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On Monday, Columbus Crew SC had two Major League Soccer regular seasons firsts in 2020: a loss and being held scoreless. New York City FC was physical in the midfield, and successfully stifled the free-flowing Columbus offense. An errant Aboubacar Keita pass led to the only goal of the contest, sending the Crew SC home without a point.
The lineup against NYCFC featured plenty of player rotations, which camee as no surprise when there are only three days between matches and the club travels into the city on the day of the match. Milton Valenzuela and Harrison Afful were swapped out for Hector Jiminez and Chris Cadden and Homegrown pllayeer Sebastian Berhalter started in place of Artur in central midfield.
Speculation that playmaker Lucas Zelarayan could be available for the match did not turn into any playing time, as Caleb Porter left him off the team sheet.
On Saturday, the Black & Gold take a much shorter trip to Nippert Stadium, to play their second regular season match against FC Cincinnati. Cincinnati is coming off a 3-0 loss to the Chicago Fire at Soldier Field earlier this week.
It’s time for you to decide who should start this week. Make your selections below. Do you think Eloy Room, Zelarayan or Youness Mokhtar could return from injury? Did you like the performance of Keita to warrant starting him over Josh Williams? Does Emmanuel Boateng get his chance to start in one of the winger positions?
On Saturday, your Supporter XI will be compared to a contributor from Massive Report, before the 7:30 kickoff against FC Cincinnati.