Behind The Box Score

With a 3-2 win last saturday against Toronto FC, the Crew overtook Chicago for first place in the MLS Eastern Conference. Tonight, Columbus (7-3-9) is looking to continue the winning streak, which is at 2 currently. “The three points [last Saturday] were very, very important,” Head coach Robert Warzycha said about the victory. On the other side of the field, the Colorado Rapids (7-5-6) are looking to gain some ground on front runner Houston, with 32, who is 5 points ahead of Colorado.

The Crew took first place all season with the win 7 days ago. Warzycha was very upbeat after last week’s game, going on to say, “We have Chad [Marshall] with the national team and Robbie [Rogers] with the national team. They’ll be back. Alejandro will be back next week or the
week after that and the same with Guillermo. We’re going to be healthy and be even better.”

Frankie Hejduk also had some words afterwords. “Coming from behind, battling and making the game interesting and never giving up. No one ever gave up. Everyone kept playing as hard as they could and eventually we wore them down and we started playing well. We had to throw numbers forward, obviously when we were down and they really couldn’t adjust to that. We changed a little bit tactically and went 3-5-2 and it worked out. We got numbers in the box. At 2-1, we had absolutely nothing to lose.”

The Crew are hot right now, playing their best soccer all season, and haven’t lost since June 20th, a 2-1 defeat at the hands of Dallas FC. The injuries are starting to heal, except for Guillermo Barros Schelotto, who is still out with his hamstring injury, and Alex Grendi with a left knee sprain. Another key for the Crew this year is scoring first, and when they do they are 5-1-6. These two teams met earlier this year, tying at 1 at Crew Stadium on April 11th.