Crew wants wins, not ties

As much as the Crew has been looking for a breakthrough, it is sick of moving the goalposts on what it might consider a breakthrough.

A tying goal in the 90th minute Wednesday from Romario Williams took a desperately needed point from the host Chicago Fire and certainly felt as close to a pivotal moment as possible since the Crew began its stretch of one win in 16 games.

Players and coach Caleb Porter believe they should capitalize on the momentum that comes with a late goal, but they also know a stolen point here and there isn’t going to make much of a difference. A winning streak is the only way the Crew can justify calling Wednesday’s dramatic conclusion a turning point.

“Ties are good when you come from behind, but they only really matter if we start gaining points with wins,” midfielder Wil Trapp said.

Although the team has insisted its confidence remains high, Porter has preached perspective.

It has mostly been in the context of losing several players to injuries and international callups, leading to the Crew using 14 different lineups in as many games. Still pointing out that the Crew was missing its top three center backs, Porter said the only reason the Fire game felt like a win is because of the bad run that preceded it.

But following it with a win Saturday at Mapfre Stadium against the Montreal Impact, which currently holds a playoff position in the Eastern Conference, would start to tilt the scale.

“Obviously, this is not a win — it’s a draw — but we can build on it, and we did show improvement today from last week, so I’m really, really pleased with that,” Porter said. “We need to pick ourselves back up, go again, and we owe our fans a win. We’ve given them far too many losses, and if we get a win on Saturday, now we start to put together a little bit of a run and we get some momentum.”

Getting momentum going will take every wheel to be turning in the same direction, which Trapp said wasn’t the case through 90 minutes against Chicago. Defender Hector Jimenez said the second goal the Crew allowed should have been avoided.

Offensively, Gyasi Zardes has to finish the chances he gets, like he did Wednesday in tying the score 1-1 early in the second half.

“We’re trying to get wins,” Zardes said. “We’ll take the tie, but we know the season is winding down.”

Crew trades assets

The Crew announced it traded $150,000 in targeted allocation money for this season to the San Jose Earthquakes for $110,000 in general allocation money for 2020.