Ola Kamara's 63rd-minute goal against D.C. United for the Columbus Crew SC looked, for about 25 minutes, like a season-saver. Then Columbus's season was decidedly un-saved by Fabian Espindola's 89th minute equalizer.
Things were hanging by a thread out at Mapfre Stadium entering Saturday night's 1-1 draw. In the aftermath, it's difficult to see a way up the ladder for a team that continually gives up soft goals:
Late drama in Columbus.@DCUnited grab an equalizer. #CLBvDChttps://t.co/UNuZN3kR6K
— Major League Soccer (@MLS) July 17, 2016
Columbus fans will gripe about the fact that Harrison Afful was sent off minutes before that, and they've probably got a point. Even so, that's yet another goal that shouldn't have been conceded, even with 10 men. There's nothing to diagram there, just an eternal truth to acknowledge: A team that can't win second balls at the top of its own box is going nowhere but down.
Damn near everything has gone wrong for Crew SC this season -- injuries, locker-room blow-ups, suspensions, snakebit wingers, etc. That's how you go from an MLS Cup appearance to the bottom of the Eastern Conference despite minimal roster turnover.
They're no longer bottom of the East after Chicago's loss at FC Dallas, but Crew SC are still four points below the red line and falling, with Kamara as perhaps the lone sliver of sunshine breaking through perpetually gray skies. Ola doesn't bring the hold-up play that his predecessor Kei Kamara did to the position, but he's much more aggressive in running the channels and getting off the back shoulder of the central defenders. The first, last and at times only line of script he's running is "get behind the back line," and while that makes him a throwback -- there just aren't a ton of specialists like that left in the game -- it's also made him effective, with nine goals in less than 900 minutes.
At the same time it's put the impetus on the Crew SC midfield to push the ball higher in possession and work the game from side-to-side. Columbus were a very linear team last season, usually trying to play through Kei, get the wingers on the run, and then whip in crosses from way out wide. Movements progressed from back to front at lightning speed.
In 2016 they've had to become more comfortable setting up shop in the attacking third and picking their passes with a bit more precision, and that's been an uncomfortable marriage. They're generating fewer total chances and fewer chances from the run of play, and fewer big chances as well. They also haven't been getting their fullbacks forward as often or to as much effect as what was trotted out last year, which makes Saturday's goal a bit of blessed relief:
Kamara. Again. 1-0 @ColumbusCrewSC. #CLBvDChttps://t.co/Cfw0XQILgq
— Major League Soccer (@MLS) July 17, 2016
That relief was obviously temporary. Everybody spent the first half of the season waiting for Crew SC to evolve into the team they used to be, but it this point I don't think that's going to happen. Instead it looks like they've evolved into what they currently are.
In other words, there's no going back. There just has to be a plan for making the current iteration of what this team is much, much better.
