The Columbus Crew saved their season in the third minute of stoppage time on Saturday, as substitute Brais Mendez scored the winner in a 4-3 Decision Day victory over Chicago Fire FC at SeatGeek Stadium that lifted Columbus directly into Round One of the Audi 2026 MLS Cup Playoffs as the No. 7 seed in the Eastern Conference.
According to the Columbus Dispatch, the Crew (14-15-5) trailed three times before rallying, and Mendez — who entered at halftime — sent his shot under the crossbar at 90+3 minutes to complete the comeback. Gonzalo Tapia scored two goals for Columbus and midfielder Taha Habroune assisted on two goals, the Dispatch reported, while Anass Zaroury added a tying goal in the first half.
The Associated Press reported that Chicago (16-11-7) finished fourth in the East despite the loss, with Robert Lewandowski scoring twice from the penalty spot in a five-goal first half, according to Yardbarker’s match report. Chicago will host Charlotte FC in the first round.
The stakes could hardly have been sharper. Had Columbus lost or drawn, the Crew would have opened the playoffs on the road in a wild-card edition of the Hell is Real rivalry against FC Cincinnati, the Dispatch reported. Instead, Cincinnati’s 2-0 loss to Nashville SC, reported by the Associated Press, helped Columbus jump from ninth place to seventh with 47 points, closing the regular season 9-1-0 over its final 10 matches.
MLSSoccer.com reported that the victory extended the Crew’s winning streak to six matches, the longest active streak in MLS, and capped a remarkable turnaround for a club that sat near the bottom of the East after losing the U.S. Open Cup final on Oct. 21. Interim head coach Laurent Courtois took over after head coach Henrik Rydstrom departed in May, MLSSoccer.com reported.
“They’re incredible,” Courtois told reporters about the Crew’s next opponents, according to MLSSoccer.com. “But I like us a lot.” Homegrown captain Sean Zawadzki told MLSSoccer.com that avoiding the wild-card game was especially valuable with players leaving on international break, adding of Miami: “Now it’s Miami. Everyone in the league, everyone around the world knows how good they are.”
The reward is a best-of-three Round One series against No. 2 seed Inter Miami CF and Lionel Messi — the reigning MLS Cup champions and the Crew’s first-ever playoff matchup with Miami, MLSSoccer.com reported. Columbus won the regular-season series between the clubs, drawing 2-2 in South Florida in August and winning 2-1 at home in September, according to MLSSoccer.com.
Dates and times for the Miami series were to be released by 5 p.m. ET on Nov. 8, the Dispatch reported. What happens next is simple to state and hard to do: the hottest team in the league takes its six-game winning streak into a playoff series against the defending champions, believing — as Zawadzki put it to MLSSoccer.com — that it can give everything it has against anyone.
Photo: Nova Crystallis, CC BY-SA