March 23, 2024 – Major League Soccer (MLS)
Charlotte FC News Release
After a somewhat hilarious start to the match – where referee Christopher Calderon had Charlotte FC retake the opening kickoff two separate times over the course of a full minute – it was a breathless, crazy, insane opening 25 minutes. There was nearly too much action packed into that opening stint to fully recap.
Columbus star striker Cucho Hernandez nearly found the top corner straight away. Then, Patrick Agyemang got in behind on the other end, firing into the side netting from a very tight angle. Then, Columbus smashed the ball against Kristijan Kahlina’s near post from a recycled corner kick. Then, CLTFC put together a great combination inside the box, ending with Brecht Dejaegere slotting across the six-yard box for Agyemang, who couldn’t get a foot on the ball. Then, Ashley Westwood picked up a yellow card for dissent after an obvious handball call was missed.
All of that happened in just the opening 15 minutes of the first half.
Then! Then, Charlotte FC found the back of the net in chaotic fashion in the 20th minute, only to see it chalked off by the referee for a foul on Agyemang. Dejaegere had a goal on a platter with an empty net but fluffed the bouncing cross. In the subsequent scramble inside the box, Agyemang poked it to Djibril Diani who passed the ball into the corner of the net. However, Agyemang was judged to have fouled Darlington Nagbe on the play, which held up under video review.
Don’t worry. The craziness didn’t stop there. At the 25-minute mark, former CLTFC midfielder Derrick Jones got sent off with a straight red card. The referee went to a video review after Jones and Diani came together in midfield, and the video showed Jones stepping on Diani’s ankle (in what appeared to be an unintentional, but painful and potentially dangerous, collision).
To add a wrinkle, the Crew had already substituted twice. One was Jones himself entering for an injured Rudy Camacho, and the other was Arfsten in for Christian Ramirez. This meant they had used two of their possible three substitution windows (five total subs are available, but only in three windows). So, since bringing another player on to change the tactics when down to 10 men would mean they were out of substitutions, Columbus elected to hold on to it.
Got all that? Good!
The rest of the first half was much more pedestrian than that opening stint. It was mostly characterized by lots of fouls, but not many clear chances or…
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