Sirk's Notebook: Crew vs. Wizards
"It's nice to throw the Curse of '04 off of our shoulders," he said.
Oughton was too polite to use the more popular, player-specific name for the bad mojo that had been hanging over his beloved club ever since that fateful Halloween night in 2004, but the Crew's 2-0 victory on Saturday shed yet another piece of excess baggage. The 2008 Supporters' Shield winners had overcome the taint of the 2004 Supporters' Shield winners' first-round flameout.
"It's good to get rid of that," he went on, "but we still have a lot of work to do."
Next up in the therapeutic baggage-toss spree is a primetime Thursday date with Brian McBride and the Chicago Fire in the Eastern Conference Final. But first, a look back at random notes from Saturday...
A Fine How-Do-You-Do
After Steven Lenhart's stoppage-time equalizer in K.C. allowed Columbus to bring the series home on the level, the Crew wasted no time in jumping on the Wizards in the crazed confines of Crew Stadium. In just the seventh minute, Brian Carroll floated a ball over the Wizards' defense, into the path of the streaking Brad Evans. The bouncing ball left charging K.C. goalkeeper Kevin Hartman in no-man's land near the edge of the penalty area. From 19 yards out, Evans looped the ball over Hartman and watched it bounce into the empty net.
"I saw Brad running in the middle so I tried to get the ball to him," said Carroll. "It worked out. It was a great finish."
"It happened so fast that I didn't even see how BC got the ball," said Evans. "I just called for it, and Brian put a nice ball over Jimmy Conrad, and kind of got him turned around a little bit and as soon as the ball hit the ground, I saw Hartman in the corner of my eye and my only option was to put it up high, and luckily it took a good bounce. At first I thought it was going wide to be honest, but it took a fortunate bounce, bounced really high and into the back of the net, so I was relieved at that point, for sure. BC's ball took a big bounce, so chipping it like I did was automatic. It was the only option going through my mind at the time."
The Limits of Limiting the Seemingly Limitless
Kansas City coach Curt Onalfo was very gracious in defeat. He spoke very highly of the Crew and the challenges that Columbus posed to his club.
"We knew it was going to be tough playing against the team that had been the best in Major League Soccer all year," Onalfo said. "It's an interesting thing when you prepare your team to face this Crew team. You spend an awful lot of time telling your players what they need to limit. And that's the sign of a good team. The Crew are good on attacking restarts, they are very, very good on the counter, Alejandro Moreno does an outstanding job up top in terms of work ethic and holding the ball, Schelotto finds great little seams and makes excellent decisions, and Robbie Rogers is an exciting young player. So that's just to name a few things. They have a lot of strengths. They are a very, very good team. We knew going in that we would have to play pretty much a perfect game."
Listening to Onalfo, one couldn't help but marvel at the thought that "we need to limit the lethal Carroll-to-Evans goalscoring connection" was nowhere on the coach's very long list of things to limit. Naturally, the two holding mids jumpstarted the Crew's victory.
"It's been one of our staples all season," said Crew defender Danny O'Rourke. "Whether it's the 11 guys who start on the field or the guys who come off the bench, we know that whoever's in there, somebody is going to step up big. And tonight, right off the bat, we get a great ball from BC and a great run by Brad and we we're up 1-0. We know that somebody is going to step up and you can't focus on everybody."
Redemption-ish
There was certainly an uplifting quality to Evans' goal, since his turnover in the first leg led to Kansas City's goal that put the Crew in a 1-0 hole in the two-game aggregate goals series. A week later, his goal gave the Crew a 2-1 aggregate lead.
"It was good for some redemption," he said, before immediately quibbling with his own choice of words. "Not really redemption, but it was good to give something back to us. I kind of gave it up last week, so it was good for our confidence to get an early lead."
Abe Thompson's Tap-In
What Tony Sanneh's 2004 penalty kick dribbler is to Crew fans, Abe Thompson's 15th minute tap-in travesty may become to Wizards fans. After Davy Arnaud got behind the Crew midfield, he played a ball wide right to Kevin Souter. Souter sent a low ball into the Crew's penalty area, where an unmarked Thompson had the opportunity to tap the ball into the net from three yards away. Instead, he flubbed the tap-in, which initially went backwards before spinning right back in front of him. He blasted his second attempt right at Crew goalkeeper William Hesmer, who amazingly recovered to smother the play.
