A Case For Single-Elimination? It’s Still All To Play For Between Columbus And Toronto

A capacity crowd of 21,211 at MAPFRE Stadium provided an electric atmosphere for Tuesday night’s MLS Cup Eastern Conference Final between the Columbus Crew and Toronto FC, but a deserved breakthrough for the Crew — who dominated the second half and landed three shots on target as opposed to zero for the visitors — never arrived.

The first soccer-specific stadium in America was the highlight of the opening 45 with Michael Bradley’s every touch, and there were a lot of them, booed vociferously as the pantomime villain for the USA’s World Cup failure. “Save the Crew!” chants also echoed around the ground as the enormity of the occasion sweltered before falling flat, at least on the pitch, for the better part of an hour.

Tonight at Mapfre we’ll have action teams patrolling the parking lot & posted up near the gates to distribute our 15,000 #SaveTheCrew signs. Make sure you get one! pic.twitter.com/wZxWzB04xw

— #SaveTheCrew (@Save_The_Crew) November 21, 2017

Special mention should also go to the Toronto supporters who traveled over 400 miles en masse to watch their Supporters’ Shield Champions, but both sets of fans will now look forward to the return leg at BMO Field with their own reasons for angst.

For the Crew, it was the inability to defeat a Toronto side without two of its biggest attacking threats, Jozy Altidore and Sebastian Giovinco (who’ll both return for the second leg after a 24-day layoff!). Columbus grew into the game as the second half wore on, and you got the feeling that if the game had been 15 minutes longer, they would’ve scored a goal or three.

They caused Toronto serious concern on three separate occasions, although the Canadian side will say, and rightly so, that they managed the game commendably.

A chance!

Pedro Santos gets a yellow for wanting this play to be reviewed. What do y'all think? #CrewSC #TFCLive #MLSCupPlayoffs #CLBvTOR pic.twitter.com/t1lLMHE7YY

— GolazoJuice (@GolazoJuice) November 22, 2017

This time!

Artur with a long distance shot! #CrewSC #TFCLive #MLSCupPlayoffs #CLBvTOR pic.twitter.com/fMGgWGISAm

— GolazoJuice (@GolazoJuice) November 22, 2017

SURELY!

Harrison Afful finds himself in the right place at the right time, but Alex Bono comes up with a big save to deny him! #CrewSC #TFCLive #CLBvTOR #MLSCupPlayoffs pic.twitter.com/0sUgs3GWcS

— GolazoJuice (@GolazoJuice) November 22, 2017

For Toronto, their main concern will be the fact that they didn’t register an away goal, meaning that a score draw would send them crashing out in the return leg. To be fair to Greg Vanney and his men, this seemed like the plan. Bradley protected the back four well, and they now return home as heavy favorites.

It’s on to Toronto for next Wednesday’s match with a shot at hosting the 2017 MLS Cup on the line.