NASHVILLE, Tenn. — For the second weekend in a row, the Crew went on the road to face one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference. And for the second weekend in a row, they came up short.
After losing at FC Cincinnati last Saturday , the No. 1 team in the Eastern Conference standings, the Crew met the same fate at Nashville SC on Sunday, losing 3-1 to the No. 2 team in the East in front of a sellout crowd of 30,109 at Geodis Park. The Crew's early lead was undone by conceding three straight goals in the second half.
"We started well. It is not easy to play against this team," Crew coach Wilfried Nancy said. "We knew that. We had not many chances, I would say. We were under pressure but we were able to contain and to maintain the pressure in the first half. We had good moments where we were able to come out from the pressure.
"But we don't attack well. We got punished. We got punished, and this is what happened against a team that they are really good on counter-attack."
The Crew needed less than 90 seconds after kickoff to take the lead in emphatic fashion. Midfielder Aidan Morris received the ball just over the halfway line and found forward Cucho Hernandez running toward the goal. Hernandez was quickly swarmed by three defenders, but he turned past Nashville midfielder Dax McCarty to pick out a pass to midfielder Yaw Yeboah running into a pocket of space.
Yeboah took two touches before unleashing a left-footed strike from 24 yards out that sailed into the upper right corner of the net.
Yeboah's goal, the second of his MLS career, set the tone for a frenetic first half. Nashville began chasing for an equalizer immediately, and came close on several occasions, but the Crew's defense and goalkeeper Patrick Schulte did just enough to maintain the Crew's lead through 45 minutes.
The second half opened with nearly the same pace as the first half, with the Crew holding slightly more possession. The Crew having more of the ball, and thus turning the ball over during unsuccessful attacking sequences, opened more space for Nashville's attack in transition, which Nashville took advantage of in the sequence leading to the tying goal.
In the 55th minute, midfielder Hany Mukhtar picked up the ball and dribbled toward the Crew's goal, running directly at defender Philip Quinton in the middle of the Crew's back line. The ball was deflected out for a corner kick.
Mukhtar delivered an arcing ball into the six-yard box, and the ball dropped in front of forward Fafa Picault , who tapped it past a desperate lunge from Schulte to tie the game in the 57th minute.
In the 80th minute, Nashville's second goal was nearly a mirror image of its first. On a corner kick from the other side of the field, midfielder Teal Bunbury hit a sharp header that bounced on the goal line and into the top of the net to give Nashville the 2-1 lead.
"Obviously, we have to defend better the corner," Nancy said. "The second action (was) the same. We lost the ball. We tried to force the play. It was not easy, that one, but the idea is we knew that if we force the play, we can be in trouble, because they go really quick forward. This is what happened. (On the) corner, we have to fight."
Set-piece defending has been a relative strength for the Crew across the balance of the season, but attacking set pieces are one of the keys to Nashville's success. The Crew knew that, but being aware of Nashville's threat on set pieces and being able to stop it aren't necessarily the same thing, and it wasn't for the Crew on Sunday.
"We didn't do well on set pieces," Quinton said. "We know that that's where they're strong. We just weren't tight enough there. ... That's what they do well, so for us, it was just trying to match their intensity on it. They're a good team at it and we weren't at our best."
Willis and Schulte traded saves in second-half stoppage time as the game opened up in both directions, with the Crew hoping to silence the crowd with a late equalizer and Nashville looking to put an exclamation point on their come-from-behind win.
Hernandez went up for a bicycle kick off a lofted pass from Morris in the 92nd minute, but Willis had just enough time to step to his right and grab the ball out of the air. The Crew had two more chances after that, but neither was as threatening as Hernandez's attempted acrobatic finish.
And as the final blow to a once-promising game for the Crew, Mukhtar received a long ball with nothing but space in front of him in the 97th minute, racing down the right side of the field. Morris sprinted back to try to stop Mukhtar, but his presence only delayed the inevitable — and made it an even more resounding finish to the win.
With a series of his trademark stepovers, Mukhtar created space for himself, worked around Morris and fired a shot from a sharp angle that sailed over both Morris and Schulte and into the net.
While Mukhtar saluted the crowd and soaked in the celebration, Morris kicked the ad boards in anger, a frustrated final image for the Crew's third consecutive loss.
"We know that Nashville, they are physical and they put a lot of pressure. We to analyze a bit that and move forward," Nancy said. "And work. And work, and work, and work, and work to be better."
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Crew lose 3-1, concede three to Nashville SC in second half
