Columbus Crew stuns Cincinnati with two clinical strikes, wins 0-2 despite home dominance

FC Cincinnati controlled the ball, piled up 23 shots, and finished with nothing to show for it. Cincinnati fell 0-2 to the Columbus Crew at TQL Stadium, in an MLS match where possession and chances weren't enough to overturn a result settled by the visitors' efficiency.

Columbus struck first on a set piece. In the 21st minute, off a corner kick, Brais Mendez whipped in a cross and Gonzalo Tapia connected with a point blank header, low and inside the left post, for the 0-1. Cincinnati had already had its own looks before that goal, a header from Teenage Hadebe that went wide in the 6th minute, a shot from Evander in the 14th that drifted left of the post, but couldn't turn its control of the game into a lead.

The blow that sealed the match came right at the start of the second half. In the 53rd minute, just seconds after Evander had rattled a shot off the goalkeeper, Taha Habroune finished with his right foot from the center of the box, once again set up by Tapia, to make it 0-2. That goal proved decisive: from there, Cincinnati kept generating volume, with Tom Barlow, Kenji Mboma Dem, Ayoub Jabbari and Evander himself all testing their luck at various points, but ran into the Columbus defense time and again, and couldn't find the finishing touch.

Dominance that didn't translate into goals

The match stats tell that story of superiority without a payoff. The home side finished with 68.1% possession and fired 23 shots to Columbus's 3, though only 7 of those shots were on target. The match's estimated xG, calculated from shot locations, gives Cincinnati 1.70 expected goals against Columbus's 0.38, a gap that confirms the hosts created significantly more danger, even if it never showed up on the scoreboard.

Heading into the match, our projection gave FC Cincinnati a 43% chance of winning, against 34% for Columbus Crew and 23% for a draw, with expected goals split 2.01 for the home side and 1.79 for the visitors. What actually happened was the opposite of what that projection suggested: the favorite dominated play but didn't score, while the visitors closed out the game with two efficient finishes on their few trips into the opposing box.

The match also had its share of incidents: Julian Malatini had to leave the field injured in the 17th minute, making way for Nick Hagglund, and yellow cards went to Samuel Gidi, Teenage Hadebe, Andre Gomes and Dylan Chambost late in the match.

What the result means in the standings

In the Eastern Conference, Cincinnati came into this match with 36 points from 29 games (9 wins, 9 draws, 11 losses), while Columbus had 35 points from 30 matches (10 wins, 5 draws, 15 losses). The gap between the two sides before this meeting was just 1 point, and today's result shifts that margin between two teams battling in the middle of the table, far from the position held by Nashville SC, which leads the way with 67 points.

For Columbus Crew, the goals from Tapia and Habroune, with Tapia also setting up the second, ended up outweighing all the offensive pressure Cincinnati threw at them at TQL Stadium. For the home side, there's the lingering feeling of a match controlled from start to finish, but without the finishing needed to turn that control into points.