The Columbus Crew won a second-straight match on Saturday night when the Black & Gold took down Orlando City SC, 4-3 at Lower.com Field. The high-scoring win separated the gap between the third and fourth-place sides ahead of Wednesday’s Campeones Cup.
“I'm happy with the win because I told the players, ‘Yes, I could have talked about the way we conceded goals and so on, but when I look back about the schedule that we have and we won tonight, for me, this is perfect,” head coach Wilfried Nancy said after the win.
The Crew took the lead at the half-hour mark through a clever Mohamed Farsi interception that led to a Diego Rossi goal. Farsi seized a lightly-hit pass, then distributed the ball to Christian Ramirez. The forward then found his Uruguayan teammate, who put the home side in front.
Ramirez scored a goal of his own in the 51st minute when he nodded home a lovely Max Arfsten cross.
Cucho Hernández gave Columbus a three-goal lead in the 71st minute for his 15th league goal of the season.
Orlando then scored two goals to make it a 3-2 match, but AZ Jackson scored the eventual game winner in the 86th minute when he coolly slotted a Jacen Russell-Rowe cross past Pedro Gallese. The goal was Jackson’s first for the Crew and capped off an excellent evening for the new signing.
“I’m happy for him,” Nancy said of Jackson. “Aziel knows the league. He has good quality. That’s why he is with us. Now he knows that he has to work on certain things. He did well in terms of try to be more resilient. He is able to do it, but I want him to be more consistent with that.
“The goal that he scored, this is the reward of the work that he did the last three weeks – simple as that. If I put the goal on the side, he did a good game. He did a good game. I'm happy for him because now step by step, he understands why I gave him a lot of challenges like this. Good for him.”
At 22 years and 332 days old, AZ became the third-youngest player in Club history to record at least two assists and a goal in a single match, behind only Edson Buddle who accomplished the feat twice before turning 22.
The visitors added a goal late, but it wasn’t enough to deny Columbus three points and keep the side third in the Eastern Conference with five regular season matches remaining.
Next up is a championship match, though. On Wednesday night, the Crew host Liga MX side Club America in the Campeones Cup at Lower.com Field.
“Very excited,” Ramirez said of the championship match. “Another opportunity to play in the final in front of our home crowd and play for a trophy. This is what we play for, to be in these situations, and we’re thankful that we’re as healthy as we are and we’re in the position that we’re in. So now we’ll recover for these next few days and prepare for América on Wednesday.”
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