu, Federico Higuain, Hector Jimenez, Wil Trapp; Ola Kamara (Lalas Abubakar, 76th), Justin Meram (Kekuta Manneh, 69th), Pedro Santos (Adam Jahn, 88th). Sean Johnson; Frederic Brillant, Ronald Matarrita (Andrea Pirlo, 90th), Andraz Struna (Sean Okoli, 82nd), Ben Sweat; Jack Harrison, Yangel Herrera, Maxi Moralez, Alexander Ring, Rodney Wallace (Jonathan Lewis, 92nd); David Villa.