Detroit City Football Club affords everyone around it something unique – a culture with all the passion and pageantry anyone could hope for, a party that summons five-plus thousand to Hamtramck again and again. Our place on the football landscape of the USA is no longer something that can be dismissed as luck or a bit of hipster irony.
All that said, we’re not royalty. We don’t have that here. We can’t coast past our rivals on name recognition. If Le Rouge are to return to the NPSL playoffs in 2018, they’ll have to get down in the mud and toil. Friday night, City got that message just in the nick of time, riding an 85th-minute Shawn Lawson goal to a nail-biting 1-0 win over FC Columbus after a first half best described as ‘somnambulant.’
The distance in quality and profile between City’s last match – the Footballpalooza weekend of FC St. Pauli’s visit – and this match, against a newly-formed side from Ohio, seemed to befuddle Le Rouge. Again and again, promising moves fell apart due to offensive stagnation or errant passing. FC Columbus, on the other hand, was delighted just to keep their shape and let their forwards try the odd break. At the break, the game was scoreless, but all five shots on goal were registered by the visitors. Only a typically sharp performance from keeper Fernando Pina kept the game level after the shambolic first 45 minutes.
“That’s the second time in two league matches that we’ve come out entitled,” Detroit City manager Ben Pirmann said. “Just like against Ann Arbor, our work ethic was terrible.
“I asked the guys at halftime who thought they’d played as hard as they could. No one raised their hands.”
Pirmann shook up the lineup early in the second half, bringing on Seb Harris at halftime to stabilize the center of defense, then following that up with Roddy Green at the hour mark. The injection of calm and energy the two represented, combined with a much more energetic performance from the first-half carryovers, meant that the second half increasingly belonged to City.
Again and again Le Rouge circulated the ball around the Columbus defense, which found itself pushed deeper and deeper into the City offensive zone. The warnings started to come thick and fast for the visitors:
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70th minute: Danny Deakin, left alone 35 yards from goal, crushes a shot on goal that’s a simple save.
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75th minute: Cyrus Saydee, drifting from the left wing infield with the ball on his right foot, tries a curling ball into the right channel that just missed Lawson’s timely run.
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78th minute: Rafa Mentzingen’s corner is only half-cleared and City resets; Deakin and Mentzingen combine to make a little space for another teasing back-post cross that Columbus keeper Brennon Davis punches clear.
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81st minute: Green, a livewire on the right in his 30 minutes, turns FCC left back Ezra Armstrong (who had previously been excellent), earning a foul. The resulting free kick was promising, and called for another punch from Davis.
Finally, the breakthrough came in the 85th after nearly a solid half an hour of constant pressure. Green, having startled Armstrong by spinning him just four minutes earlier, slowed on the ball and saw the defender stand off a bit, cautiously; taking advantage of the moment of quiet, the second-year wing forward lifted a back-post cross toward fellow sub Harris. Harris, maybe the best header on the team, cushioned the ball back across the goal, allowing Lawson to knife into traffic and slash home a true poacher’s finish: 1-0, where the game would end five minutes later.
“The ball came across, and Seb was in the right place at the right time,” said the goal-scorer afterward. “He headed it back over, then I was at the right place at the right time to get it in.”
Detroit City FC (1-0-1) travel to FC Indiana in West Lafayette, Indiana on Sunday. Kickoff is slated for 2 PM.
DETROIT CITY FC 1, FC COLUMBUS 0
Detroit City FC 0 1 – 1
FC Columbus 0 0 – 0
Goals: DCFC – Lawson (S. Harris) 85’.
Shots: DCFC 4, FCC 10.
Shots on goal: DCFC 2, FCC 7.
Saves: DCFC 2 (Pina 2), FCC 6 (Davis 6)
Corners: DCFC 5, FCC 3.
Fouls: DCFC 9, FCC 11.
Discipline: FCC – Caution, Agyeman 44’.
Detroit City FC (4-1-4-1): Pina; Bentley (S. Harris 45’), Miller, Sinclair (Stephens 77), Centala; Bartel; Mentzingen (Carroll 90’), Saydee, Deakin, Lawson (Moyes 86’); Shrimpton (Green 60’)..
FC Columbus (4-3-3): Davis; Armstrong, Bagaew, Diaw, Blackwood; Alvarez (Bain 69’), Agyeman, Diawara; Camara (Dia 84’), Bangura (Chilton 65’), Sow (Murcia 77’).
