Iv\u00e1n Angulo scored the go-ahead goal in the 89th minute, and Antoine Griezmann added a goal and an assist to help Orlando City beat the Columbus Crew 3-2 on Saturday night at Inter.co Stadium.<\/p>\n
It was, however, the play of goalkeeper Maxime Cr\u00e9peau that kept the Lions in a match they needed to win.<\/p>\n
Cr\u00e9peau set a club record for saves in a match with 12. He made several key stops, holding Columbus to only two goals despite the visitors peppering him with 26 shots and an expected goals (xG) of 4.17 compared to 20 and 1.78 for Orlando.<\/p>\n
Orlando City had to claim all three points to bolster its playoff hopes against a Columbus side that is one of several teams trying to catch the Lions in the Eastern Conference standings in MLS.<\/p>\n
Orlando City improved to 11-13-4 with 37 points. They are seventh in the conference table, a point ahead of Red Bull New York and FC Cincinnati, which both won Saturday. Columbus is 8-15-5 with 29 points.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery guy will have to take his responsibilities,\u201d Cr\u00e9peau\u00a0 said, \u201cand sometimes you have one save, two saves, three saves, and sometimes you have plenty. You have to answer that call when it happens.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery single one of us did put in a shift, and tonight, it was my little aspect, my little time to say, \u2018Okay guys, let\u2019s do it,\u2019 and we have to answer the call when the phone rings.\u201d<\/p>\n
Angulo\u2019s winner in the 89th minute came on the counter-attack for Orlando. Cr\u00e9peau started the push with an excellent point-blank save, allowing the Lions to break forward. Mart\u00edn Ojeda and Angulo connected up in the box, with Angulo smashing it past Patrick Schulte for the winning goal.<\/p>\n
Angulo has now scored in five consecutive MLS appearances and has a career-high six goals on the season.<\/p>\n
Rookie forward Harvey Sarajian got Orlando City on the board immediately, scoring 46 seconds into the match<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it was a gritty performance from the boys,\u201d said Sarajian, who made his first career start in his 10th appearance. \u201cWe were neck and neck the entire game. We didn\u2019t play our best, but we got through it in the end.\u201d<\/p>\n
Griezmann assisted with a one-time pass that found an open Sarajian for his second career MLS goal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe coach was always telling me to stay in an offside position when the ball is on the other side, so I did, and then Grizi played it over, and it fell right to me, and I just slotted it,\u201d Sarajian said. \u201cIt would have been nice to get a couple more goals, but it didn\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Columbus evened it up at 1-1 in the seventh minute. Orlando\u2019s back line was caught off guard, allowing Taha Habroune to get past them to fire a shot into the back of the net.<\/p>\n
Griezmann put Orlando back up 2-1 on a free kick goal in the 16th minute. He whipped the ball toward the far post, and it managed to clear the defenders in the box and past goalkeeper Schulte. The 35-year-old Greizmann, who joined Orlando City in July, has nine goals and five assists in 12 career MLS appearances.<\/p>\n
Orlando conceded a second in the 53rd minute after a Cr\u00e9peau mistake. The Canada keeper came off his line to stop Brais Mendez, but Mendez got around Cr\u00e9peau and scored into an empty net to make it 2-2.<\/p>\n
The trailing duo of David Brekalo and Robin Jansson could not catch up in time, with both center-backs left watching as the lead evaporated despite coach Martin Perelman making defensive-minded substitutions by bringing on Bernardo Rhein and Zakaria Tiafi.<\/p>\n
Orlando City now faces a quick turnaround, with the Lions taking on 11th place Toronto FC (7-10-11, 32 points) on the road Wednesday. If the Lions reach the postseason, it would be their seventh consecutive appearance and extend the longest active playoff streak in MLS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iv\u00e1n Angulo scored the go-ahead goal in the 89th minute, and Antoine Griezmann added a goal and an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[28,1335,139,4788,141,140,2062,76046,110],"class_list":["post-424617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-florida","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-city-sc","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-soccer","tag-social-sports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}