Guillermo Barros Schelotto erased the memories of his invisible showing last week by scoring a goal and setting up two others, including one on a beautiful laser-like assist to Robbie Rogers. It was the type of beautiful soccer Crew fans are hoping will come all .
SBI correspondent Rich Fidler was at the match and provided us with his take on the wild night in Columbus.
Small crowd at Crew Stadium treated to fireworks
By RICH FIDLER
The Columbus Crew rebounded from last weekend’s disaster in New York City by winning a back and forth battle against Chivas USA at Columbus Crew Stadium in front of less than 7,000 fans – the lowest attendance for a Crew home game ever in their 13th season leading some to question the front office despite the presence of constant rain.
The Crew started the game with their newly minted left-back from Argentina, Gino Padula, and the rustiness showed for the former Queens Park Rangers and Montpellier HSC defender. Padula hasn’t played regular soccer since his time at QPR in 2005 and his turnovers early in the match showed he has some rust to work off and made fans remember another defensive signing that didn’t work out – Mark Williams, the former Northern Ireland central defender.
Alejandro Moreno once again was the lone force up top, but it was the inspired play of Guillermo Barros Schelotto that was the plan of the day. He scored the first goal when he powered the ball down the middle of the goal. Nothing fancy for this South American, it was always the plan, as Schelotto told the press after the game he wasn’t looking to get cute and just wanted to power the ball in to the back of the next.
Schelotto’s brilliance would be evident again when after Sacha Kljestan’s equalizer; the midfielder took a pass from Moreno, deeked the defense and laid it off to Moreno to finish. It didn’t end there, as his brilliant performance aided Robbie Rogers to score his first goal of the season to give the Crew what most thought was an insurmountable two goal lead at the fortress known as Columbus Crew Stadium.
It was not meant to be as the Crew defense collapsed twice in a 10 minute span. First Jesse Marsh scored after splitting the porous central defensive pairing of Chad Marshall and Danny O-Rourke, then as Paulo Nagamura slammed a shot past Hesmer. It was a stunning response from a team that had been out-played and out-worked the entire second half – and it just goes to show that whatever the Crew got for Marcos Gonzalez in the off-season it certainly wasn’t worth it in this fans eyes unless Rio Ferdinand is on his way to Columbus.
Don’t worry Crew fans, the most entertaining match in Crew Stadium in years wasn’t over yet – as Rogers scored the game winner and secured his own brace by making Brad Guzan, target of much transfer speculation to Europe, crumble to the ground as the ball trickled through his fingers in a laughable display. It was a stunning change of fortunate, when the Crew actually won a game in the last 10 minutes – as opposed to losing a game the way that had become synonymous over the last 2 years with Sigi at the helm – KC last year, Dallas last year…shall I go on?
The Crew will look to continue the good fortune on Thursday night when they travel to Washington DC to face a team that is coming off a 4-0 drubbing at the hands of Real Salt Lake on Saturday.