Pre-match: Fire v. The Worst Team in Ohio (Columbus) 3.7.26 6:30 Apple TV

Last week's shellacking of Montreal showed a bit of what the Fire are capable of doing, unlike the completely lackluster performance against Houston. Of course, Montreal is barely a USL level team at the moment, but still.

The Fire take to the road this week, with a match against our long time rival, the "Crew" of Columbus. As we all know, the Fire and Columbus have a long history. Overall, the series is essentially tied. 28 wins, 23 draws, 28 losses. The Fire have scored 103 goals and conceded 124. In Columbus, the Fire have 10 wins, 10 draws, and 19 losses.

The Fire are still banged up a bit, but some players are are coming back to health. None needed more than Jack Elliott. After missing the first match of the season, his return was a welcome sight. Teaming with Internet sensation Mbekezeli Mbokazi showed some promise in central defense.

The Fire will be without defender Jonathan Dean, who picked up a "competent" red card in what was the only major blemish in the match against Montreal. This hurts with Gutman still injured, although it was reported that he is back training, which is a good sign.

Do we go with a back four of Mbokazi Elliott Waterman and Barroso?
Or do we go with MHS and Barroso as "wing backs" with Mbokazi Elliott Waterman in central defense?
I guess we will find out in a little over 24 hours.

About the yellow f'n team in Columbus.
They are, probably, the team I dislike the most in MLS. They have always seemed just incredibly annoying. Their fans (see below) are probably the most obnoxious away fans in MLS. Now, I suspect much of that was that Columbus was our "closest" rivals (at least until Cincinnati and St. Louis joined the league), so there have always been more of them scurrying around in their stupid yellow jerseys, bad haircuts and worse attitudes.

Columbus are led by Designated Players and LAFC castoff Diego Rossi, who flamed out at Fenerbahçe and returned to MLS in 2023. Signed for about $5.5 million, he has been pretty damned good in yellow, scoring 12 and 16 goals in his two full seasons in Ohio.

Next is Daniel Gazdag, a guy Philadelphia could not get rid of hard enough, despite being their all time leading scorer. They managed to rip off the idiots in Columbus to the tune of $4 million to take him off their hands.
Gazdag was very good for Philadelphia (59 goals in 125 matches). Just about a year ago, he was going into his contract year and he wanted a big bump up in salary. Philly said, "Nope, see ya' later, son" and shipped him to Columbus, pocketing $4 million.
Note, Columbus PAID $4 million for him and not that Philadelphia paid Columbus to take him of their hands. He managed to score two goals for the Crew in 2025. Great ROI there, Columbus.
Showing how poor his decision making skills are, "People might think I say that because I'm here now," Gazdag said. "But I actually told my agent that if there is a team that I would like to go to, that's the Crew."
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMassive/comments/1jxpaej/why_columbus_crew_signing_daniel_gazdag_from/

Their newish star player is Wessam Abou Ali, a Danish born, Palestinian forward. A Designated Player, he has bounced around second and third tier leagues in Denmark, Sweden and Egypt, prior to being signed by Columbus at the end of 2025. He played a handful of matches last Fall before being injured.


The Fire are forced to actually go to Columbus for the match.
What a dismal city it is. For a City that is the largest city in Ohio (second largest in the Midwest), the state capital and home to one of the world's largest universities, it has very little to offer.

One would think it would have world class art and theater and nightlife. Nope, but it is Ohio, after all. It has car races, college "sports" and the Blue Jackets, a team that has two playoff series wins in its history. Their entire history includes 6 playoff appearances in 24 seasons.

A city of almost a million and it does not even have a public train system. Like many cities, it had a streetcar system and, like almost all cities, it dumped the streetcars. It has busses, but that it all.

I would say that Columbus is a suburb of Detroit, but even Detroit has installed a light rail system, the people mover light rail and the QLine tram.

Location of the Match
They do have a decent looking stadium, however, they have the single stupidest name in America for their stadium. They managed to find an even worse name than lower.com stadium.
ScottsMiracle-Gro Field is an amazingly idiotic name for the stadium.

Nothing against the Scotts Corporation, except of course, that they pled guilty to selling bird seed coated with pesticides known to, ummm, kill birds and fish. Dipshits. Not to mention, they also had a massive fine with the EPA (which still existed in 2012), the largest for a FIFRA (Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act) violation in history.
Of course, if that was not bad enough, they also are the distributor (formerly for Monsanto and, now, Bayer) of RoundUp, one of the most evil products ever released. The fact that it is still being sold is a crime against nature (and humanity).

It is scheduled to be 70 degrees in Columbus on Saturday. That should make for a pleasant change.
There is a 90% chance of Thunderstorms in the afternoon, though.

The Columbus Crew
The Crew were, formerly, America's Hardest Working Team. I guess they have become lazy lately, since they no longer use that slogan, as far as I can tell.
For the record, even that is a lie. Columbus, Ohio is no more than the 79th hardest working city in America.
https://wallethub.com/edu/hardest-working-cities-in-america/10424

The Columbus Crew are, however, "massive," whatever that actually means. There is a long article about the origins of "massive" on the Crew's website, but it makes almost no sense.
https://www.columbuscrew.com/news/origin-massive

Their rascally fans are, of course, not without humor, as the photo from the Crew's BigSoccer page demonstrates. Basically it is a Crew fan holding a beer and peeing on the old Chicago Fire van they used to have (the one with the Chicago Soccer logo on it).
Oh, the comedy. The class they show. The originality of peeing on a vehicle.
Is there anything more "massive" than this nonsense?
Frankly, this is the epitome of Columbus Crew fandom.

I have decided NOT to copy and paste the picture. I thought about it and decided against it.

If anybody wishes to see it, they can go to the Columbus Crew BigSoccer forum. However, frankly, it is just so juvenile and stupid it is not worth it.

Instead, I will post a picture of the groundbreaking ceremony for the new stadium


Prediction
For the match, the Fire will win to heap further misery on the winless Crew.

The final score will be 2-1, with Cuypers and Zinckernagel scoring for the Fire.

 

Thanks. That had not been released when I did the intro.


Official from MLS' website:
Chicago Fire FC

Jonathan Dean - Not Due to Injury (Out)
André Franco - Lower Body (Out)
Andrew Gutman - Lower Body (Out)
Sam Rogers - Lower Body (Out)
Hugo Cuypers - Lower Body (Questionable)
Viktor Radojević - Lower Body (Questionable)
Jason Shokalook - Head (Questionable)


https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/mls-player-status-report-matchday-3-saturday-march-7-sunday-march-8

 

Next to Michigan alum, though.

And, Virginia alum and their endless whining about Duke.

 

Over 900,000 inhabitants, not all of them are assholes.

Larger than Cleveland (372,,000) and Cincinnati (309,000) combined.

 

Agreed about the zoo.
Zoos in general are pretty inhumane, but they do some good work at the Columbus Zoo

Dallasshole are really out of mind now.

 

Why?

What is so important about this match that determines it is a make or break decision?

 

In which case, we should not have signed him.

That said, the investment has been made.

We are not likely to add another player at the moment, despite the transfer window still being open.

We might as well hold on to him and see what he can do.

If, on the other hand, we had another player in the works, but could not sign the new guy because of this situation, then I would agree with you.

We kept Gaspar on the books for two years
We kept Mueller on the books for two years.
This is not that unusual.