Columbus Crew head coach Wilfried Nancy believed his crew ‘performed with character’ of their 1-1 draw with Tigres within the Concacaf Champions Cup.
The Crew battled again after taking place a objective after Tigres legend Andre-Pierre Gignac opened the scoring 18 minutes in. Diego Rossi, who joined Columbus final summer time from Turkish giants Fenerbahce, introduced the sport to stage phrases simply earlier than halftime to provide the hosts hope of taking a lead into the second leg.
However it wasn’t meant to be, because the Crew rattled in 16 complete pictures (six on the right track) that was coupled with 53% possession at Decrease.com Area. Tigres managed to strike again towards the tip of the match with sustained stress after Aidan Morris was proven a second yellow card, however Columbus held on for the draw.
Earlier than entering into the specifics of how the match went, Nancy was posed a query about star ahead Cucho Hernandez, who missed the primary leg and Crew’s earlier match on account of “crew coverage.”
“We simply did the sport, and we’re speaking about Cucho? I’ve no reply for that,” Nancy stated. “We do not play tennis. We play soccer. Soccer, that is 11 gamers on the pitch. Be affected person.”
Nancy then dived into the Crew’s efficiency, and the way he believed his aspect performed properly in opposition to a “good” Tigres aspect.
“At the moment, we did a great job. Sure, they had been environment friendly on the objective of Gignac, however after that, we managed the sport. We had many possibilities. We didn’t rating extra targets. The best way we performed was a extremely good sport. We performed with character. We gained the battle of energy with the ball and with out the ball.
“We all know that Tigres is an effective crew. We did additionally a great sport, and we’re additionally a great crew. The thought is to relaxation, to organize for the sport in opposition to D.C. [United] and we’ll go at Tigres to attempt to win the sport as a result of we play to win video games,” he stated.
With the second leg rapidly approaching on April 9, Nancy is aware of his aspect could have it robust going through Tigres at their residence floor with a visit to the semifinals on the road.
“Relating to the second sport, going to must be sensible,” he stated. “A sport is 96 minutes. Once more, the concept goes to be to construct the sport realizing that we all know that it’ll be a tough one. We do not play at residence; we play away with the followers and so forth. Once more, the concept is to concentrate on the duty. We’ll put together one thing and attempt to rating the targets that we’d like. We’ll see. The thought is we go there to attempt to obtain one thing, and we’ll see after that.”
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