Major League Soccer: Columbus Crew turn up in second half to beat Toronto FC
Toronto FC dominated the first half of their clash with Columbus Crew, but could not take their chances and lost 2-0 at BMO field on Wednesday night.
Columbus Crew star Cucho Hernandez needed just six minutes to score in the second half after replacing Diego Rossi.
The 25-year-old Colombian had a lot of time on the ball to pick his spot and beat goalkeeper Sean Johnson for his 14th goal of the season.
Andres Herrera made sure of the win in the 70th minute, winning a battle with Raoul Petretta before slotting in a low shot for his first MLS goal.
“We had to score in that first half,” Toronto FC coach John Herdman said after the match.
“We had to, they’d rotated. We were putting our best line up out. We knew they were going to strengthen in the second, which would equalize things,” added John Herdman. But I thought we again played with a great tempo in the first half. I thought we got into good areas, but we were just lacking that killer punch, that next level quality it is going to take to get us there.
“And that’s what I’m challenging the team with. I’m challenging the staff, the team that we’ve got to focus on those areas, the finishing end products.”
Federico Bernardeschi had a good chance to open the scoring for TFC in the seventh minute, taking a fine pass from Alonso Coello and cutting in, only to see his powerful left-footed shot hit the crossbar with goalkeeper Patrick Schulte beaten.
TFC had another great chance to go ahead after Bernardeschi’s square pass found Insigne whose scuffled effort was saved by Columbus goalkeeper, Schulte.
Captain Jonathan Osorio required treatment on his left thigh late in the first half, and was eventually replaced at half time.
“He managed it for 10 minutes. He wanted to push after halftime but we’ve done that before with Jon and we’ve ended up missing him for a lot longer than we’d hoped,” said Herdman. “Hopefully we caught him at the right time and it’s something he can come back (from), for that cup final that’s just around the corner.”
TFC is looking to move up the table to avoid the wild-card playoff that pits No. 8 against No. 9 with the winner facing the top seed in the conference.
They will now travel to Colorado on Saturday, before playing at Vancouver on September 25 in the Canadian Championship final. They face Chicago on September 28, and then finish the regular season with home games against New York Red Bulls on October 2 and Inter Miami on October 5.
