KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- The Kansas City Wizards came within a minute of taking a much-desired lead to Columbus for the second match of their Eastern Conference Semifinal Series. But they aren't going to fret about it -- there's still another 90 minutes to go.
"It was a hard-fought game. We said from the beginning it's who the winner is after 180 minutes. After 90, it's even," said Wizards head coach Curt Onalfo. "It's like going into halftime 1-1 as far as I'm concerned."
Onalfo saw his team lose a 1-0 lead in the second minute of stoppage time while a man down. The Crew's Steven Lenhart put in a shot from 17 yards off a ball that had bounced around repeatedly in the Wizards' box.
The leveling goal came 16 minutes after Kansas City's Herculez Gomez earned a straight red card for a two-legged tackle on Crew left back Gino Padula. Sitting on the field after suffering a possible foul the moment before, Gomez tried to tackle Padula as he raced back up the field with the ball the other way, and after coming in late, earned his marching orders from referee Jorge Gonzalez.
The ejection came after the Crew had hit goalkeeper Kevin Hartman's crossbar twice in the 62nd and 65th minutes, through shots by Guillermo Barros Schelotto and Frankie Hejduk, but before that, the second half belonged to Kansas City.
In the 53rd minute, Wizards center midfielder Davy Arnaud gave his side the lead. Playing a slicing ball out wide for forward Claudio Lopez, Arnaud made a beeline for the goalmouth.
"I just wanted to get myself into the box to get another body in there because [Lopez] had pulled wide," said Arnaud. "I made a run, and Claudio played a great ball. I just had to get my head on it somewhere on target."
Arnaud surprised two defenders with his diving header that sailed over Crew goalkeeper Will Hesmer and punched the back of the net. Now that they had one goal, the Wizards wanted another. After the two shots hit Hartman's crossbar, the Wizards made a move to increase their own pressure.
"We wanted to try and continue [attacking], and that's why we put Josh in," said Onalfo of the 69th-minute substitution of Josh Wolff for forward Abe Thompson. "It was unfortunate we went down a man."
And for 16 minutes the Wizards held on, until Lenhart's goal.
"I'm disappointed because we should have walked out of here with [a win] and a one-goal advantage, but we didn't," Onalfo said. "Nobody ever said this stuff was going to be easy. We know we have a difficult challenge going to their place where they've been very, very good. But I believe in the guys in this locker room. We've been through worse, and we'll find a way to rebound."
The result, in an odd way, could be a blessing in disguise, according to goalkeeper Kevin Hartman.
"Now we're not going there to try and protect a lead, we're going there to try and win, which gives us a little bit more incentive, makes it so we're not playing tentatively," he said. "We look forward to it. It's going to be difficult, but to be the best, you have to beat the best team. We're ready."
"We wanted to win at home, but we didn't lose any ground," said Arnaud. "So we're going into next weekend even and with everything to play for."
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