The style of the normally possession-oriented, attacking Columbus Crew SC was a little different in Wednesday's 2-2 draw with the Vancouver Whitecaps – and for good reason.
Crew SC head coach Gregg Berhalter said the danger presented by Vancouver’s attack – spearheaded by the front four of Pedro Morales, Octavio Rivero, Darren Mattocks and Nicolas Mezquida, who was later replaced by Kekuta Manneh – led him to take a bit more defensive outlook into the match against the Supporters’ Shield leaders at BC Place.
"The game plan was compact defensive shape, counter attack," Berhalter told MLSsoccer.com in a postgame phone interview. "We knew that Vancouver is the most dangerous team in the league in offensive transition, bar none. With the players they've got, with Morales' passing and Rivero and Manneh and Mattocks and Mezquida doing the running, that's a very dangerous group in transition.
"I watched the LA game [a 2-0 Vancouver win on Saturday], and that wasn't pretty. So that was something we wanted to limit."
Crew SC players knew what they were up against as well, and midfielder Ben Speas, who replaced suspended playmaker Federico Higuain in the lineup, was happy with the results of the strategy.
"They're very dangerous, especially on the counter; they just like to go," Speas told media after the match. "We were able to hold them. They scored two goals, but so did we. I think it was a good result."
Berhalter and his players have touted the team's single-minded tactical approach many times, citing that they want to dictate their opponent's game. But the Crew SC boss doesn't see the obvious departure in style Wednesday as anything too out of the ordinary.
"If you look at our games, there are subtle changes every single game on how we play," he said. "That always has to do with the opponent. We make tweaks and slight adjustments based on who we're playing and how we can be most effective. The question today was, 'How can we be most effective?'"
The answer to that question was to get the ball to Kei Kamara. The forward notched both goals for Columbus on the night and was consistently dangerous on the break.
"It's my job; it's what I do," he said after the match. "Obviously, it's good to do it at the right time for the team and putting us in a good position. But it still could have been better."
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And Berhalter believed it could have been better as well, admitting that despite a 2,000-mile flight and a lineup without Hernan Grana, Emmanuel Pogatetz, Waylon Francis and Higuain, he expected a win in the heat of the match.
"When the game is over and the whistle has blown and it's 2-2, we can accept that," he said. "Other than that, we're disappointed that we led twice and conceded. The expectation, especially after taking the lead twice, is to win the game. But after the game is over you look back, and we can live with the point."
Kamara found the positive view of the match, especially as the team now faces a trip to face the New England Revolution at Gillette Stadium in just three days – another on turf, he noted.
"We've already played our first game on turf, so we'll be ready for the next game on turf," he said with a laugh. "We can score goals, we've seen that. We're really dangerous when we get forward. We've got to correct some stuff at the back and go forward and keep playing the game, keep believing that we can definitely get some points on the road."
