'I have no words for that': Wilfried Nancy reacts to Columbus Crew vs Charlotte FC match

Crew coach Wilfried Nancy was already sick, literally ill, watching Columbus take on Charlotte FC from his home after being unable to make the trip. By the end of the match, he felt even more sick.

On the road this past Saturday, Columbus lost for the first time this season, falling to Charlotte 2-0. What upset Nancy had nothing to do with the score of the match, however. In fact, the Crew coach was proud of how his team performed under the circumstances.

The elements out of the team's control during the longest first half in MLS history bothered Nancy, and even some of his friends from around the globe took notice.

"They reached me, and they destroyed the league," Nancy said. "They destroyed the competition. They destroyed where I work. And I'm pleased to work for this league. They said, 'this is not possible to have something like that.'"

The match began with something Nancy had never seen before in his more than 35 years involved with soccer, the kickoff having to be reset twice due to a player running offside.

From that moment on, Nancy could do nothing but watch as the Crew continually got hit with adversity throughout the 61-minute first half.

Leg injuries to defender Rudy Camacho and forward Christian Ramirez took both players out of the game. Columbus players were quick to recall that Columbus' Will Sands tore his ACL on the same turf field at Bank of America Stadium last season.

"The past years, it's had our number with some guys with some injuries," Crew midfielder/defender Sean Zawadzki said. "It's difficult having to adjust between grass and turf."

Both Camacho and Ramirez are expected to miss the Crew's match against Nashville Saturday. Nancy is hopeful that Camacho will be able to return next week. Ramirez's long-term prognosis is still unknown.

Another blow came for Columbus just a couple of minutes later. Midfielder Derrick Jones, who had just entered the match for Camacho, was handed a red card following VAR review on what was originally a no-call.

From Nancy's perspective, the play shouldn't have been reviewed in the first place.

"We're going to debate all the time because your sensitivity, the way you see football, the way if you have played or not," Nancy said. "There are many things."

Referee Christopher Calderon made other controversial calls against the Crew after Columbus went down man. Calderon was one of Major League Soccer's replacement refs working due a labor dispute with league officials. MLS reached a new agreement with the Professional Referee Organization (PRO) and Professional Soccer Referees Association (PSRA) just a few days later.

An offside call took away a goal from Crew's Cucho Hernandez. To make the ruling, the referees used a beauty shot camera, which was at the top right corner of the stadium on the other side of the field from where the action took place.

After letting play go on six minutes longer than the 10 minutes of added stoppage time, the first half ended with a penalty kick awarded to Charlotte following a Yaw Yeboah foul in the box. Crew midfielder Mohamed Farsi found it hard to believe the events that took place during those 61 minutes.

"I wasn't mad," Farsi said. "I was laughing, I was like, 'No, there's no chance this is really happening.'"

Nancy's son pointed out to the second-year coach that he's usually calmer on the field compared to what he was watching from home.

That being said, Nancy tried to avoid placing blame on the referees because he knows they lacked the experience to handle that match, and those refs weren't responsible for Charlotte having a turf field.

"We lost many people because the game," Nancy said. "I like to break many records, it's good for our egos and so on, but to break the record for the longest first half ever, I have no words for that."

The positive that Nancy is choosing to take away from Saturday's game, despite the final result, is the way the Crew never gave up.

"They stay focused on the game," Nancy said. "With all these kinds of emotions, my players were able to stay on the task and to do a good game with 10 players. ... They sticked to the way we play, but what I mean by the way we play is not only with the ball or without the ball, this is the attitude."

Jones' red card

The Crew gave decided against appealing Jones' red card.

Despite Nancy's opinion on the call, the club felt there was a low chance of the appeal going in Columbus' favor, and the Crew wanted to save their two challenges, knowing that "the season is young."

On top of the ejection, Jones was later fined an unspecified amount by the MLS disciplinary committee for "failing to leave the field in a timely manner."

bmackay@dispatch.com

@brimackay15

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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Wilfried Nancy reacts to Columbus Crew vs Charlotte FC MLS match