The Columbus Crew finished up their regular season with a 4-3 win at Chicago on Saturday, decision day around the MLS. Brais Méndez scored the game-winner at 90+3′ after the Black & Gold came back to tie the match after each of the Fire’s three goals. Here are our three takeaways from Saturday’s contest:

1.    With the victory, Columbus put an exclamation mark on its late season rally in the standings. After a loss at New England on August 30, the Crew were in last place in the MLS’s Eastern Conference. Coming down the stretch, they won eight of nine outings to catapult themselves into the East’s seventh slot. That means that they avoided the single Wild Card match between the eighth and ninth-placed teams, and instead will have a three-game series with a break beforehand.

2.   Why the turnaround? It appears that the players the Crew acquired in the middle of the season to replace the incredible scoring talent that were either injured or off to other teams. All four goals on Saturday came from “new” players: two from Gonzalo Tapia (August 5), and single goals from Anass Zaroury (September 3) and Méndez (July 2). If the full-season schedule coming into effect in 2027 were already implemented, all three would have spent a full season with the team.

3.   Sean Zawadzki did something this season that has never been accomplished before. It was the first time that a non-goalkeeper for the Crew played every single minute in a regular season (3,060). Goalkeeper Patrick Schulte became the fourth keeper in club history to accomplish the feat. The Crew are the fourth club in league history to have both a keeper and outfield player do so in the same season.