Early Goal, Tough Defense Helps Cruz Azul Past Crew
For the second consecutive game, the Crew found themselves down 2-0 when heading to halftime. The end result this time, however, was different. Cruz Azul (3-0-1) jumped out with two first half goals, and never looked back despite some chippy play from both sides, rolling to a 2-0 victory. “Obviously we did everything we could to win the game but we played a very good team,” Crew coach Robert Warzycha said. “They created four chances. They scored two goals. It’s something for us to learn from. We didn’t have the luck today.”
Early on, the Crew shut down the Cruz Azul offense for the most part. The 14th minute however, gave the group of visiting fans something to cheer about when Pablo Zeballos added the first goal after Eric Brunner missed two attempts to knock the ball out of the box. Zeballos slipped it past goalie William Hesmer to make the score 1-0, giving Cruz Azul the lead for good. The game started to get chippy during the 36th minute when Horacio Cervantes purposely elbowed Steven Lenhart in front of goal. The Crew players were overly mad about the no call, and some Crew players had to be restrained before getting to Cervantes.
The missed chances for the Crew in the first half stung more as Alejandro Vela popped one over Hesmer in the 39th minute, giving Cruz Azul the 2-0 lead going into the break. “Our guys gave a good account of themselves. They were generating chances but didn’t get one to fall with a couple of balls off the post. You’re always disappointed when you lose,” Crew technical director Brian Bliss said. Four of the six shots on goal the Crew had all night occured in the first half.
Cruz Azul played keep away in the second half, not giving the Crew a lot of chances to score after intermission. Duncan Oughton had one of the only true shots in the second half, in the 47th minute he had a shot that was blocked by a diving stop. Also, Adam Moffat had a shot in the 81st minute bounce off of the cross bar.”The quality of the team we played against,” Warzycha said. “This team [Cruz Azul] is very good and they know how to play with the lead.”
