Chicago Fire 3, Columbus Crew 4 at SeatGeek Stadium — Chicago led three times, Robert Lewandowski scoring two penalties, before Gonzalo Tapia levelled twice and substitute Brais Méndez won it in stoppage time.
Chicago Fire 3, Columbus Crew 4 at SeatGeek Stadium in Bridgeview on Saturday, November 7, 2026 — MLS Decision Day, the final day of the regular season — in a game Chicago led three times and Columbus led only once, at the end.
Robert Lewandowski opened it from the penalty spot at 8'. Gonzalo Tapia levelled at 16', finishing from Taha Habroune per the match accounts. Lewandowski converted a second penalty at 22', and Anass Zaroury levelled again a minute later at 23'. Maren Haile-Selassie put Chicago back in front at 45'+4', and the Fire went in 3-2 up after five first-half goals.
Tapia scored his second at 62' to make it 3-3. The winner came at 90'+3': Brais Méndez, who had come on at half-time for Sékou Bangoura, struck a left-footed shot from the centre of the penalty area into the top-right corner — Columbus's first lead of the match. USA TODAY's Decision Day account records that the goal vaulted the Crew out of the Wild Card game and into the No. 7 seed.
Sportradar's match record confirms the final: Chicago Fire 3, Columbus Crew 4 at SeatGeek Stadium, with half-time 3-2 to Chicago.
Columbus Led Only When It Ended
Previously Staff’s read: Decision Day is the one afternoon of the MLS season when a single goal redraws the playoff picture, and this was that goal. Two players scored twice — Lewandowski for Chicago, both times from the penalty spot, and Tapia for Columbus, both times as equalisers — and the lead changed hands in feel, if never quite in fact, all afternoon: Chicago went in front three separate times and Columbus, until the very last goal of the seven, never went in front at all. Five of the seven goals arrived before half-time, which is why the second half played out the way it did — Chicago protecting a lead they had already lost twice and reclaimed once, Columbus chasing a game they had already levelled three times, with the season's final standings moving on every swing.
It is the difference between a one-off play-in and a place in the first round proper, decided in the third minute of stoppage time in the final game of the regular season. For Chicago, the arithmetic is brutal in the other direction: three leads at home, two of them built on Lewandowski penalties, a 3-2 half-time advantage after one of the wildest first halves of the season — and nothing to show for any of it. Lewandowski did his part twice from the spot; Tapia matched him with two equalisers of his own; and the game was settled not by the star name but by a substitute who played only the second half. Columbus finish Decision Day having led a seven-goal game for only its final moments — which, on the day the regular season ends and the seeding locks, turned out to be the only moments that counted.
Sources · 4 sources
- USA TODAY — MLS Decision Day LIVE 2026
- Sportradar — Chicago Fire vs Columbus Crew, MLS 2026, Nov 7, 2026
- Marketing Media TV — Stoppage-Time Heartbreak: Chicago Fire Fall 4–3 to Columbus Crew on Decision Day
- theScore — Chicago Fire FC vs Columbus Crew, November 7, 2026
Every goal from SeatGeek Stadium — the full box score, play-by-play and all seven goals — is in the Game Center for Chicago Fire vs Columbus Crew, and the full MLS slate is on the MLS hub.
