The Columbus Crew will try to get back to winning on two fronts when they host struggling Sporting Kansas City on Saturday.
A 2-1 loss at Inter Miami on Wednesday snapped a four-match winning streak to end the five-match trip on a down note for the Crew (7-3-6, 27 points).
Miami was absent Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez because of Copa America, but the Crew fell behind 2-0, including a goal off a corner kick.
“We have grown a lot regarding these kind of (away) games,” Crew coach Wilfried Nancy said. “I would have preferred to concede in another way. This is a positive, what we’ve done the few last games that we’ve had. It could have been better in terms of the way we did this game.”
In addition to the five MLS road matches, the Crew also played the final of the CONCACAF Champions Cup in Mexico against CF Pachuca since their last home match on May 11 vs. FC Cincinnati.
That didn’t end well for Columbus, with a 2-1 loss that ended an 18-match regular-season home unbeaten streak as well as a 27-match unbeaten stretch in Columbus in all competitions.
Enter Sporting Kansas City (3-11-5, 14 points), who have lost two straight and nine of 10. They are 1-10-2 in the past 13 matches to sit 13th in the Western Conference.
A comeback against Real Salt Lake fell short Wednesday in a 4-3 defeat to the conference leaders.
“Of course, we’re really frustrated because we keep pushing hard all the time and every time we’re down, we keep coming back,” Sporting KC defender Zorhan Bassong. “We have just got to keep going and keep it up and I think it’s going to come. We have just got to work harder in training and that’s it.”
The Crew play four of the next six at home and hope to make up ground in the Eastern Conference. They are sixth in points but have at least two matches in hand on every team in front of them due to their Champions Cup schedule and rank third in points per match (1.69).
Cucho Hernandez returned from injury for the Pachuca match and leads Columbus with six goals in MLS competition.
–Field Level Media