Columbus.- If you ask CrewSC what is their current relationship status with the playoffs? The answer would be: It’s complicated. Yes, they beat Chicago 3-0. Yes, they earned three points that mean the whole world for them. The issue here is that they don’t control their destiny, they just have to win and pray that the results in the last three games for DC United, New England and Orlando would go in the Ohio direction. Again, It’s complicated.
“The whole situation is been frustrating. The guys will tell you that as well. But we don’t give up, we keep going” Gregg Berhalter said at he post game press conference “ We don’t feel bad for ourselves, we don’t make excuses for ourselves. This is the situation we’re in and we are going to dela with it, and we are going to try to get wins from here to the end, we’re not out of it yet. So, we’ll keep playing”
The entire core of this team was out ( Will Trapp, Tony Tchani and Federico Higuaín). Actually its been incomplete for the past month, and it took Mohammed Saeid, Nico Naess and Dilly Duka to assume their main role. In a team that rotates the ball the way Crew SC does is essential to keep the steering wheel balanced. This is why they obtained nine out of twelve possible points in the last four games.
Leaving the second half against DC last Wednesday (where the team left so many spaces and was out of sync defensively) this late in the season Columbus started to learn how to manage the advantage of a lead. It has been arguably their biggest flaw this year, even tonight they gave up of chances with set pieces and counters attacks, but they didn’t sink and stayed afloat mentally.
“We made some adjustments. You guys [the media]keep bringing those old demons. It hasn’t happen in awhile. But we made some adjustments in terms of how we wanted to pressure them, specifically on goal kicks and offensively we made some adjustments with positioning.” Berhalter explained.
The adjustments on offense that Berhalter refers to was about Dilly Duka. The midfielder moved up deeper than usual, playing almost like a true nine, which he was when he scored his goal. But it was actually the tempo what made the difference one more time for Columbus. Their third goal came out only four touches.
The boss of the Black and Gold knows exactly the kind of demons his team has been dealing with. He is also aware that they could come back on any given Saturday(or Sunday, or Wednesday) ruin an entire week preparation in the matter of fifteen minutes, most likely towards the end of a match. It takes a collective effort as a unit to keep that disturbing sentiment far away of their minds and keep playing till the last whistle at Yankee Stadium on October 23rd.
Columbus remains alive, at least for one more week.
