There are five teams in all of MLS with fewer than two losses in league play this season: Philly has none. Crew, Red Bull, Galaxy, and St Louis all have one. Red Bulls and Galaxy have not needed to deal with CCC. Philly had a 6-0 loss to Pachuca to crash out of CCC in the round of 16, their only loss in all competitions. St Louis lost at home to Houston in the first round of CCC; that narrows it to four MLS teams with one loss this calendar year. Now throw in the fact that 7 of the 10 games Columbus has played against MLS competition are teams in the top half of their conference standings. People don't realize how remarkable this stretch has been. It's unprecedented. LAFC last year had one loss to this point (Alajeulense in LA) but hadn't had to play a team from Mexico in CCL. When they finally did play a Liga MX opponent in the final, they lost both legs. Seattle in 2022 had five losses in their first eight games in league play. They sacrificed their MLS season to win CCL. This is the golden era of Columbus Crew soccer.
Ok but that has nothing to do with Montreal. The East is really good , I never said the Crew haven’t been impressive because we have. A few red cards have hurt and some injuries haven’t helped because the roster is thinner than most. But I expect us to continue to be great
Enjoy it while it lasts. Nancy, and probably also Cucho, will be employed in Europe by Labor Day 2025. They are just too good for MLS as it is currently financed.
I'm not sure about that. I have a feeling that Jimmy will give Nancy a blank check. Gotta remember, coach salary has no impact on the salary cap. The only question is if Nancy has ambitions to coach in Europe.
And even if he does, I'm far from convinced that a couple of strong seasons in MLS suddenly puts him on the European coaching radar. It's not as though there are a lot of examples of MLS coaches going to Europe and knocking it out of the park. Furthermore, I'm not sure his "it doesn't matter if we win, but the story we tell by how we play" narrative will work in a European interview. I mean, it's a glorious thing to hear here, but really only because it works. Because we win, and lay such entertaining football in so doing. I just don't see Nancy going from the gig he has in Columbus to come bigger club in Europe. A smaller club in a bigger league? I suppose, and then he'd need to work his way up the ladder. I just don't know that he'd have better resources and more freedom in that smaller club than he has here in Columbus. The one qualifier I'd add here, however, is Thierry Henry. I get the sense that Henry thinks very highly of Nancy and could open some doors for him that Nancy's MLS resume, on its own, wouldn't accomplish. Cucho's situation, of course, is entirely different. The guy's already played in the Premiership.
I agree with all of this. I haven't heard of Nancy dreaming of coaching PSG but that isn't going to be the jump from Columbus. He would go through years at a few smaller clubs to get there. If Dee is paying him well here, why move? Cucho has already played in England. Bounced around on loan for a few years. Again, if he is being paid well and is getting looks at his National team, why move back to europe?
An analogy I use with local friends who are casual Crew fans: Imagine if Ryan Day's replacement came into town and talked about Ohio State's football team performing and that "it doesn't matter if we win, but the story we tell by how we play." The stakes are too high for OSU athletics to risk that ... or for fans to have patience if results aren't achieved immediately. I feel like that is what Nancy would be facing at a top European club ... if he were to retain his current outlook.
Yea, I don't get why so many people are convinced that Cucho is going to go back to Europe for some giant transfer fee this summer. If he were two years younger, maybe, but he turns 25 in a few days, and the price tag we would likely put on him would knock most teams out of contention. Even if there's a team willing to pay for him, they would likely also need to pay him close to the $3m/year we are paying him and offer him the same amount of playing time and freedom on the pitch we offer him. I just don't see it happening. I think he's far more likely to play here for another year or two (assuming things are fine between him and Nancy), and then end up with someone like Monterrey or Club America. They would be willing to pay him the salary he wants, they would give him the minutes he wants, and they are closer to home, yet they still provide all the "big club" perks at some of the bigger European clubs.
Saudi Arabia isn't in Europe, my friend. I was talking about the insistence by many that some big European team is going to pay us $20m to snatch him up. Saudi is certainly a possibility, but we'll see how willing they are to continue spending in the next transfer window, and how willing players are to move there now that so many have gone and can give other guys a pretty good idea of what it's like.
Reddit with an important tidbit about the final date potentially being moved because of Mexicos election. Sounds like it will be in Mexico and not at like Jerry's World. The international window is June 3-11 and June 20-July 14.
Hopefully we beat Monterrey twice and the other teams draw and end on pks so we can host club America. Long shot but it would be awesome!
This is directly from the 2024 CCC Regulations: I'm guessing it was worded this way so they could get the most bang for their buck if Miami would have made the final. I do think there's a decent chance they could host in somewhere like Chicago if we were to make the final. With that said, if the final ends up being us and Club America, they could host the final pretty much anywhere in the US and the game would sell out. I wouldn't be surprised to see it in Chicago where a lot of Crew fans could reasonably make the trip and they would have no issue selling out with the Club America fanbase.
The championship will be a single-legged match, played on a weekend date, to crown the regional club champions for the 2024 season. In the final (Winner SF1 vs. Winner SF2), the finalists which had the better performance in previous rounds (excluding round one) host the match. 2 June 2024 According to Wikipedia you have a link where you read that ? Concaf probably does have some weird rules that are subject to them changing to whatever makes them more money.
Just google "CONCACAF Champions Cup Regulations". https://www.concacaf.com/champions-cup/regulations/ Download the pdf and go to page 30. That's where I took the screenshot.
12.8 seems to contradict 12.12.5 so yeah idk what 12.8.1 sole discretion means but i haven’t seen a venue listed. Last year León played 2 legs to beat LAFC. They rebranded to Champions cup. It all seems confusing but I would guess without a listed venue set already it will be awarded to the point system they have. How did they do it 1962-2008?
That is the only way we can host. 2 wins vs Monterrey and 2 draws in the other tie with America advancing. That late goal vs Houston is really chapping my ass. A longshot to be sure. Burlt let's win the first one and go from there.
Ive got half a mind to start the pregame thread for next Wednesday right now. Yeah yeah theres a home game against a cross conference opponent on Saturday. But theres an argument to be made that this series against Monterrey are the 2 biggest games in club history. Theres still a huge mountain left to climb, yes, I'm not discounting that, but the Columbus Crew are 3 steps away from playing meaningful games against the biggest clubs on the planet in the Club World Cup. Yet another qualifier yes-the CWC is what it is, which is a bizarre tournament that I have watched zero of in my lifetime that is undergoing some type of total makeover so it can grab more cash. But still. We've gone from ironically chanting "We are MASSIVE" with a few dozen of our drunkest buddies in the north end to THIS. The golden era of Columbus Crew soccer.