One-hundred minutes of soccer in any environment is bound to elicit competitive spirits, let alone in humid Orlando against a high-intensity New York Red Bulls side.
With some roster rotation in a game that would send the winner onto the Round of 16 in the MLS is Back Tournament, Head Coach Caleb Portercommended his team for stepping up to the challenge.
"We knew that we were going to have to battle today. And that was what I was most proud of , is every man that played today, across the board, dug-in and battled and they looked like warriors today. And soccer teams that want to be winning teams consistently, they have to roll their sleeves up and battle, and I thought our guys did that today and I was really proud of that aspect."
Stepping up to the challenge is probably an understatement.
The Crew's lineup on Thursday featured five new starters, three of whom earned their first career start in the Black & Gold, while not allowing a single shot on goal the entire match.
Seemingly every aspect of Thursday's match featured some sort of positive element from the Crew. While it was the familiar faces of Gyasi Zardesand Lucas Zelarayan ending up on the score sheet in Thursday's 2-0 win, depth has been a strong suit through the first two group stage games, Porter said.
"We have a lot of depth this year. You’ve seen that in the first two games," Porter said. "You’ve seen with a guy right next to me in Hector [Jimenez], who has stepped-in and played two 90 minutes and it’s just great to see when you call someone’s name and they go out and they do a good job, and the team wins. It just builds more and more confidence in the locker room, and it certainly gives us trust that we can go with different guys at different times, and that’s the type of squad that you need in MLS to win game-in and game-out."
Porter, who typically shies away from singling out individuals, made a note to highlight a number of different players for a variety of reasons.
Pedro Santoscame on after over two weeks of sitting out and put in 67 minutes on the wing. Sebastian Berhalter, fresh off his first appearance for the Crew on Saturday, earned his first career start. Jonathan Mensahwas simply an animal, Porter said, and Jimenezagreed.
"Everyone’s been up for the challenge, and like coach Caleb Porter said today, I totally agree that Jonathan was also our MVP of the game today," Jimenez said. "As you see, he cleared everything off and he was a warrior."
Mensah totaled a game-high 13 clearances, including a couple in the dying minutes of stoppage time as the Red Bulls put up a last-gasp effort against a Crew side which used all five subs.
"At the end of the day, we all step up in big moments, and we’re extremely happy to have six points, two shutouts, and obviously we look forward to the game against Atlanta," Jimenez said. "By no means are we looking past them. We want to take nine points away from these first three games, and we’ll be ready for that test a couple days from now.
Notably, the Crew went 2-0-0 against Atlanta last year, while ATL is 0-2-0 in Group E play so far.
Having already qualified for the Round of 16, Porter said it's comforting, but at this point, the team's primary goal still is not accomplished.
"Our goal coming into the tournament was in the first three games, to have nine points because we knew those points would apply to the regular season and our ultimate goal of making the playoffs and winning an MLS Cup," Porter said.
"We’re happy to be two-thirds of the way there. We still have one more game to take care of, and then from there, we’ll start thinking about the rest of the tournament and the round of 16. But, it is nice to be through in the tournament. It takes a little bit of pressure off this third game, but, as I said, we’re not approaching it in any other way than we want to get the three points to close out the first three games."
After a much-needed day off on Friday, the Crew will resume training on Saturday in anticipation of Tuesday's 8 p.m. ET kickoff vs. Atlanta. The match will be nationally televised on TUDN, as well as streamed live on Columbus Crew SC's Twitter account.
