COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Diego Rossi scored early, Jacen Russell-Rowe used an assist from goalkeeper Patrick Schulte to score late and the Columbus Crew handed Toronto its 10th straight loss in all competitions, upping their unbeaten streak at home to 12 with a 2-0 victory on Saturday night.
Rossi found the net in his second appearance and first start for Columbus (12-7-6) in his return to Major League Soccer, scoring unassisted in the 21st minute to give the Crew a 1-0 lead. Rossi scored 48 goals for Los Angeles FC from 2018-21 before heading overseas to play for Turkey’s Fenerbahçe S.K.
Russell-Rowe used a pass from Schulte in the 89th minute to score his fourth goal of the season.
Schulte finished with three saves to earn the clean sheet for Columbus. Tomás Romero had six saves in his third start of the season for Toronto (3-13-10).
The Crew beat Toronto for a third straight time at home after going 2-3-5 in the first 10 home meetings in the series.
Toronto becomes the fourth team in league history to lose 10 straight in all competitions. Cincinnati set the record at 14 spanning the 2021-22 seasons.
"Yeah, it was another difficult result," said Toronto interim head coach Terry Dunfield. "Again, a similar story to our previous matches; that the goals we conceded were unnecessary and we’re better than that in those moments. I thought tonight, against a very good side in Columbus, we created five or six very good opportunities, and we should have scored one or two."
Dunfield said he tried to remain positive after the loss.
"My message after the game was, 'thank you for your efforts tonight.' I thought our boys worked our ass off as we have done for the past nine weeks.
"If we keep creating opportunities like that, we're going to start scoring. We're going to start scoring consistently two, three goals, and I'm gutted for the guys; the two we gave up were tough ones."
The Crew are 9-0-3 in their last 12 contests at home and 16-1-7 in their last 24. Columbus has had seven unbeaten streaks of 11 or more at home since the start of the 2016 season.
UP NEXT
Columbus travels to play the Houston Dynamo on Wednesday. Toronto returns home to host the Philadelphia Union on Wednesday.
---
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and https://twitter.com/AP_Sport
The Associated Press