FILE PHOTO | TROY HULL

McKinze Gaines and his Charlotte FC teammates mounted a comeback to draw Columbus Crew 2-2 Wednesday in a game suspended July 30 due to bad weather. The draw eliminated Charlotte from MLS playoff contention.

What might have been.

The inaugural season in Major League Soccer for Charlotte FC effectively ended without actually ending Wednesday when referee Matthew Conger’s whistle blew to end the Crown’s playoff chase with a 2-2 draw against the Columbus Crew. The draw, Charlotte’s first at home, along with Miami’s 4-1 win over Orlando, lifted the Crew into seventh place and left the Crown ninth, eliminated from the playoffs.

Charlotte went down 2-0 after 54 minutes but fought back to even the score and had chances to win.

“I’m very, very proud of my team,” said interim coach Christian Lattanzio. “I think this is a team that makes Charlotte FC proud. We fight until the end. We deserved more than a draw. I thought our boys really brought the game to them.  They played with heart, they played (smart).”

It was a 96-minute game that effectively took 66 days, 22 hours, and 53 minutes to finish from when it first kicked off on July 30 due to prolonged weather delays. For Charlotte FC, those two months could be measured in the hyperbole of light years as the personality and form of the squad continued to develop.

“It doesn’t feel like it should be over,” said midfielder Brandt Bronico, the High Point native and former Charlotte 49er star who came to Charlotte FC after four seasons in Chicago and became a fixture, with 32 starts in 33 games played in this season. “I feel like we should be in the playoffs. When I look back to the start of the season and how far we’ve come, I can’t think of anything but pride and love for these guys, everything we’ve been through together and pushed through, the adversity we faced, and how we became one team, how we became better.”

What might have been
Charlotte came into the match with a unique set of challenges based on where the team was two months ago and where it is now. Three August signings – Adilson Malanda, Nathan Byrne, and Nuno Santos – who have become influential in three straight wins coming into the game, could not play as they were not on the roster, let alone the official match roster on July 30.

While Lattanzio admittedly didn’t care for the restrictions, when prodded, he would not use them as an excuse.

Defensive leader Guzman Corujo has been out with a season-ending knee injury since Aug. 6 and July 30 starter Ben Bender was listed as questionable with a thigh injury. Jaylin Lindsey, on the bench for the first match date, was also listed as questionable with knocks on both sides, limiting a bench already down one man as Christian Makoun, who is no longer with the squad, could not be replaced.

The starting line-up in a 4-1-4-1 alignment on July 30 were Kristijan Kahlina (GK); defenders Joseph Mora, Anton Wales, Guzman Corujo, and Harrison Afful, with Brandt Bronico in front of them. Then came four midfielders/wingers – Yordi Reyna, Ben Bender, Quinn McNeill, and McKinze Gaines – with Karol Swiderski as the lone striker up top.

That same lineup took the field Wednesday, save for Jan Sobocinski filling in for Corujo. Tactically, there was one significant change with Bender playing up top as the single striker with Swiderski in the deeper attacking midfield slot.

“We were ready to go,” Bronico said. “We believe in every single one of the guys on this team no matter who’s on the field. We have a squad of 26, 30 guys, whatever the roster allows. Every single one of us is happy to play with any other guy on the team.”

That Kahlina played at all is a testimony to the toughness of the 30-year-old Croatian. The team’s TV broadcasters – Eric Krakauer and Lloyd Sam – described Kahlina’s injury as a dislocated right pointing finger with the bone showing while radio analyst Jessica Charman, a former goalkeeper, said that he could play with it, just a matter of how much pain he could tolerate. Several times during the match, Kahlina did not hold onto a ball he normally would have caught cleanly but would cover it before danger presented itself.

When the clock started at 15:58, Columbus came out swinging as they too were fighting for a post-season berth. Just 40 seconds in, Derrick Etienne Jr. rifled a shot off the outside of Kahlina’s right goalpost.

