Chicago Fire 0 – 1 Columbus Crew SC
Wednesday, July 16th, 2015
Although hosts Chicago did try to show up for the 2nd half of the match, this night was all about Columbus Crew. A painful defeat to Chicago Fire at home, in front of a crowd 14,092 strong.
This will be the first road win this season for Columbus Crew SC (7-7-6), who are now ranked 2nd in Major League Soccer’s Eastern Conference with 27 points.
Hosts Chicago Fire (5-10-3) register their 5th home defeat, and remain bottom of the MLS Eastern Conference with 18 points.
The last match between these two Major League Soccer sides ended in a 2-2 draw, and both will now be meeting again this Sunday for a rematch, this time at Crew’s Mapfe Stadium in Columbus. With the home advantage and suspected injuries, we at MLSGoals expected this to be an even match, with perhaps even some odds in Chicago’s favour (see MLSGoals pre-match post). But boy were we wrong…
The 1st half was owned by Columbus, with total dominance of the game, and pretty much control of the ball in Chicago’s half and opening huge holes in the hosts’ defense.
Things did look a bit better for Chicago on the 2nd half. But aside from a few chances Chicago created, it was still all about Columbus Crew. Worth mentioning is David Accam’s fantastic right-footed shot from outside the box, to be saved by Crew’s keeper Steve Clark at the bottom-right corner (81’). Still, to MLSGoals it still looked like Columbus in their yellow shirts were doing as they please all over the pitch.
Although Columbus Crew created many chances throughout, there was only one that was capitalized on, as expected from the one of Major League Soccer’s hearos, Kei Kamara who is also MLS number 1 scorer this season with 13 goals. Columbus midfielder Ethan Finley shot across the field to the right in neck-breaking speed, received the ball and crossed it into the box to Kamara, who then shot a header into goal (41’).
These two Major League Soccer sides appeared to be pretty distant from each other, with visitors Columbus 55.5% overall possession, 14 shots of which 7 were on target. This, compared to hosts Chicago Fire with 45.5% overall possession, 8 shots of which 2 were on target.
Although Kei Kamara deserves all the praise for scoring the winning goal, MLSGoals Man of the Match was Chicago Fire’s goalkeeper Sean Johnson, who was pretty much one of the busiest players on the pitch last night. Johnson produced no less than 7 amazing saves, and declined Kamara and the Crew again and again.
Without Sean Johnson in brilliant form, the match would have ended in a much more devastating loss to Chicago. But then again, if David Accam would have scored on that 81st minute, we could have been seeing yet another late draw between these 2 MLS sides.
So let’s wait for Sunday’s meeting, hopefully it will be fascinating soccer.
