3 things to watch for as the Crew, winless in their last four MLS games, host LA Galaxy
Kwame Ampadu taught his boss a new word this week.
The Crew assistant coach, while discussing the Crew's 2-2 draw against Orlando City with head coach Wilfried Nancy, used the phrase "street smarts" as a shorthand way to describe what the Crew need to learn about closing out games. Nancy, a native of France who spent much of his coaching career in Montreal, speaks fluent English, but the slang term hadn't been on his radar.
For Nancy, it was the perfect way to sum up what went wrong for the Crew as they blew a two-goal lead, allowing Orlando City to come back and force a draw.
"We had the savviness, but this is not savviness," Nancy said Monday. "This is the street smarts. I love it, because we are missing that. We are missing that, and I’m not saying that in a bad way. This is the most difficult thing to do. To get through that, we have to get this kind of experience. Slow down the play. Take the time to go for the throw-in. This is football."
The Crew have a quick turnaround to apply the lessons they learned from Saturday's game as they host the LA Galaxy on Wednesday at Lower.com Field. Here are three things to watch for in the matchup, which kicks off at 7:30 p.m.
How do the Crew apply the lessons learned from Orlando City to playing the LA Galaxy?
Behind first-half goals from midfielder Darlington Nagbe and forward Jacen Russell-Rowe, the Crew rolled through the first 45 minutes of Saturday's game. But Orlando City halved the deficit in the 49th minute and scored the equalizer in the 92nd minute, while the Crew failed to convert on the chances they had to extend their lead.
As he has been for much of the year, Nancy was generally pleased with the way the Crew played in the attack, but he was less than pleased with the way they handled the critical late-game moments as they clung to the lead.
"We didn’t lose because the way we attacked, we did it well and we had a lot of opportunities to score more goals," Nancy said. "I’m not a big fan of data, but the data, it’s a good addition about what we see. In terms of expected goals, we had three-plus, I think. But we didn’t win the game because we are not good enough, for the moment.
"We’ve been doing good things at certain moments, but we didn’t win because we have to be better to control the result, to control the outcome. But to control the outcome, we have to be better in the moment."
Orlando City goalkeeper Pedro Gallese drew the ire of Crew fans in the first half as he took every extra second he could before goal kicks, already working to slow down the tempo in the face of relentless pressure from the Crew. But in the second half, as Orlando City chased the tying goal, the Crew played at the same breakneck pace and didn't exert control to slow things down.
The little details of how to handle a late lead are things Nancy believes his players can only learn through live-game situations, and they got a firm lesson on Saturday.
"I think we’re too much nice guys," defender Mo Farsi said. "If we need to waste time and go in the corner, we have to do it. It’s part of the game. Other teams will not hesitate to do it. If it’s 2-1 for them at 90 minutes, they’re going to waste time. I think because we’re young, so we’re a bit naive, try to play, play, play, play, but when you have to kill the game, you have to kill the game. But we’ll be better next time."
How do Cucho Hernandez and Lucas Zelarayán match up against Chicharito and Riqui Puig?
The Galaxy have struggled so far this season, with just two wins in their first 11 games, but their record belies the talent at the top end of their roster. Forward Javier "Chicharito" Hernandez and midfielder Riqui Puig are two of the top players in the league, and how they match up against their Crew counterparts in Cucho Hernandez and Lucas Zelarayán is one of the most intriguing elements of Wednesday's game. Zelarayán was not in the squad for the Crew on Saturday, but Nancy said that Zelarayán is expected to be available Wednesday.
"He should be OK," Nancy said. "We have a lot of games coming, as you know, so the idea is to reflect with my staff and to see when. We don’t want to rush anything and we need freshness, so Lucas should be available for Wednesday."
Puig joined the Galaxy from Barcelona, and his background in Barcelona's famed La Masia academy is evident in his play. He's one of the best passers in MLS, regularly attempting — and completing — difficult line-breaking passes that most players wouldn't even recognize as an option. In the Galaxy's structure, Puig is given lots of freedom to roam and get on the ball all over the field; defending him is a collective challenge.
Chicharito and Puig aren't exact parallels to Hernandez and Zelarayán in the way they play their positions — Hernandez is more of a playmaker than Chicharito, and Puig plays deeper than Zelarayán typically does — but each duo pulls the strings for their team's attack. For the Crew, the offense runs through Hernandez and Zelarayán, and the same is true for the Galaxy.
Does Cucho Hernandez find his finishing ability against the LA Galaxy?
Hernandez took nine shots against Orlando City — 10 including his 64th-minute goal that was disallowed after a VAR check. That goal was the only shot that challenged Gallese, as the rest of Hernandez's shots skipped wide or sailed high. His frustration was evident, particularly in the second half as the number of missed shots mounted.
Despite taking a league-leading 6.03 shots per 90 minutes so far this year, Hernandez ranks 27th in shots on target per 90 minutes with 1.21 and has scored only one goal.
"The message is going to be to be more killer — sorry to use this word," Nancy said. "To be more clinical. To be able to make the play when this is the good moment."
Hernandez has been a high-volume shooter since he entered MLS last summer. He averaged 6.10 shots per 90 minutes last season, the highest mark in the league by 1.25 shots. But Hernandez also led the league in shots on target per 90 minutes with 2.08 — just a slim margin ahead of D.C. United forward Taxi Fountas at 2.02 — which means that he was taking more threatening shots than the ones he's taken so far this year.
Hernandez's average shot distance has also increased slightly, rising to 19.8 yards from 19 yards last season. That extra yard of distance corresponds to fewer dangerous opportunities, as it's generally easier for the goalkeeper to save shots taken from farther away.
The time Hernandez missed with a knee injury has undoubtedly impacted his goal-scoring so far this season, and while he wasn't at his most efficient against Orlando City, it was easily Hernandez's most dominant game yet in 2023. As Hernandez settles back into playing regularly, the next step is increasing his percentage of on-target shots and creating opportunities from more threatening areas.
Columbus Crew lineup
Record (W-L-T): 4-4-3, 8th in East
Projected Starting XI (3-4-2-1):
Patrick Schulte (goalkeeper); Gustavo Vallecilla (left center back), Philip Quinton (center back), Steven Moreira (right center back); Malte Amundsen (left wingback), Aidan Morris (midfielder), Darlington Nagbe (midfielder), Mo Farsi (right wingback); Alex Mățan (attacking midfielder), Lucas Zelarayán (attacking midfielder); Cucho Hernandez (forward).
Injured: Miloš Degenek (out, ankle), Luis Diaz (out, back), Kevin Molino (out, knee), Eloy Room (out, knee), Will Sands (out, torn ACL), Josh Williams (out, ankle)
LA Galaxy lineup
Record (W-L-T): 2-6-3, 13th in West
Previous Starting XI (4-3-3):
Jonathan Bond (goalkeeper); Julian Audé (left back), Jalen Neal (center back), Martin Cáceres (center back), Calegari (right back); Riqui Puig (midfielder), Gaston Brugman (midfielder), Mark Delgado (midfielder); Memo Rodriguez (left winger), Tyler Boyd (right winger), Chicharito (forward).
Columbus Crew vs. LA Galaxy prediction
Columbus 2, LA Galaxy 1: The Galaxy have been in better form recently, after a slow start to the season, but they have one fewer day of rest than the Crew after playing on Sunday and having to travel to Columbus for the game. The Crew's strong first half against Orlando City was undone by a few poor moments in the second half, but having home-field advantage against a less-rested LA Galaxy squad will make the difference.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Crew host LA Galaxy: Preview, prediction, analysis
