Malte Amundsen scored two goals, his first career multi-goal game in Major League Soccer, and the Columbus Crew beat Toronto FC 4-2 on Saturday in Columbus, extending a late-season run that has pulled the Crew into the Eastern Conference’s final wild-card position.
Gonzalo Tapia opened the scoring in the 16th minute, running onto a ball played ahead by Santiago Rodriguez and finishing a first-touch cross from Mohamed Farsi into a wide-open net. Amundsen made it 2-0 five minutes later, heading home a corner kick from Dylan Chambost, who finished the night with three assists.
Amundsen struck again in the 48th minute, redirecting another Chambost cross to give Columbus a 3-0 lead. Brooks Lennon added the Crew’s fourth goal, and goalkeeper Patrick Schulte made five saves to protect the advantage through a tense closing stretch.
Toronto pushed back after halftime. Daniel Salloi scored in the 69th minute and Josh Sargent added a goal in the 81st, cutting into the Columbus lead. The Crew also had to finish a man down after Sekou Bangoura was shown his second yellow card in the 70th minute, leaving the home side to defend the final 20 minutes short-handed.
The win was Columbus’s third in a row and its fifth in its last six games. The Crew improved to 38 points on the season, two ahead of Toronto and the New York Red Bulls in the race for the conference’s final wild-card spot, a margin that matters with the regular season winding down.
For Toronto, Luka Gavran made two saves in the loss. The visitors created chances late but could not find an equalizer against a Columbus side that bent under pressure without breaking, even after the sending-off changed the shape of the game.
Columbus now turns to a midweek test, with Nashville hosting Philadelphia on Wednesday in a result Crew fans will watch closely, while Toronto heads to Montreal on Wednesday. For a Crew team that has found its form at the right time, Saturday’s four-goal night was the clearest sign yet that the playoff push is real.
Photo: Nova Crystallis, CC BY-SA