The Columbus Crew played an international friendly against English side Burnley FC Sunday at ScottsMiracle-Gro Field. The teams battled to a 1-1 draw with a good number of the Black & Gold’s new and young players getting into the action. Here are our three takeaways from Sunday’s match:

1.    In what Crew fans hope is a positive omen for the rest of this season’s play, midfielder Daniel Gazdag stepped up and posted the Black & Gold’s goal in their match with Burnley. He took a well-timed pass from midfielder Hugo Picard and converted it for the score. With the losses of Diego Rossi (trade) and Wessam Abou Ali (injury), the Crew need to find some folks who will put the ball in the back of the net.

2.   Interim head coach Laurent Courtois had this to day about Gazdag’s performance, ““A really good goal. Daniel has a way to link us. He has a way to get to the space that the teammate freed and recognize the pace of play when we want to accelerate or just [take] a moment and put a foot on the ball to slow down. His IQ is something that I really valued. The thing with Danny is we need him to find himself in those positions every game – consistency.” 

3.   As we mentioned above, Columbus got some players into the lineup for the first time Sunday. Crew 2 midfielder Tarun Karumanchi started in his unofficial First Team debut. The former UCLA Bruin was selected by the Crew in the 2026 MLS SuperDraft. Coming off the bench in their first appearance for the Crew were defenders Brooks Lennon and Chris Rogers. Lennon is a 10-year MLS veteran, who last played with Atlanta. Rogers, 20, is a native of New Albany.