When fourth official Daniel Fitzgerald lifted the board to 19,323 fans at Crew Stadium to show four minutes of stoppage time, the Columbus Crew figured they had at least a point in the bag.
Then disaster struck.
In the four minutes of stoppage time, New England won 2-0 on goals from a header from defender Jose Goncalves for his first MLS goal and the clincher came from second half sub Diego Fagundez.
It’s the first time the Revs won in Crew Stadium since October of 2009.
“It’s a rough sport sometimes,” Crew defender Josh Williams said of the loss. “Tonight we were just so unlucky, it definitely didn’t bounce our way. That’s happened a lot. I think we just need to work harder.”
With the loss, the Crew drop to 6-9-5, 23 points and sink six points behind the last Eastern Conference playoff spot, where as New England goes to 7-7-6, 27 points and sit just two points behind the Houston Dynamo. Despite the tough luck, Crew welcomed back goalkeeper Andy Gruenebaum to the starting lineup after missing the last two matches with a shoulder ‘tweak.’
“We have to keep fighting,” Crew head coach Robert Warzycha said after the loss Saturday night. “We played well for 90 minutes and lost in the last four minutes of the game. We created a lot of chances, but could not find a goal.”
The 19,323 was the 2nd highest attendance of the year at Crew Stadium.
More bad news came for the Crew in the 36th minute when forward Aaron Schoenfeld fell awkwardly clearing a ball in his own end. His challenge with defender Jose Goncalves ended with him falling on his shoulder and quickly heading to the Crew locker room.
Schoenfeld was later diagnosed with a separated shoulder, but would be reevaluated on Monday.
The first half finished scoreless with no team with the apparent upper hand, as the Revs held the only shot on goal.
Columbus and New England went back and forth, as Columbus nearly hit the game’s opener late, when in the 89th the ball bounced around and Ben Speas, who came on for Schoenfeld, took a right footed shot from outside of the corner of the 18 yard box, Columbus’ closest chance on the night.
“I thought it was going in,” Speas said of the shot. “It bent at the last second. I hit it with my laces, so it bent out.”
On a corner just about a minute into stoppage time, Goncalves headed the ball with a bounce right in front of Gruenebaum, which went through his legs for the goal. A.J. Soares looked to screen the ball since Gruenebaum did not swipe to push the ball away.
“The ball came over, I had my man, it went over my head and he (Goncalves) put a good header on it. At the end of the day, that’s my man, I can’t let him do that,” Williams humbly admitted after the match.
As Columbus set up their attack in the middle of the park, Crew defender Chad Marshall played an errant pass to Federico Higuain, who could not get to the ball. Revs sub Lee Nguyen played a nifty one-touch pass to a streaking Fagundez, whose right-footed shot beat a charging Gruenebaum for the 2-0 New England win.
Crew now face lowly Toronto FC on Saturday (July 27) in Canada with a matinee kickoff.
