Columbus Crew SC managed to toss away a two goal lead on Friday night as a 94th minute equalizer earned Chicago Fire a point at MAPFRE Stadium.
Crew SC had largely dominated the game and Kei Kamara grabbed another brace, yet the home team looked a little too casual and missed too many opportunities to put the game well beyond the Fire.
It took only 8 minutes for Kamara to open the scoring. Ethan Finlay burst into the Fire box and put the ball onto the foot of the waiting Kamara who calmly tapped the ball past veteran goalkeeper Jon Busch in the Chicago goal.
From then on it felt like this could easily become an effortless game for the home team but something didn’t seem to be clicking on the field as passes got lost and players found themselves offside and out of position far more than usual.
The second-half started out much like the first with Crew SC scoring. The largely ineffective Federico Hiquain delivered a corner that ended up on the head of Kamara to grab his second goal of the evening and give Crew SC more reason to sit back and relax.
It didn’t take long before Chicago were back in the game as Kennegy Igboananike went flying down the left side to cross the ball to David Accam to put the ball past a desperate looking Steve Clark.
The final moments of the game came with a Fire onslaught as Crew SC looked shaken and unorganized. Quincy Amarikwa came close on several occasions and with almost the last kick of the game the Fire did find the equalizing goal when former Crew defender Eric Gehrig put the ball onto the head of Jason Johnson who silenced the majority of the MAPFRE Stadium crowd.
Crew SC are next at home this coming Wednesday for a friendly game against Spanish team Valencia CF.
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Matt Ellis is a freelance photographer who covers bands that visit the city and the Columbus Crew MLS team. More about Matt can be found at Matt Ellis Photography.
