Strong gusts of wind paired with soft turf and the in-your-face attitude of the Chicago Fire made things hard for Columbus Saturday evening.
Despite yet another dominating display of possession, the Black and Gold left Toyota Park with a single point after battling the Fire to a 0-0 draw. Crew SC (0-2-1, 1 point) maintained possession for 58.1-percent of the match.
“It’s frustrating,” Columbus coach Gregg Berhalter told press after the match. “Like I said, (Chicago) was compact and we didn’t do a good job of overloading the wings and getting opportunities.”
After a few chances in the first half, Columbus struggled to build momentum late in the game despite a few decent range shots. Chicago (o-1-2, 1 point) even came back with some firepower of their own – no pun intended.
Justin Meram – making his first start of the year for Columbus – was issued a yellow card in the 38th minute after tripping up a Chicago defender.
“You could tell he was a little uncertain but as I told him when he was coming off the field, what I’m most happy of and most proud of is the way he worked and gave everything he had,” Berhalter said.
Berhalter added that Meram wasn’t perfect but that he put on an exceptional performance.
Despite being a scoreless affair, the 0-0 draw marks the first clean sheet for Columbus in 2016 after the club recorded six in 2015. For goalkeeper Steve Clark, this was his 15th career MLS clean sheet.
The draw with Chicago was the 29th all-time scoreless draw in Columbus history. It’s the club’s first since an April 2015 scoreless draw at New England.
“I think we aim to win every game but we’re pretty happy with the shutout and we’ll take the point,” Clark said.
Columbus had 12 total shots with four on target, far overlapping Chicago’s four total shots and sole shot on the mark. Chicago played exceptionally well on the defensive end and forced Kei Kamara to be a non-factor. The Fire often doubled-up on the 2015 leading MLS scorer, leaving much of the attack to Meram, Ethan Finlay and Federico Higuain.
Berhalter said that opponents are figuring out how to slow down the Columbus attack.
“Given how the game went, we still need to get sharp in front of goal,” Berhalter said. “Give Chicago credit, they defended with a lot of guys. That’s what happened, teams are making it tough on us. … We have to deal with that and we’re in the process of doing so.”
Berhalter mentioned that despite the early woes for the season, that Crew SC is in no trouble if we compare this point to last year.
“To put it all in perspective, we’re fine,” he said. “It’s a long season. It’s finally starting to sink in how teams want to play against us and how hard each win, each point, each goal is going to be.”
He added that Columbus will be fine, they’ll move on do what they need to do. When asked about the conditions of the field and weather, Berhalter called them “just excuses.”
“We don’t make excuses for our performance.”