"I'm out there and I'm flying across the goal," Hesmer recalled. "I'm about to dive down to my right because I think that's where he's about to hit it. Then I see him hold up. Maybe he thinks that I am going to have it covered, so then he tries to go across my body. When he did that, I think it hit off his ankle and just kind of spun there. Luckily, I didn't go down yet, so I was able to hold my ground. He still got to it first and hit it well, but it went right to my hands. We dodged a bullet on that one, for sure. When something like that happens, you certainly hope it's going to be your day. You say, 'We got out of that one, now let's sharpen it up.'"
It was a legendary miss at a crucial moment. A goal would have knotted the series again. Instead, the flub left the Wiz deflated. If there had been a drain installed in the goal area, the Kansas City season would have circled right down it. Except for one wide, long-range shot by Jimmy Conrad, Kansas City would never seriously threaten Hesmer again.
The Dagger
The goal that put the game/series away was a beauty. It started with an ever-dangerous throw-in at midfield, which I'd wager was another item pretty low on Onalfo's things-to-limit list. Hejduk threw the ball in to Eddie Gaven, who knocked it back to Hejduk. Frankie then played the ball up the line to a triple-teamed Guillermo Barros Schelotto.
What happened next was magic. Pinned against the sideline in a sea of blue, Schelotto, with a surgeon's precision, passed the ball right through the legs of K.C. defender Michael Harrington. Schelotto's perfectly-weighted nutmeg pass beat three defenders and found Alejandro Moreno in stride on the right side of the penalty box. Moreno rolled a low cross through the box, and it found Robbie Rogers, who pounded the ball inside the near post with his left boot.
"I don't think Guillermo got into the flow of the game much," said Crew coach Sigi Schmid, "but at the end of the day, a player like him makes the incisive pass that sets up the second goal, and that's why he's out there."
The goal was instructive in that Rogers spent most of the game being hounded by 2-3 defenders, and while he drew a lot of attention, he struggled to break through it on the dribble. Schelotto showed how a crafty veteran can pass his way out of those situations. At the same time, the goal was somewhat ironic in the sense that Rogers had drawn a crowd of blue shirts all night, yet on this particular play, he was left wide open and made the Wizards pay the price for their negligence.
"I think I was just following the play," Rogers said. "I knew that if Ale was out wide, someone else would have to fill the middle. (Brad Evans) was near post and the ball came to me at the far post. I was just thinking, 'I better put this on target or they are going to kill me.' I struck it pretty well and it went in."
Once the ball hit the net, Rogers hopped on over to the Nordecke to celebrate. They were happy to see him.
Oh No, It's Arnaud
The Crew were very wary of K.C. midfielder Davy Arnaud. He led the counterattack that produced the Wizards' goal in the first leg, and he also sprung the counterattack that produced Abe Thompson's near tap-in at the beginning of the second leg. The man tasked with tracking Arnaud was (who else?) Brian Carroll.
"I thought Brian played very well," said Schmid. "Early in the first half, Davy Arnaud got behind our midfield a couple of times in the first 10-15 minutes. That was something I pulled Evans over about, and then had him relay the message to BC, and after that, I don't think Arnaud got behind us the rest of the night."
"He's a tricky player," Carroll said of Arnaud. "He makes a lot of good, deep runs out of the midfield and keeps the ball well for them. He had a few runs early, and Will made a good save on the one chance (by Thompson), and then we were able to keep him at bay after that. I'm glad we were able to limit his touches and limit his chances."
Between the assist on the first goal and the hounding of Arnaud, Schmid was pleased with Carroll's play. "He played an excellent game, but then again, that's what I have come to expect out of him."
Postseason Imitates Regular Season
It seemed to me that this series was the Crew's season in a nutshell. They fell behind on the road in the first leg, yet somehow mustered the goal they needed to come back and earn the draw. Then at home, they jumped on their opponent and kept a clean sheet. It all seemed very familiar.
