Columbus Crew overcome early deficit, Lucas Zelarayan scores twice in win over NYCFC
Lucas Zelarayan has scored winners for the Crew against NYCFC before. For where this happened in the season, this was by far the biggest.
Zelarayan slammed a free kick into the NYCFC wall and won the ball back to give the Crew another chance to attack in the 75th minute. Right back Steven Moreira found winger Luis Diaz, who beat his man down the flank. The attempted cross was deflected but flew perfectly for Zelarayan to slam into the left corner of the net.
With winning goals against NYCFC on two occasions last season, Zelarayan’s second goal of the night was the cathartic breakthrough the Crew needed in Saturday night’s 3-2 win against NYCFC in front of 18,609 at Lower.com Field.
NYCFC was given seven minutes of pain-staking stoppage time to find the equalizer. Including a crucial block by defender Jonathan Mensah, the Crew snuffed out to set-piece opportunities to do what they couldn't do earlier this week — hold onto a win.
"Wednesday was hard — a hard loss," Zelarayan said. "But we knew we needed a win today for our confidence. I'm really happy for the team. Now (we) keep going and try to get that (top-four) place in playoffs."
If there was ever a bounce-back game, this was the one.
The Crew were coming off a devastating 2-1 loss to CF Montreal at home on Wednesday, when the Crew allowed goals in the 88th and 94th minutes.
Another loss would leave the Crew with just 15 points of a possible 36 points at home, a losing record at Lower.com Field this season and a significant gap between them and a top-four seed to host a playoff game.
"The players' resiliency after a really difficult loss to turn around mentally and physically and play last year's MLS Cup champion ... to then bounce back and put on that type of performance," coach Caleb Porter said. "The drive, the determination, the hunger they showed today — even the resiliency after conceding early and then conceding again. They just never wavered in their belief and they never stopped fighting and they never stopped attacking."
Against defending MLS Cup champion NYCFC, who dismantled the Crew in a 2-0 loss in May, it couldn’t have started any worse.
An intended cross from Malte Amudsen — who was left wide open by Diaz in the third minute from the left side of the box hit Mensah and redirected to hit the inside of the far post and give NYCFC the early 1-0 lead.
Mensah, goalkeeper Eloy Room and the rest of the Crew looked around in astonishment. Having to come from behind against one of the best defending and attacking teams in MLS was the opposite of the intended gameplan.
From there, however, the Crew came out with as much as aggression as they had shown at any point this season. Forward Cucho Hernandez put a perfect ball behind the NYCFC defense for Diaz to run onto in the seventh minute. Diaz took a solid first touch, put elected to try to shoot with his right foot instead of his left, with a defender on his right shoulder who poked the ball away.
In the 20th minute, Diaz returned the favor to Hernandez and turned around his evening as well as the Crew’s.
After a skillful pass from Lucas Zelarayan with the outside of his left foot, Diaz ran onto the ball behind the defense and cut the ball back to Hernandez at the top of the box. On his second touch, Hernandez shot to the far post and snuck the ball past New York City goalkeeper Sean Johnson’s extended right arm to level the game at 1-1.
Diaz found himself in an excellent position again in the 27th minute. Johnson’s errant goal kick went straight to Diaz at the top right corner of the box. Diaz passed directly to Zelarayan at the top of the box. The Argentine playmaker showed a bit of class with a deft chip that was too tall for Johnson and short enough to go under the crossbar to give the Crew a 2-1 lead.
"We can't be a team that sits back," Porter said. "We need to highlight the talent that we have. How you do that is by pressing high and by having the ball and attacking. I thought we did that better in this game than we've done in any game all year against a very good team."
After bringing in starters Maxi Moralez and Anton Tinnnerholm off the bench, NYCFC found the equalizer in the 64th minute. Gabriel Pereira’s seemingly innocent shot went off the foot of Crew defender Miloš Degenek and went away from Room into the net.
Room had no chance on either shot he didn’t save, but came up with three big stops to keep the Crew in the game. After a careless giveaway from Aidan Morris in the 67th minute, Room made his best stop of the night on a point-blank save against Moralez.
And just seconds following the go-ahead goal, Room came out of his net to prevent a one-on-one chance for NYCFC.
Three nights ago, the Crew gave up the tying and game-winning goal in the final minutes. In the same spot — at home — with seven minutes of stoppage time, the Crew gave a performance home fans had been clamoring for, for a while.
Get more Columbus Crew news by listening to our podcasts
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Crew win at home behind goals by Zelarayan, Cucho Hernandez
