Farewell and Thank You, 2009 Crew

The consequences of last night’s elimination of Columbus Crew from MLS 2009 are still being considered. Last night, unfancied Real Salt Lake completed a double over the Ohio side with an unlikely 2-3 second leg win at Crew Stadium. The first fall-out of the Crew’s elimination will be to rekindle the debate, if it ever died, whether sufficient reward and recognition is given to the side that wins the league during the regular season. True, Columbus pick up the Supporters Shield for being the best side in the regular season, but in the eyes of many that was an award created to appease those soccer hard core who think that, as in most of the rest of the football world, that if you win the league you should be the Champions. It is very much doubtful that is much of a consolation for Robert Warzycha’s men this morning.

Neither is the reward of getting to play at home second sufficient in the eyes of many. However it could also be said that this debate shouldn’t really hinge on Columbus’ ability to beat Real Salt Lake in this instance, and what was good before remains good. The second and perhaps most obvious consequence is that the best side in MLS has been eliminated from the tournament. This should give rise to increased optimism among the other contenders that the door is far more ajar than had been the case. Houston Dynamo and Los Angeles Galaxy especially will consider their chances of snaffling the biggest prize in MLS as having been increased as a result of last night’s elimination.

They both have home advantage to come in the second leg after creditable draws in Seattle and the LA derby respectively. Not that their opponents, Sounders FC and Chivas USA, won’t have taken note. They both have good reason to fancy their chances slightly more than the average away side in the return legs, Chivas because it is still their home ground too, and Seattle because of their recent excellent away form.

But what of the retiring Champions themselves? Following the fortunes of the Crew has been quite a roller coaster of emotions since coach Sigi Schmid abandoned them for Seattle within days of their claiming the 2008 MLS Championship. At the time, the promotion of Poland international and legend Robert Warzycha from within the ranks seemed like a smart choice, guaranteed to ensure continuity and minimal disruption. But Columbus failed to win any of their first seven MLS games and scribes of doom were gathering around both Warzycha and the side.

It didn’t help that Schmid’s new side Sounders FC had already clocked up four wins in that time. But a 3-2 win over Kansas City ended the drought and was part of an incredible run that saw Columbus Crew beaten only once in 19 games. In that time eleven wins and seven draws were attained. They scored 32 goals and conceded just 15 as the good times more than returned to Crew Stadium. Schmid was forgotten as once more Columbus were the team to beat and they almost guaranteed their post season during that run as the rest of the Eastern Conference floundered while seeming unable to sling together consecutive wins. Only a 5-0 defeat at a very good Cruz Azul side in the CONCACAF Championship disrupted the flow and Columbus played more than a half with ten men after Eric Brunner was sent off, conceded a soft penalty and put out mostly a reserve side anyway. The reverse could be explained away. Not so much the subsequent 1-0 defeat to lowly New York Red Bulls four days later.

Nonetheless, the two week international break helped them recover and Columbus leapt back to form by beating Houston Dynamo in a run of six more games, with just one defeat, in the return against Cruz Azul to blemish it. The win over Houston confirmed to many that Columbus were the nation’s top side, and for any others, the convincing 2-0 win over the Galaxy 13 days later should have done so. But that defeat of the Galaxy was to be the high point of the remainder of the Crew season.

They only won one more time in their remaining eight games. They lost 1-0 at RFK to a DC side that had looked incapable of winning a game of tiddlywinks on their home ground in the approaching weeks. They lost to a hopelessly out of form New England side on the last day to allow the Revs to sneak into the play-offs. Their 22 game unbeaten streak at Crew Stadium also went by the wayside when Sigi Schmid returned with his new Seattle Sounders team. Most observers put it down to the Crew taking their foot off the pedal a little bit, especially as their Supporters Shield rivals began to combust and contrive to hand them the trophy with far less effort than they could have expected.

Nonetheless, when the dust settled and the fifth placed team in the Western Conference became their quarter final opponents, Columbus Crew remained hot favourites to beat a distinctly average MLS side. RSL had a fantastic home record with just one defeat and five draws interspersed with nine home wins. As the game approached the dying minutes, the 0-0 score line seemed a heavily satisfactory one for Columbus. Even Robbie Findley’s 87th minute goal seemed to do no more than tilt the scales slightly more in RSL’s favour where they had weighed heavily against them at 0-0. Only a few dared to suggest that the loss may be part of a deeper more sinister trend, that the form slump that had bedeviled every other MLS side had come to Columbus at the most inconvenient and devastating time. (Tight as a Trappist Monk’s Lips).

But the doom mongers were soon silenced as two early goals, one tinged with a little Schelotto luck, the other scrawled all over by Schelotto genius, overturned the first leg deficit and put the home side firmly in the driving seat. Then came what was to be the last hour of Columbus Crew’s 2009 season. Unlikely goal providers such as Andy Williams and Jamison Olave arose from the RSL pack. Frankie Hejduk was harshly adjudged to have conceded a penalty in the crucial seconds leading up to half time. Jason Kreis made a courageous decision to attack in the second half rather than defend the narrow aggregate lead the late developments of the first had allowed him. In the end, RSL became not only the first American side to score more than two goals against Columbus, but the first side to do it twice. They have beaten Columbus three times this season, 1/3 of all the Crew’s domestic defeats.

This offers one plausible explanation why the Crew aren’t retaining their title. Maybe RSL just have their number. It is not unheard of in the soccer world, for a lower side to repeatedly outfox a better one for no apparent reason. Secondly, a quick review of last night’s statistics suggest something else. We have mentioned some unlikely names coming to the fore in Salt Lake’s goal machine. Worth also considering is the fact that Columbus have ten shots on goal last night, and converted just one in five. RSL had five with a 60% success rate. One of MLS’s less heralded goalkeepers, Nick Rimando made eight saves. Perhaps, it was just one of those nights. All sides have them. There isn’t too much a manager can do other than hope they arrive at the times they do least damage, which for Columbus wasn’t last night.

So the 2008 Champions retire gracefully after a season where trophy seemed happy to swerve to catastrophy at will. No-one can fail to have harboured heartfelt sympathy for Robert Warzycha as his side started terribly and scribes of doom wrote him off when not throwing Sigi Schmid’s contemporaneous success in the club’s face. Then as they recovered, the club became once more the target of envy and the benchmark as they proved themselves to still be America’s best. Last night, the 2009 rollercoaster finally stopped. No doubt Robert Warzycha will watch and re-watch that last hour of their season, as so much hard work and effort hit the rocks.

But despite their intense disappointment at the way it has ended, there are many positives to have come out of 2009 for the retiring MLS Champions. Their drama has been fascinating to watch, their resilience easy to admire, their successes joyful to applaud and their early tribulations impossible not to empathise with. They have been a credit to MLS. We have to say farewell now to the 2009 Columbus Crew. We also have to say thank you.