His team was tied at the time and just a few game minutes away from taking the lead Saturday night against New York City FC, but Gregg Berhalter noticed something he didn’t like with the way his team was playing late in the first half.

A left-footed cross from left back Jukka Raitala to attacking midfielder Federico Higuain led to a left-footed volley that drew the Crew even in the 29th minute. But in the minutes that followed to close out the first half, he saw his team play vertically.

The result was a failure to pull NYCFC’s defense apart, and the visitors started to gain momentum as the first half of what became a 3-2 NYCFC win drew to a close.

Defender Alexander Callens gifted Crew SC (4-4-1) a goal early in the second half, turning the ball over deep in NYCFC’s defensive third and allowing Ethan Finlay to pass between Federico Higuain’s leg to Ola Kamara, who slammed home his fifth goal of the season in the 49th minute to give Crew SC a 2-1 lead.

From there, NYCFC (4-3-1) looked the part of a team that leads the league in possession, finishing with 55.8 percent possession on the game and tiring out Crew SC’s defense as the second half progressed.

“The movement wasn’t good enough, the passing wasn’t good enough, the ability to win balls from them wasn’t good enough, and to be honest (NYCFC) deserved it,” Crew coach Gregg Berhalter said. “They definitely deserved this win because the second half from us wasn’t good.”

Added Berhalter: “What I think is they made us expend a lot of energy defensively and because we couldn’t win the ball back they put us in some tough spots when we had the ball in terms of the movement that we needed, the position that we needed.”

New York City finished the game with 76 percent passing accuracy in the attacking half to Crew SC’s 65 percent and 71 percent in the final third to the Crew’s 63 percent. The Crew couldn’t accomplish much offensively for several lengthy stretches in the second half because, simply, it didn’t have the ball.

“We just didn’t get ahold of the ball. We conceded a lot of possession, started having to shift a lot, got tired,” Crew SC midfielder and captain Wil Trapp said. “Every time we did win the ball, I don’t think we were in a good enough mental spot to play out of tight spots and get the ball out of pressure, so that just compounded onto them bringing wave after wave of pressure on us.”

Yangel Herrera cashed in on NYCFC’s momentum with a 64th minute goal to draw the visitors even, and Jack Harrison finished off the game-winner in the 76th.

After going about a month and a half without allowing a second-half goal, a fatigued Crew SC defense couldn’t continue the streak and the Crew attack couldn’t add to a pair of goals over the final 40 minutes. The result was the Crew’s third loss in four games.

“It’s not on one guy, it’s on the whole team moving and executing and we didn’t,” Trapp said. “It’s a game of inches and we lost that battle.”

Manneh makes Crew debut

After several weeks of speculation as to when he would be ready to play for Crew SC, forward Kekuta Manneh touched the field as a member of the Crew for the first time in the 81st minute, coming on for Ethan Finlay in the 81st minute of the loss.

The 22-year-old, traded from the Vancouver Whitecaps to the Crew in late March for midfielder Tony Tchani, targeted allocation money and general allocation money, made his second 18-man gameday roster for his new club a week after being left off the travel roster for the Crew’s game at the New York Red Bulls.

“Good, good, I felt the crowd was amazing,” Manneh said of his debut. “We need to keep it up and hopefully we get a good result the next game.”

@AEricksonCD