"I think the way the season has gone gave us the confidence to come back in the first game, and then we carried that momentum into this game," said Carroll. "So yeah, I'd say that is an accurate statement."
"It's just us doing what we've been doing all year," said captain Frankie Hejduk. "We're confident in our play and we're confident in ourselves. That confidence has bred a winning attitude, and a winning attitude has bred winning."
Sight & Sound of the Night
Sight of the Night was seeing Clark and Dan Hunt in the house for the second straight game. They were on the sidelines late in the game and in the locker room afterward.
Sound of the Night belongs to a familiar chant that started in the Nordecke, but quickly spread across the stage and over to the west side of the stadium. It happened late in the game, and it was an anticipatory chant for Thursday's match-up with the Chicago Fire. I'm not sure if I can print it here, but the chant was the traditional one that demands that people extinguish the fire in an all-natural, strictly biological fashion. It was fun to see the whole stadium so alive and getting pumped up for the conference final.
Baffled by the Bubbly
As reporters stood around waiting for more players to interview, Shawn Mitchell of the Columbus Dispatch nodded toward a tub and asked me what was with the champagne. With my keen powers of observation suddenly activated by Shawn's query, I looked down and realized that I was in fact standing mere inches away from a tub filled with iced champagne bottles. "I dunno," I replied.
Given that I didn't even notice the champagne in the first place, it goes without saying that this wasn't the put-on-the-goggles-and-cover-the-lockers-with-sheets-of-plastic type of bubbly bath commonly seen when hauling in hardware. The champagne tub was pretty much full, although the lid did look like it caught a brief spray. Team manager Tucker Walther carried a bottle around like a wino in need of a paper bag, but the players were very low-key. One easily got the sense that they know they're not done yet.
Still, some appreciated the gesture and what it represented. "I think those champagne bottles have been on ice for six years, so it's good to get them out," said Danny O'Rourke, referencing either the Crew's last payoff victory or the time since the Crew's 2002 U.S. Open Cup triumph, when there was indeed a champagne shower in the locker room. "We're excited, but we know we haven't won anything yet."
One front office person commented that the champagne was intended to celebrate both the Supporters' Shield (which had been clinched while the Crew was at Midway Airport preparing to return from Chicago) and the Crew's first playoff advancement in a half-dozen years. It was then that the light bulb went on in my head. The champagne may have seemed out of place, but we as a nation just spent a month watching one champagne celebration after another in our National Pastime. In baseball, teams do the all-out champagne celebration when clinching a playoff spot and then again after each and every victorious playoff series. By the time the Philadephia Phillies won the 2008 World Series, they had participated in FOUR cork-popping, clothes-soaking, ultra-expensive drench-fests.
So in the end, maybe the champagne wasn't so strange after all. Either way, in celebrating a first-round playoff victory, the Crew's locker room barely qualified as a quaint cocktail party when compared to the Dom-spouting delirium of any baseball clubhouse at the same stage of the postseason journey.
Field of Dreams
Most grounds crews would struggle to have a grass playing surface in pristine condition in preparation for a rainy November weekend, but Brett Tanner and his crew had to get Crew Stadium looking pristine after five (5) (FIVE!) high school championship soccer matches in the span of 27.5 hours. The games started Friday at noon and ended Saturday at 3:30, a mere four hours before the Crew and Wizards kicked off. ONN sideline reporter Katie Witham and I walked the field before the game, and we could not believe what excellent shape it was in.
When we spoke with V.P. of Operations Scott DeBolt, Katie asked what the grounds crew did to make the field as incredible as it was. "Prayed," he deadpanned.
DeBolt went on to reveal that after the conclusion of Friday's matches, the grounds crew rolled the field with their steamroller-like flattening device. That helped squish out any of the divots and cleat marks from Friday's games. After Saturday morning's game, the grounds crew mowed the field, and at the conclusion of the afternoon game, they repainted all of the lines. "And then they prayed some more," he added.
