It's not the result that Gio Savarese would have hoped for, but a 0-0 draw is certainly a result that both the New York Cosmos and Ottawa Fury should be satisfied with on Wednesday. For the Fury, it keeps them atop the NASL fall table, with the right to host a semifinal match as the prize. For New York, it keeps them somewhat comfortably ahead of the Fury in the combined table, with a potential home final as the reward.
Savarese, though, clearly wanted to see his side take all three points from the Fury, who htey had defeated in all four previous meetings between the clubs:
"For us, we’re not content with only a tie. We wanted a win, the three points. It’s not a bad result, but it’s not the one we came here for."
The Fury have improved leaps and bounds in the past 15 months, and provided a very different challenge on Wednesday evening than we've seen from them before. They were defensively compact and well organized, and the Cosmos' coach noted this in his post-match remarks:
"There were some good situations in the first half where we were able to maintain the ball more. We created chances and did some good things. I think we could have been a little bit better, combining more and being able to provide more options going forward. Nevertheless we created some interesting situations and I thought we did fairly well for playing against a team that had not too much space to give."
"They found a little bit of space and that’s how they started to attack. Also for us, it’s a big field and moving so much, trying to break them down was tough. You can tell a lot of their offensive players had a very defensive role today and they were very compact."
"I think they were able to be very solid defensively. We tried to break them down, but it was very difficult. They had one or two chances to score, but I think we had more of the ball then they did. I think maybe it was a fair result."
The Cosmos did gain some ground on the rest of the NASL with the draw, as they had at least one game in hand on the other three clubs with 15 points. The boys in green now sit alone behind the Fury in the fall table, and will have a good chance to remain there when they host the Carolina RailHawks this weekend.