The Columbus Crew have played tight games all season with the exception of one lost trip to New York. But more and more recently, the Black & Gold are finding it difficult to get even one point from close contests.
Sunday afternoon, Columbus and Houston Dynamo traded early goals -- ironically both scored by the two players that had played for the other team just 32 days ago.
The match-winner came from an own goal, also scored in the first half and completing a three-goal burst in eight minutes, when the Crew defense was racing back toward its own net to defend a cross. The cross glanced off Chad Marshall, giving Dynamo the one-goal lead they needed.
Columbus head coach Sigi Schmid did not find fault in the way the Crew played in the first half, but had little good to say about the way the team finished the contest.
"At the end of the game you score goals in the box," Schmid said, but added that "this isn't the NBA playoffs where you can call a timeout and diagram a play."
Alejandro Moreno, who won the MLS Cup last year with Houston, scored the Crew's lone goal Sunday, but would gladly have traded the goal for a win.
"There are a lot of special people on that team that I have special relationships with, but once we start playing my focus is on the game," said Moreno. "Once we start playing we're here to win a game and it's always nice to score against the team that traded you."
The loss was the Crew's fourth in their last six games (with the other two draws in that stretch). The obvious frustration in the Crew dressing room has many players scratching their heads.
"Obviously [our confidence] could be better," said Moreno. "At times you start wondering what we are going to have to do to win a game."
Crew captain Duncan Oughton's solution looks good on paper. "We need to get a bounce here and a bounce there," he said, "and just put ourselves in places to make good things happen."
The Crew now face a difficult pair of games back-to-back, traveling to face the New England Revolution next weekend before returning home to play the Kansas City Wizards. The two teams are at the top of the Eastern Conference and the MLS overall table.
"We have to show up next week with an attitude and think things are going to go our way because we are going to make things happen for ourselves," Moreno said.
The loss keeps the Crew in the basement of the Eastern Conference, and dangerously close to the bottom of the MLS standings. Without the points to show for the improvements in the team, it could be easy for the squad to get down when it could really start to come together late in the season.
"I thought we played some good soccer in the first half. People who know soccer look at it and say 'The Crew are playing a lot better than last year. They are a much better team,'" Schmid said. "But other people, all they're going to look at is the box score and say 'they can't win.'"
Nathan Linton is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