Well, their prayers were certainly answered. Against all odds, the field was magnificent. Sometimes it's easy to take Crew Stadium's immaculate pitch for granted, but Tanner and his crew deserve extra credit for Saturday's surface. What an amazing job they did. The only person who could possibly be displeased would be Abe Thompson, who lost the "bad bounce" excuse for his goalmouth flub.
The Wayback Machine
In his "Flick Ons" blog, my good buddy Flick noted that there had been a mere 2,233 days between Crew playoff victories. With his kind permission, I am reprinting a few tidbits that he dug up while looking through the wayback machine.
The last time the Crew won a playoff game...
...the price of gas was $1.31 per gallon.
..."Dilemma" by Nelly, featuring Kelly Rowland, was the country's #1 song according to Billboard.
...Robbie Rogers, who scored the Crew's second goal Saturday night, couldn't legally get into an R-rated movie by himself. That's OK, though, since he also wasn't old enough to drive himself to the theater. He was 15.
...Barack Obama was a state legislator in Illinois. I think he's been in the news lately, but I can't remember why.
...the national debt was about $6.2 trillion. Now it stands at around $10.4 trillion.
...Wikipedia was about one year old, and hadn't quite realized its place as the message board and high school kid go-to source for information.*
...the Cincinnati Bengals finished 2-14. Hey, wait a minute.
...a German-born gentleman named Sigi Schmid was busy coaching the Supporters' Shield winners to an MLS Cup victory. Hmm...
[* Notebook footnote: Since Flick mentioned Wikipedia as a go-to source for message board posters and high school kids, I figure it's worth mentioning that the highly-amusing Dan Loney, whose blog resides at BigSoccer.com, once decreed Wikipedia to be one of "The Four Pillars of Internet Scholarship", along with Google, Babelfish, and IMDB. Just thought I'd share in case any budding scholars are missing a pillar or two in their bookmarks.]
Mr. Numbers Nerd: Playoff Oddities Edition
Here's an oddity I found last offseason, but couldn't find an immediate use for. As luck would have it, this weekend provided the perfect window of opportunity to use this tidbit in a relevant manner.
When Michael Kraus entered Saturday's game for the Wizards, he became part of a very unique fraternity. By making his professional debut in a playoff game, he has joined, at least temporarily, the short list of MLS players who have played more career postseason minutes than career regular season minutes.
The list...
• +21 minutes: Khari Stephenson (K.C. 2004-05) [190 RS minutes, 211 PS minutes]
• +31 minutes: Michael Kraus (K.C. 2008) [0 RS minutes, 31 PS minutes]
• +32 minutes: Hamisi Amani-Dove (DAL 2001-02) [101 RS minutes, 133 PS minutes]
• +300 minutes: Ian Woan (CLB/MIA 2001) [107 RS minutes, 407 PS minutes]
Two more notes of interest:
First, like Kraus, Hamisi Amani-Dove made his MLS debut in the playoffs. All of his career playoff minutes were earned in 2001, whereas all of his career regular-season minutes were earned in 2002.
Second, amazingly enough, this group is going to grow again this coming weekend. New York Red Bulls goalkeeper Danny Cepero has 180 career regular season minutes and 180 career playoff minutes. Saturday's Western Conference final will put Cepero over the top and give him more career playoff minutes than regular season minutes.
Of course, both Kraus and Cepero will have the opportunity to remove themselves from this bizarre list during the 2009 regular season. Stephenson, Amani-Dove, and Woan are oddities etched in stone.
Celebrity Lookalike?
Before the game, I was chatting with Crew PR Director Dave Stephany when Duncan Oughton walked over to us. Duncs was sporting a mustache/soul-patch combination that had Dave convinced that Duncan looked like Matthew McConaughey in some movie. Dave couldn't pinpoint the film, and Duncan and I were stumped.
"Are you sure it's from a movie?" Duncan finally asked. "Or are you just thinking of something from real life where he's, like, smoked up and sitting on the beach naked while playing the bongos?"
That must have been it, because Dave never thought of the movie (though he later concluded it was probably some random Letterman appearance - or snowboarder Seth Wescott - he was thinking of). And for the record, at the time of this conversation, Duncan was lucid, clothed, and non-percussive.
