Diego Rossi strikes again (and again), lifts Columbus Crew past Philadelphia Union | Arace
The planets aligned. Maybe it was the big Blue Moon that’s out this week. In any event, Crew forward Diego Rossi finally got an airborne ball that was low enough for him to score on a header.
That may be a crass joke about a vertically challenged athlete, but it’s not unprecedented. Crew coach Wilfried Nancy has been ribbing Rossi, who is 5 feet 7 and 143 pounds, about his lack of cranial finish.
“He can score any kind of goal, but I’m waiting for him to score with his head,” Nancy told the Apple TV studio talking heads prior to the Crew-Philadelphia Union game Wednesday night.
And there it was. Rossi converted on a header in the 12th minute and scored again on a right-footed scissor in the 43rd minute to lead the Crew to a 3-1 victory over Philadelphia in the new Crew Stadium. Note: Rossi very nearly scored on another header in the second half, but a desperate jab by Union keeper Andre Blake thwarted the shot at a hat trick.
“I am happy for him because before the game, I teased him a bit with ‘la cabeza’ to score a goal like this, and he did it,” Nancy said.
“La cabeza.” The head.
“Good for him,” Nancy said, “and good for us.”
With the victory, the Crew move on to the Leagues Cup final. It’ll be played at the new Crew Stadium at 7:15 p.m. Sunday. The opponent will be Los Angeles FC, a 4-0 winner over Colorado in the other semifinal.
It will be a rematch of the 2023 MLS Cup final, which the Crew won 2-1 in Columbus in December. It will also be the Crew’s third final in just over nine months, counting the Champions Cup earlier this year.
Cucho Hernandez, who scored his 50th goal in his 80th game in a Black & Gold jersey Wednesday night, is the most punishing scorer on the roster (“a killer,” according to Philadelphia coach Jim Curtin). But Rossi, too, has a feel for the moment. He scored one of the biggest goals of the playoffs last fall when he potted the second-half equalizer in the Crew's epic comeback victory over Cincinnati in the Eastern Conference final.
He scored on the road against Tigres and Monterrey during the Crew's Champions Cup run. And right now, he’s on fire. In four Leagues Cup matches, he has three two-goal games. He is tied for the tournament lead with LAFC's Denis Bouanga, who has six goals in six games.
Rossi has 11 goals and 18 goal contributions his past 11 matches across all competitions.
“I’m not surprised,” said teammate Christian Ramirez. “When he gets on these rolls, he’s tough to stop."
Crew fans will never forget Lucas Zelarayan, the MVP of the 2020 MLS Cup final and torchbearer for a line of Argentine playmakers (Federico Higuain, Guillermo Barros Schelotto) who did Columbus proud. Zelarayan was sold to Saudi Arabian team in July. Two days later, it was announced that the team had acquired Rossi from Turkish powerhouse Fenerbahçe for a price in the range of $6.8 million.
There was a reason for swapping Zelarayan for Rossi, but no one in the organization, out of respect Zelarayan’s legacy, said it out loud. The reason was this: In Nancy’s dynamic, 3-4-2-1 formation, Rossi is a better fit. Rossi is 10 years younger, and his speed allows the Crew attack to better stretch defenses and to more quickly counter-press.
Rossi filled up the stat sheet when he was with LAFC from 2018-21. At age 22, he became the youngest Golden Boot winner in MLS history in 2020. (He said that is the last time he scored on a header, before LA sold him to Fenerbahçe.)
Rossi did not fill up the stat sheet immediately upon his arrival in Columbus. There were reasons. For one thing, it takes time to digest Nancy’s system. For another, it takes fresh legs. As Nancy noted last year, and again Wednesday night: Rossi in 2023 played nonstop between Europe and Columbus.
“When we did preseason with him this year, it was the first time (in a year) that he had more than 15 days off,” Nancy said. “He needed time, and also, he's able to adjust.
"What I like about him, he's able to do many things. I challenged him with the head, and he scored. Now, I'm going to challenge him with something else. He’s a really good example in terms of work ethic and of a leadership, a quiet leadership. This is also something that I like with Diego.”
Diego is en fuego. The Nordecke is conjuring Dora the Explorer's cousin and chanting “Go, Diego! Go!” And there's the dino thing: Hernandez likens Rossi’s running style to that of a dinosaur, and they make dinosaur arms as part of their goal celebrations.
They celebrate with frequency.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Leagues Cup final is a rematch of MLS Cup final: LAFC at Columbus Crew
