COLUMBUS, Ohio - In the midst of a seven-game winless streak and down 1-0 to the Montreal Impact at the half of Saturday's match, the outlook for the Columbus Crew was bleak.
But after a pair of lasers from Bernardo Anor and a 2-1 comeback victory, the Crew may have changed their fortune.
"That could be a season-turner, there," goalkeeper Steve Clark said after the match. "It was a tough week, and for us to be down 1-0 at halftime and to come back like that was fantastic, so I'm really proud of the guys."
Anor, whose two goals were his first since March, said he felt the three points were a long time in the making.
"Finally getting back on is something important that we've been looking for quite a long time already," he said. "We've deserved this result since a couple of games ago, but unfortunately we haven't been able to get it."
Captain Michael Parkhurst said after Wednesday's last-minute loss to Sporting Kansas City that the team needed to "grind out" some wins to turn their season around. And after the Montreal win, he said they may have begun to do just that.
"I think we actually get more benefit from a win like this than if we had come out and won 3-0 or 4-0," he said. "It brings the team together when you have to grind out a win like that, especially the way things have been going for us lately... Hopefully we can start a good streak here, and we needed to start at some point."
Even the level-headed Gregg Berhalter admitted that the result was important, though he wouldn't put more weight on the win than any others.
"The guys needed it," he said. "They needed a win for their confidence. Guys were down on themselves, down on their performance, and they needed that to validate it. It is big, but you're not going to get me to say it's bigger than the other ones. It's not."
Berhalter has preached for weeks about the team missing confidence, and hopes that the upswing in momentum can bring consistency to players like Anor.
"We have conversations with [Anor] because we think he's a fabulous player and we see so much potential in him, so much ability in him," Berhalter said. "The message to Bernie is, 'you could be doing this type of stuff every single week.'... I don't want him to be the streaky Bernardo Anor, I want him to be the consistent, threatening Bernardo Anor."
