After having a complete mental breakdown in Orlando last Saturday, Columbus played host to the Chicago Fire. Last Saturday, The Crew blew a 3-1 lead late in the second half and finished the game losing 4-3 in favor of Orlando. Wednesday night, there was a sense of calmness and intensity surrounding The Crew.
The opening whistle blew, and Columbus went to work by starting the match off aggressively. 5 minutes into the match, Diego Rossi slipped pass the defender and began a run in the box. Chicago keeper Chris Brady came out to challenge Rossi. Brady missed the ball on the challenge but made contact with Rossi's right leg that sent Rossi stumbling to the ground. The ref allowed the play to continue until the ball was sent out of play. Upon video review, the ref pointed to the spot and awarded Columbus a penalty kick and gave Brady a yellow card. In the 8th minute, Cucho Hernandez stepped up to the pk spot. Cool, calm and poised Cucho ran up and got the keeper to guess wrong and go to his left side as Cucho sent the ball the to right of the keeper in the lower corner to put Columbus up 1-0. Just a mere minutes later, Cucho found Yaw Yeboah who made his run to the inside of Arnaud Souquet. As Yeboah got into the box he was pulled down by Souquet and picked up Chicago's 2nd yellow card of the game and Columbus was awarded a second penalty kick. Who better to take the penalty kick then none other than Cucho. 16th minute, Cucho ran up and froze brady as he sent the ball the left of the keeper this time and puts Columbus up 2-0. Then, late in the 23rd minute, Julian Gressel stepped up to take the Corner kick. As the ball came Curling in, Cucho found his spot and rose up over two FIre defenders for perfect header into the back of the net notched a hat trick and put Columbus in a comfortable lead 3-0. In the 44th minute, Xherdan Shaqiri picked up a yellow card. This yellow card will be important later on in the match.
The halftime whistle blew, and The Crew went into the locker room with the lead 3-0.
Second half got underway, and Columbus were able to slow the game down. Midway through the second half, Shaqiri picked up his second yellow card of the match following a hard foul on Camacho which subsequently brought out a red card. For the final 25 minutes plus stoppage time, Chicago played down a man. The dreadful 70th minute mark came around. Fans were biting their nails and sitting on the edge of their seats as that was the mark of the game when The Crew would start to break down. Learning from past mistakes, Columbus began to slow the game down even more. In the 90th minute, the fourth official announced only 2 minutes of stoppage time. You could feel the electricity in the air from the fans. The final whistle blew, and the Stadium erupted. With the game in the books, Columbus picked up their 14th win of the season.
MLS history was made!!!
Coming into Wednesdays match, Cucho Hernandez came into the game with 10 goals on the season. With his hat trick in the first 22 minutes and 53 seconds of the game, Cucho Hernandez became the second fastest player to score a hat trick from the start of a game. Also in club history, Cucho Hernandez became only the second ever player to score two hat tricks in one season. He sits tied with Stern John.
Playoff bound once again!!!
Last two seasons, it came down to "Decision Day" to see if The Crew were going to make the playoffs. 2023, one of the goals that was set by new head coach Wilfried Nancy was to make the playoffs. Wednesday night, Columbus saw that goal get checked off the list as they clinched a playoff berth. Columbus is now tied for 3rd place in the Eastern Conference with 5 games remaining.
Next up, Columbus goes on the road to Dallas, TX as they take on FC Dallas this Saturday at 8:30pm EST. You can catch that game and all games on Apple TV MLS season pass.