Columbus Crew rallies late for win over FC Cincinnati in MLS playoffs

Confetti rained down on the TQL Stadium field. Fireworks shot into the Cincinnati night sky, and the silver Eastern Conference championship trophy was held aloft by the victors.

For FC Cincinnati, many imagined its fairytale 2023 season continuing with a win Saturday in the Eastern Conference final against Columbus Crew at TQL Stadium. The confetti would have been raining down on them, and the trophy would have been their second of the year.

But it was arch-rival Columbus celebrating beneath the pyrotechnics following a stunning comeback for a 3-2 win to claim the Eastern Conference crown and advance to host the MLS Cup final, the league's postseason championship match, Saturday at Lower.com Field.

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FC Cincinnati led, 2-0, going into halftime even as Columbus dominated the tenor of the match. However, FCC conceded three unanswered goals. The tying goal came with Cincinnati just four-plus minutes from closing out the win.

The eventual game-winner was scored in extra time at the 115-minute mark − about five minutes prior to the match heading to penalty kicks.

"Guys gave everything, but they (Columbus) just wore us down," FC Cincinnati head coach Pat Noonan said afterward. "The guys gave everything. I cannot fault them. There were things that I could have done better to manage that situation."

Columbus second-half substitute Christian Ramirez helped get the Crew on the board at 2-1 when he was the primary contributor on an own-goal by Cincinnati's Alvas Powell. Ramirez then headed home the game-winner in extra time in the 115th minute, leaving a visibly exhausted Cincinnati side with little chance of a comeback.

Diego Rossi scored the late game-tying goal in the 86th minute.

The Crew onslaught that arrived after halftime. The visitors cancelled out two first-half scores from FC Cincinnati that were tallied even as Columbus dominated the flow of the contest.

Brandon Vazquez scored his first goal of the 2023 postseason in the 14th minute. It was his second career playoff goal for FC Cincinnati.

Then, on what was essentially the final kick of the first half, Luciano Acosta whipped in a free-kick that caromed off the lefthand post of Crew goalkeeper Patrick Schulte. Alvaro Barreal tapped the ball to Acosta, which seemed to freeze the Columbus defenders as Acosta curled the ball into the net.

The 2-0 lead, and especially the second goal, felt like it put FC Cincinnati firmly in control. But Columbus had bounced back for results at TQL Stadium after trailing 2-0 in the past. Saturday was the latest instance of that.

"The 2-0 lead was a good position but obviously we were still wary," defender Ian Murphy said. "They are a huge possession team. A really good possession team. They had dominated the majority of possession. They had their moments and created their chances, but we still felt good but also wary. "

For FCC, the loss closed the book on its best-ever season. The club claimed the league's regular-season championship, the Supporters' Shield, won numerous individual postseason awards and comfortably earned the top seed for the playoffs.

"It was a strong season. We moved in the right direction. We were able to win a trophy which is important, but the goal was to win an MLS Cup and I think we were close and that's why it hurts," Noonan said. "It hurts because of losing at home, hurts because of the scoreline mid-game and hurts because of who beat us tonight. So, there's a lot of things that have this a hard one to take. I feel for the guys, the staff, everybody in there who put a lot of hard work into positioning us to do something more. But it didn't happen.”

The defeat also capped the most tumultuous period during the otherwise picturesque 2023 season. FC Cincinnati swept its first-round MLS Cup playoff series against New York Red Bulls but following the Nov. 4 clincher at Red Bull Arena in Harrison, New Jersey, the club was faced with challenges that impacted the rest of its postseason run.

At no other point in the 10-month-long campaign was FC Cincinnati beset by off-field issues the way it was during the playoffs.

The disciplinary issues facing MLS Defender of the Year Matt Miazga grabbed the most attention. Miazga emerged from the Nov. 4 contest with two separate suspensions to serve. The first, for yellow-card accumulation, forced him to miss the Nov. 25 conference semifinal win over Philadelphia Union.

The second and more controversial of the two suspensions kept him out of the loss to Columbus and is scheduled to keep him out for the first two regular-season matches of 2024, although progress in a behavioral program could see the suspension reduced.

The announcement of the three-match suspension, which had already been appealed, was an unexpected blow.

"Not only is Matt a really good player but he's a big part of the team, a big leader," Murphy said. "It was big missing him... Obviously, it sucks not having him."

But MIazga was just the beginnings of FC Cincinnati's problems coming out of the Nov. 4 match. The club was physically battered at Red Bull Arena and key players including Santiago Arias and Obinna Nwobodo missed significant time during the rest of the playoff run.

Arias managed to improve to the point where he could start on Saturday against Columbus but Nwobodo was reduced to a substitute's role in the contest.

After all that, additional key players including center back Yerson Mosquera dealt will illness in the days leading up to Saturday's contest.

It was one thing after another for FCC. The last thing was a loss in the first-ever "Hell is Real" playoff match, which dropped Cincinnati to 3-7-4 against Columbus all-time.

“I think the guys were prepared. I think there were things that we worked on during the week that didn't play out as successfully in the game with just the recognition of some of their movements and how we wanted to press," Noonan said. "Again, it's not an effort issue. It was just tactically certain things that we just didn't get right. And again, it starts with me. I think I could have done a better job of positioning some guys to make more plays and not have us defend for long stretches. But we won't make any excuses now because the result didn't go our way because guys have stepped up all year. And I think for the majority of the game, guys still stepped in and did a really good job. But like I said, we didn't have enough tonight.”

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Columbus Crew advances to MLS Cup final over FC Cincinnati