After losing three straight games in all competitions, the Columbus Crew has returned to winning ways over the last week. Wednesday’s 3-2 win against the Colorado Rapids was followed by Saturday’s 4-2 victory against the visiting Charlotte FC.

While neither Wednesday nor Saturday’s wins were perfect, the Black & Gold got three points, something the team had struggled to do in recent matches even when playing well. Columbus heads into the summer back in MLS Cup playoff contention, sitting in fifth place in the Eastern Conference.

Let’s take a look back at Saturday’s win and What We Learned from the battle with CLTFC.

The Crew survived the grind

In a 25-day span, the Black & Gold played eight games, a part of a grueling stretch still relatively early in the 2023 season. During that run of games, Columbus went 4-3-1 in all competitions, including bowing out of the U.S. Open Cup in the Round of 16.

While there are certainly games, or moments from games, that the Crew would like back over that stretch, with all things considered the team came out in an okay spot. As mentioned above, the Black & Gold sit in fifth place in the East on 24 points through 16 games. Columbus is only seven points behind Nashville SC who sits in second place in the conference.

Sure, the Crew would like to be playing in the Open Cup on Tuesday night after losing 1-0 at the Pittsburgh Riverhounds. Of course, the Black & Gold would like to have held on for at least a point on the road against rivals FC Cincinnati. The second half at GEODIS Park is one this Columbus team will not look back on fondly.

But all things considered, especially when taking injuries into account, the team navigated what they knew would be a tough run, regardless of the opponents, and came out in a relatively solid position.

The Crew has just four mid-week games for the rest of the MLS season, meaning match congestion shouldn’t be a problem going forward. This allows the Black & Gold time to train and recover, which should only help this group.

A different kind of Cucho

Prior to the season, Columbus Designated Player striker Cucho Hernandez made it clear he wanted to score and score often this year. That hasn’t happened through 10 MLS games played for the Colombian, who missed over a month with a knee injury.

But that doesn’t mean Hernandez has struggled this year. Quite the opposite actually as the forward has reinvented himself in 2023 under head coach Wilfried Nancy.

After assisting on just three goals in his debut MLS season last year, Hernandez already has set up seven finishes for his teammates in 2023. And that doesn’t include multiple other plays where he had the hockey assist that wasn’t registered on the stat sheet.

As we’ve discussed multiple times in What We Learned, Hernandez isn’t playing as a true No. 9 but floating around the attack and sometimes even dropping deeper into the midfield to provide an outlet. While that can be frustrating at times, Hernandez has the skill set to do a variety of things on the field and Nancy isn’t limiting him to just being a target forward. He showed the kind of vision in teeing up fellow striker Christian Ramirez for the opener against Charlotte that few forwards in MLS possess. His dummy run on Ramirez’s second goal was deserving of another assist for his awareness and unselfishness.

As long as his teammates are going to continue to score — the Crew has seven different goal scorers in the last four MLS matches — Hernandez can continue to play provider and use his movement to open space for others.

What could make the Black & Gold really scary is if Hernandez finds his finishing boots. Since returning from injury, Hernandez has 44 shots in MLS play and only three goals. Two of those goals, however, have come in the last two matches.

Defensive answers lead to more questions

At halftime of the win against the Rapids, Nancy took off center back Philip Quinton and replaced him with midfielder Sean Zawadzki. This pushed Steven Moreira to the center of Nancy’s three-back system and deployed Zawadzki on the right. With Malte Amundsen playing as the left center back, this meant Columbus was in a very strange two-fullback, one-central-midfielder back three which was forced by a number of injuries to actual center backs.

Nancy elected to start this group together on the backline after they played well against Colorado in the second half. All three of these players are comfortable on the ball and allow for the type of possession out of the back that Nancy demands from his center backs. Moreira, who moved from a right fullback to a right center back under Nancy, has enough understanding of the position to lead in the middle while Zawadzki can push into the midfield similarly to Moreira at that right center back position.

In a game and a half, it seems Nancy has found a temporary answer to his center back problem with this group helping to get the team two wins. The problem is that the Crew can’t rely on this group all that much, especially against better offensive teams.

Charlotte, scorers of just 20 goals on the season heading into Saturday’s game, made this clear, scoring three times, one that was called back for offside.

The first goal that counted was an issue that was bound to happen at some point when playing Moreira as the most central defender. Listed at 5-foot-10, the Frenchman completely misjudged a ball played long into the penalty box and mistimed his header attempt. This left Karol Swiderski, two inches taller, with the ball in behind the backline with only goalkeeper Patrick Schulte to beat.

On the second conceded goal, former Black & Gold winger Justin Meram, who had his first finish called back for offside after VAR checked it, benefitted from another mistake at the back. Despite having more adept possession players, a pass to the middle of the penalty box by Columbus left Meram with one of the easiest finishes of his MLS career.

This came on an off-target pass from Amundsen that appeared targeted for Moreria but was behind the defender. Moreira left the ball, believing it to be headed for Schulte who did not come off his line and Meram was left unmarked.

With so many new faces playing different roles at the back for Columbus, mistakes are bound to happen. The Crew is fortunate that these didn’t cost them in the last two games thanks to an offense that keeps scoring at a high rate. But playing three players out of position isn’t a recipe for long-term success and center back continues to be an area the Black & Gold will need to address when the summer window opens.

Props to Crew fans

Columbus has played nine home games in 2023. Seven of those games have been sellouts, including the last six matches and two of those have come on weeknights. Over that stretch, Lower.com Field is averaging 20,346 fans per game as the team sets records for attendance.

For the season, the Crew has averaged 20,149 fans per home game, which ranks No. 14 in MLS. The Black & Gold will never be among the top clubs when it comes to attendance given that Lower.com Field’s capacity is 20,371 and a sellout is marked at 20,139.

But Columbus has never averaged more than 20,000 fans per game in team history and is on course to break the current club record of 19,237 fans per game which was set last season.