Fantasy Football Update
In addition to the Supporters' Shield and the Visa MLS Defender of the Year trophy, Chad Marshall is looking to add an MLS Cup and a Columbus Crew Fantasy Football League title to his 2008 haul. Entering this past weekend, Marshall led the league with an 8-1 record.
His opponent this past weekend was Danny O'Rourke. "I am hoping to do some giant-killing this week," O'Rourke said. "I don't even want to talk about last week."
O'Rourke then proceeded to talk at length about his previous week's loss to Alejandro Moreno, which came down to the penultimate offensive play by the Washington Redskins in their blowout loss to Pittsburgh. A meaningless completion to Moreno's Chris Cooley at the end of the game allowed the Venezuelan to best O'Rourke by a half-point. "I don't want to talk about it," he once again muttered after talking about it.
The loss dropped Danny O's team to 3-6, which caused O'Rourke to update his team's motto. It is now "Three and six, still in the mix!"
I asked what a loss to Marshall would do to his team's motto. "I think I would go from 'Three and five, still alive' to 'Three and six, still in the mix' to 'Three and seven, I'm-going-to-trade-all-my-players.'"
Sigi the Salesman
Sigi made his case for a sellout for Thursday's Eastern Conference final. His plea has already been relayed in a few print and online articles, but all of them left out Sigi's silly postscript.
"I'd like to see us fill this place on Thursday night," he said. "I'd really like to see it packed. As far as I know, there are not a lot of pro sports in Columbus. I know Ohio State is probably close to pro football, but I don't think there are a lot of other pro sports here. It has been a long time since there has been a professional team on the verge of winning a title. There's no reason why we can't pack this place with all the people in Columbus who say they watch soccer."
After letting his words sink in for a moment, he chuckled and added, "That's my marketing pitch, so if we sell out, I expect a bonus from (Crew President/GM Mark) McCullers."
So to help the 2008 MLS Coach of the Year hit his ad hoc sales targets, do your part and drag as many people to the game as you can. Talk it up to anyone who will listen. If you get home from work on Thursday and see that your neighbor has keeled over dead on his driveway, bring him along "Weekend at Bernie's" style. (Besides, it's Novemeber. Everyone in attendance will be cold to the touch anyway.)
Thursday night will be the most monumental home game in Crew history. It is the club's fifth conference final(s) appearance, but they did not have home field advantage against D.C. United in 1997, 1998, and 1999, nor did they have home field advantage against New England in 2002. This is the very first time that the Crew can clinch an MLS Cup berth at home.
In addition to that, the game has many obvious subplots...
• Can Columbus finally knock off Chicago in a knock-out game? The teams have never met in the playoffs, but the Fire have won all three U.S. Open Cup matchups.
• Can Mexican National Team legend Cuauhtemoc Blanco get over the psychological hurdle of playing a high stakes cold-weather game in Crew Stadium? Or will he be haunted by chants of "dos a cero"?
• Will University of Dayton alum and Kettering native Chris Rolfe finally give his "I score pretty much whenever I set foot in Crew Stadium" routine a rest? And will the Crew's defense give him any choice in the matter?
• While both parties will say that Jon Busch's acrimonious departure from Schmid's Crew team is no longer an issue, one of these proud, talented and competitive men, whether they want it or not, will be accorded with some measure of vindication when the final whistle blows. Which man will it be?
• And then there is the elephant in the room: Brian McBride. With a trip to the MLS Cup final on the line, the most accomplished player in Crew history will be wearing the wrong shirt while lining up against the most accomplished team in Crew history. How (messed) up is that?
The Massive Bananas have spent seven-and-a-half months methodically stripping away the black & gold baggage of yesteryear. Over the course of 32 games, they have proven to be different from every Crew team of the past. On Thursday, as if it were scripted, they will come face to face with that past at both ends of the field.
For the citizens of Crew Nation, there is only one word to describe the tangible and intangible stakes:
Massive.
Steve Sirk is a contributor to TheCrew.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs. Questions? Comments? Completely incapable of concentrating on anything between now and Thursday? Feel free to write at sirk65@yahoo.com
