Now that forward Daniel Gazdag has finally scored and the Columbus Crew have won a home match, they can set their sights on climbing the Eastern Conference standings, starting with hosting the Philadelphia Union on Saturday.
It has been a rough go for the Crew’s designated player since the Union’s all-time leading scorer (59 goals) was acquired in a trade a year ago.
He had just four goals and four assists in 26 matches for the Crew (2-4-3, 9 points) last season. Under first-year coach Henrik Rydstrom this season, Gazdag found himself stuck on the bench for a stretch of four matches. But when leading scorer Wessam Abou Ali sustained a season-ending ACL tear on April 12, Rydstrom reinserted Gazdag looking to spark a struggling offense.
The move paid off when Gazdag scored his first goal of the season on Wednesday to help the Crew, ninth in the East, to a 2-1 victory over the LA Galaxy to improve to 1-1-2 at home.
“Obviously the last two months, I would say it was not the best two months of my life,” Gazdag said. “I was working hard every day on training and I was hoping to get a chance. I think I did good in the games that I played, but obviously I don’t want to stop now. I want to help the team as much as I can.”
The Union (1-6-2, 5 points) must rebound from a devastating 3-3 tie on Wednesday when in the sixth minute of stoppage time, Toronto FC’s Luka Gavran became the third goalkeeper in MLS history to score.
“We have to let that go and build on the positives and also make sure we have a look at these negatives,” Union coach Bradley Carnell said. “For sure, we’ll do that as well, but we move on to Columbus.”
One of the positives was Danley Jean Jacques scoring the second goal after Carnell moved him further up the right wing to put Toronto under pressure. The goal came off a turnover.
“That’s why we went with Danley,” Carnell said. “Just because of his physical nature and his athletic nature to get to get pressing cues and triggers and hunt the ball and stay in it and go all the way in taking the last step.”
–Field Level Media
