Monday, July 8, 2013

Crew Rd 19, Win Over Broken Timbers

The Columbus Crew beat a shorthanded Portland Timbers 1:0 off and early headed goal from Bernardo Anor, his second in as many games.

1ST HALF
The game started with a giant wall of activity. The Crew came out in their normal high energy way looking for an early goal. This time was a little different, however. Here is the Crew lineup:

Matt Lampson
Josh Williams, Chad Marshall, Danny O'Rourke, Chad Barson
Konrad Warzycha, Will Trapp
Dominic Oduro, Federico HiguaĆ­n, Bernardo Anor
Aaron Schoenfeld

This amounts to a feel-good lineup with lots of young local stars and they were up to the task early. Mixing it up and earning an early corner. Federico Higuain, for the 2nd week in a row, linked up with an unmarked Bernardo Anor for a headed goal. This put the Crew up 1:0 in the 7th minute.

Short time later Portland defender Pa-Modou Kah received his first yellow for a bad foul. Right after that, another card for a high kick to the face of Aaron Schoenfeld in the box. It was a nightmare start for Kah who was sent off.

Higuian would step up to take the penalty but he missed wide. Shortly after Timbers head coach Caleb Porter subbed in an extra defender in Mamadou Danso ("Futty") to hold off the Crew attack on his ten men side.

The Futty sub calmed the Timbers and settled the game. In fact, Portland controlled much of the match from there.


2ND HALF
The 2nd half resembled the 1st in a lot of ways. Good amount of possession from Portland (who out possessed the Crew 56 to 44% down a man for 80 minutes) forced the Crew into an odd roll of working counters, breaks and through balls as if they were a man down.

The half wore on and a strong back line and with an impressive looking Trapp were enough to hold off the Timbers.

FINAL THOUGHTS
• Columbus ends an uncharacteristic three game losing streak.

• Portland was missing three of their best players and did well holding off the Crew a man down for virtually the whole match.

• Crew coach Robert Warzycha had an unusual quote after the match "I don't think I was disappointed... usually difficult to play a man up."

• Good first outing for 'Young' Wil Trapp.

• Columbus needs another option in attack other than just springing Dominic Oduro if they want more goals.

• Tough to pull too much from this game because of the early red card. Crew might have done better against a 10 man team, but I'm sure they will be satisfied with 3 pts.

• It was enjoyable to see Porter work in under these circumstances. His players held it together and were successful in playing decent possession, but the finishing skill was missing. Felt Michael Harrington (coming off injury) and Ben Zemanski didn't have their best games.

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