NYCFC facing Columbus Crew, Playoffs
New York City FC travels to Ohio on Monday for the road leg of their MLS Playoffs Eastern Conference semifinals tie.
Columbus Crew SC stand in the way of progress to the Conference finals where Toronto or Red Bulls await and Patrick Vieira will be without two first-team players.
According to City, two players Miguel Camargo and Maxime Chanot remain sidelined, while James Sands comes back into the reckoning after helping U.S U-17s to the quarter-finals of the FIFA U-17 World Cup.
While Columbus, Alex Crognale, Gaston Sauro and Ben Swanson are all out, according to MLSSoccer.com.
The first leg kicks off at 8pm ET at the MAPFRE Stadium and NYCFC hosts Columbus on Sunday November 5 at a time TBC.
Injury Reports
NYCFC
OUT: Miguel Camargo, Maxime Chanot
Columbus Crew
OUT: Gaston Sauro, Ben Swanson, Alex Crognale
NYCFC has visited Columbus four times in their MLS history, with each team having won once and two draws between them. There has been an average of five goals per game across these four matches. NYCFC’s one win came on April 29th of this year, their only visit to Columbus in MLS play in 2017.
Columbus has won six of their last seven MLS home matches (1D) and outscored the opposition 14-5 across these games.
NYCFC only lost once in their final six matches road matches of the regular season (2W-3D) and only conceded five goals across the six games.
Zack Steffen had eight saves against Atlanta on Wednesday night, just the 10th time this season an MLS goalkeeper has had eight-or-more saves in a single match. It was only the third time this year a keeper has had at least eight saves and kept a clean sheet in the same match.
David Villa had six shots on target against Columbus in the MLS season finale, tied for the most he’s had in a single game of MLS action over the duration of his time with NYCFC.
NYCFC conceded six goals in the last 15 minutes of regular season games in 2017, tied for the fewest of any MLS team.
Crew SC scored nine goals from outside the box in the 2017 regular season, tied for the fourth most of any team in the league.
In 19 games that Josh Williams has started this regular season, Columbus averaged 1.8 points per game and 1.2 goals conceded per game. In the 15 games that Williams did not start, Crew SC averaged 1.3 points per game and 1.8 goals conceded per game.
NYCFC had five away clean sheets this year, tied for the most of any team in the league. Columbus scored 34 home goals this year, the eighth most of any team in the league.
Alexander Ring lead all players with 97 touches in the 2-2 draw between NYCFC and Crew SC on the last day of the 2017 regular season. Only one other player had more than 80, and only four total players had more than 75 touches in the game.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Ba43ZcnhZpG/
