When Cucho Hernandez came off the bench and scored the winning goal to cement a stunning Crew comeback from a 2-0 road deficit for only the second time in the club’s 26.5-season existence, he added his name to various lists in Crew history. As Mr. Numbers Nerd, I shall elaborate.
* Cucho is the 17th player in Crew history to score a goal in his debut performance for the club in all competitions:
Brian McBride (4/13/96)
Pete Marino (4/13/96)
Thomas Dooley (6/21/1997)
Ante Razov (4/2/2005)
Eric Vasquez (7/16/2005)
Kei Kamara (4/2/2006)
Ned Grabavoy (5/13/2006)
Ivan Becerra (7/12/2006, USOC)
Steven Lenhart (5/27/2008, USOC)
Dominic Oduro (3/2/2013)
Cristian Martinez (6/1/2016)
Marshall Hollingsworth (6/15/2016, USOC)
Niko Hansen (3/25/2017)
Gyasi Zardes (3/3/2018)
Mike Grella (4/28/2018)
Lucas Zelarayan (3/1/2020)
Cucho Hernandez (7/9/2022)
* Cucho is the 15th player to score in his first regular season Crew match. That list is all of the above, minus Becerra, Lenhart, and Hollingsworth, but PLUS Leandre Griffit, who scored on July 24, 2010 in his first regular season appearance for the Crew, but had appeared previously in a U.S. Open Cup match on July 6, 2010, so it wasn’t his first official game in a Crew shirt.
* Cucho is the tenth Crew player to score while making Major League Soccer debut: McBride, Marino, Dooley, Vasquez, Kamara, Griffit, Martinez, Hansen, Zelarayan, Cucho.
* Cucho is the seventh player to score the game-winning goal in his official Crew debut in all competitions: Grabavoy, Becerra (USOC), Lenhart (USOC), Hansen, Grella, Zelarayan, Cucho.
* If you limit it to a Crew debut made in the regular season, he is just the fifth, eliminating Becerra and Lenhart above.
* Although it seems improbable, Cucho’s 83rd minute game winner is only the third-latest game-winner of the bunch! Both Hansen and Grella scored their game-winners in the 84th minute.
* In terms of scoring the game-winning goal in what is simultaneously a Crew debut and an MLS debut, he is just the third player to do that: Hansen, Zelarayan, and Cucho.
* In the annals of Columbus Crew history, when it comes to scoring a game-winning goal in a Crew debut and an MLS debut after entering the match with the Crew suffering a two-goal road deficit, there is only one.
There is only Cucho.
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