Columbus.- Suddenly the goals are coming, the ball is flowing faster and the mind is clear and focus in the last fifteen minutes of the match. Where were all these elements before? Nobody knows, or perhaps they do (the players) but they just didn’t realize how important is to play with a sense of urgency. Every single game is a final, there’s no room for errors of any kind. The thin red line is getting a hair closer with every win and Crew SC had two back to back including a shutout tonight against New England, a direct rival, they must keep this momentum for five more games if they want to keep the dream alive.
“Is do or die right now. We are going to keep fighting. We are mathematically either out of it or mathematically in it. We are going to keep fighting and we’re not going to hold back, and we’re going to keep going” Columbus Crew SC Head Coach Gregg Berhalter said at the post-game press conference.
Not a single word was said about Kei Kamara coming back to Mapfre stadium at the post-game press conference. But there’s no question that the mindset was to not let him score. Columbus was very effective in neutralizing their former striker, they kept him away from the box and forced him to play wide where he doesn’t generate much offensive impact. He made a very quiet come back to Columbus.
Arguably the biggest change that this Columbus team is implementing recently is the pace. While they still making over four hundred passes in ninety minutes, the ball is shifting at a higher tempo. Tonight the routes Jiménez-Meram-Finlay or Jiménez-Saeid-Kamara got this team to the Revs box in three or four touches instead of fifteen. Once they reach the final third it was either a shot or a cross, and if it wasn’t for the gigantic night of Brad Knighton (six saves in the first half alone), we would be talking about a 4-0 or 5-0 night.
“We want to play quick, there’s no question about it. But to it’s more about changing the tempo, and it’s about at the right moment, really switching into high gear and trying to hurt the opponent. I think if we play quick the whole time the game loses the structure, I don’t think you can maintain that effort for ninety minutes” Berhalter explained. He is right, but it’s also true that they weren’t doing that before.
On a night game, New England wasn’t lit. Except for some sporadic, and magnificent, plays from Lee Nguyen, the Revs were not connected, their circuit was broken and they just couldn’t generate a solid offensive flow to hurt Columbus.
For a second consecutive game, Ola Kamara scored a brace. The Crew SC striker has now 14 goals this season and it doesn’t seem that he will slow down. And if he is one of the reasons this team still has a chance (small still) to reach the playoffs the performance of Mohammed Saeid is something to rely on down the stretch. The midfielder not only was the vehicle of the faster transitions he also showed as an offensive weapon with his mid-range shots, with Higuaín in perpetual recovery from hernia repair surgery, Saeid is the option in the middle.
One game at a time sounds tedious and repetitive, but this patient has been on Intensive care for awhile, and these two last positive signs of recovery don’t mean that he is out of danger. Keep the IV on and wait to see what happens on Wednesday night when they visit DC United.
