 Baltimore MD - On a sticky night at UMBC Stadium after torrential downpours earlier in the day, Crystal Palace lost their perfect record to Charlotte and we’re shut out for the first time this season in front of 1,037 supporters. The result also meant Charlotte reclaimed top spot in the league, leaving Palace in second but with a game in hand.
The fans were still taking their seats when Jonah Long's first-time volley off a long Josh Rife free kick beat Matt Nelson to give Charlotte the lead in only the second minute. Charlotte were dominating possession, keeping Palace on the back foot, but couldn’t turn that superiority into additional goals. The Baltimore side could only muster the odd chance via the counter-attack, but the final effort was usually wayward. The closest they  came was in the 12th minute when Sergio Flores lined up a shot from 25 yards that looked to be dipping under the crossbar, but he was denied by a beautiful save from Charlotte 'keeper Terry Boss.
On 30 minutes, Robert Ssejjemba seemed set to double the lead as he went clear of the Palace back line and headed towards the area. Matt Nelson managed to intercept the Charlotte forward just on the edge of the box, but as he followed through he took the player down and handled the ball outside the 18 yard line. To the great relief of the home side, the referee only produced a yellow card.
The Palace coaches made two substitutions at half-time, replacing Cecil Lewis and Harold Urquijo with Kevin King and Pat Healey. The changes paid dividends on the  possession front as Palace started taking the game to Charlotte more and more, but a combination of post, crossbar and excellent goal-keeping thwarted Palace’s efforts.
Charlotte still looked dangerous on the counter-attack and on 49 minutes, Robert Ssejjemba took advantage of a miscommunication between Mike Lookingland and ‘keeper Matt Nelson to double Charlotte's lead. Quarter of an hour later, Jeff Bilyk made it 3-0 when he fired home the loose ball after Worteh Sampson had struck the post from a Jorge Herrera cross.
But Palace clearly didn’t feel Charlotte’s lead was insurmountable. Sergio Flores was denied twice on shots from distance by the marvelous goalkeeping of Terry Boss in the Charlotte net. Kevin King just missed with a powerful, curling effort that flew mere inches wide of the top left corner. Matthew Mbuta came close too as his looping header bounced back off the crossbar into the path of Pat Healey, but the ball bounced awkwardly for the young Palace midfielder. From a yard in front of goal, Healey did the best he could, trying to force it into with his body, but Boss had it covered, slapping it away to safety. So it remained 3-0 as the final whistle blew.
"This was a good wake-up call for us" admitted Co-Manager Pete Medd after the game. "We've gotten away with a few things the last couple of matches - giving away possession, losing our defensive shape, perhaps getting a little too comfortable."  But Medd also paid credit to the visitors: "The better team on the night won. They won the battle of the midfield and they converted their chances, simple as that."
 Medd revealed some of the players were very disappointed to lose: "As coaches we knew we weren't going to win all 20 regular season games. But some of the guys were thinking otherwise, so they're taking this pretty hard. But it's a matter of learning from it. We want to win the championship and if we can apply what we learn from this towards that end, then it will have been a very valuable experience."
Next for Palace is a return to Western Mass for the second time in as many weeks - that game takes place on Friday June 6th at 7:30pm. Palace will be hoping for another victory, though perhaps in less dramatic fashion than the last meeting. Two days after that, Palace are back at home facing last year’s USL2 champions, the Harrisburg City Islanders at 5:30pm on Sunday June 8th. Buy tickets here for the next home game. |