Charlotte’s first real chance came in the 28th minute when Bender started and almost finished a combination that moved from the attacking right over to the left where Mora’s cross found him in front of the left post with Crew keeper Eloy Room diving at his feet. It was enough to force Bender to shoot just wide.

Seven minutes later, Bender made a play for goal of the week when he gathered the ball inside the Charlotte half of the center circle, saw Room off his line and let fly with a 60-yard attempt that wasn’t high enough to clear the keeper.

Just as the home supporters were feeling more confident, it came crashing down less than a minute later after an unnecessary Charlotte foul. Lucas Zelarayan, perhaps inspired by Bender’s moxie, launched a ballistic missile of a direct kick from 4 yards over the midfield line that cught Kahlina unaware and too far off his line near the penalty spot. He couldn’t retreat fast enough and could only watch the ball ripple down the back of the net.

It was a spectacular effort – Lattanzio called it “individual brilliance” – that sucked all the air out of the stadium as the Crown were down 1-0. The Crown pressed but could not capitalize on offense. On the other end, Columbus continued to test Kahlina, who put the goal behind him and proved his shot-stopping skill.

While Charlotte had chances, Columbus dominated the half with 64% of possession, a 6-2 edge in shots, 3-1 on target.

Starting the second half, Lattanzio put in Daniel Rios and Derrick Jones for Bender and McNeill, getting the 11 closer to more recent lineups that led Charlotte to three straight wins.

Lattanzio said that neither Bender nor McNeill deserved to be pulled but that a change in tactics was needed. He wasn’t wrong but it would take a bit for it to pay dividends and by that time, the Crew doubled their lead with a goal by Luis Diaz in the 54th minute.

Four minutes later, Bronico took the ball in his own half, carried his dribble up some 40 yards up the pitch without impediment, laid it off to Reyna on his left who immediately crossed the ball to the far post where Rios’s snap header, his fifth goal in two games and seventh for the season, gave Room no chance.

From that point on, Charlotte looked like they were mainlining espresso, chasing down everything but still missing connections on the offensive end to their own frustration and that of the home crowd. But not so much that it would damper their effort to equalize with several dangerous crosses from Gaines and Afful left unfinished. Columbus, though, would not fold and remained every bit as dangerous as Charlotte remained aggressive.

Lattanzio expressed his pride in the effort.

“We created chances when we were 1-nil down, when we were 2-nil down,” he said.

Lattanzio said that when you go down to a team such as Columbus with their talented players like Zelarayan and Cucho Hernandez, who could hurt you at any moment, “it would be easy to be shaky, but our boys were very mature and very aggressive in their play, and if anything, they were more aggressive as the game went on.”

In the 72nd minute, another Gaines cross found the head of Bronico whose shot from 6 yards went straight at Room. Just seconds later Kahlina blocked a point-blank shot by Hernandez and shortly after that a blast by Zelarayan.

It was a fair, fast and furious fight with a relentless pace with the crowd coveting another goal by the Blue. Evidence of Charlotte’s second half command were the finals stats – 52% possession to the Crown, 15-17 shots, 7-8 on target.

In the 81st minute, Andre Shinyashiki came on for Gaines and that would prove omniscient as he would take a chipped ball from Rios four minutes into added time and head it in to bring Charlotte even at 2-2.

Twice Room would keep the Crown from finding a winner as they had done on the road in Chicago, coming back from two goals down to win 3-2. In the 86th minute, Jozwiak found Swiderski at the top of the box and his drive was kick-saved by the keeper who had to do it again on Shinyashiki’s rebound shot.

The final minute was frantic as Charlotte earned a free kick but Swiderski’s header in a crowd sailed over the goal.

Regarding the final match on Saturday against New York Red Bulls, Lattanzio said, “We will be ready because we have to honor every game. We want to continue our run. We have to keep going because I can see this team going places.”

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