New England 2-2 Columbus Crew - Recap

For a second week in a row the Thursday night match has resulted in an exciting 90-minutes of play. Let's hope this is a trend that continues for many more weeks to come.

Columbus needed to shut down New England in the middle and for most of the night they did just that. In addition, they applied lots of early pressure and forced the Revs to make mistakes.

Right from the get go Ricardo Virtuoso and company were pressing against New England and sure enough it resulted in some good chances. This attack caused NE to get sloppy and that lead to Ned Grabavoy's goal in just the eighth minute.

But the Revs were not the only team with sleeping defense as just two minutes later Andy Dorman left defenders in the dust and equalized for his side. And then came Taylor Twellman.

Twellman was missing for the first 30-minutes but when he found his place he made the bubble bees pay. He stole the ball from midfield, raced forward with it then slammed a shot in from 20+ yards catching Andy Gruenebaum flatfooted. This is the Twellman we all love to watch. He was confident and strong.

The second half saw tests on both sides of the ball, but it seemed New England's defense was the more disorganized of the two. I don't know if it was miscommunication between Matt Reis and his backline or what, but far too often they seemed out of place. Sure enough, this poor defended allowed the Crew to find an equalizer on an easy strike by Kei Kamara.

Kamara was sitting alone and unmarked in the middle of the area when Frankie Hejduk slipped a perfect low pass to him. The Revs should have stopped the pass and had Kamara marked, but their bad orientation caused them to end up as spectators to the final goal of the night.

In the end, the Crew more then earned their third tie of the season, while New England will go home wondering what happened.

I thought that if Columbus closed down Shalrie Joseph they would have a chance in this match and sure enough, that is what they did. That said, the Revs still could have won this game if they had marked their men in the box.

Both the wife and I were wrong with out predictions, which means I'm not 4-10 while she is 3-11. That is sad territory.

On a different note, I hope MLS reviews the tapes and slap Andy Herron with a one-game suspension. His elbow to Jay Heaps was deliberate and in retaliation. I like Herron but his actions were disgusting.

New England Revolution 2-2 Columbus Crew
Goals: CC: Ned Grabavoy 8', Kei Kamara 86'
NE: Andy Dorman 10', Taylor Twellman 38'