Well I really do not know where to start. This was an ugly loss. Part of me wants to stop there and the other part of me is saying keep going. My heart is not into this recap. I have never thought that the Crew would win every match of the season, but I always thought (wished) that every game would be close. Every team has a moment of, “Wait what just happened?” and the Crew have had the misfortune of having two in one season, the first being against D.C. in the first match of the season and the second happening on Saturday in San Jose.
The most recent loss though stings a bit more. The biggest stinger being the fact that San Jose, who have been struggling with scoring, scored three goals in twelve minutes. Wait what? The Crew have been riding this season on strong solid defense. This was not the case on Saturday. If I may I am going to get a little personal with you. I, like the Crew, am in Ohio on Eastern Time, San Jose is on the west coast and the game was at 10.30 pm Eastern. I was running a half marathon the next day and went to bed early, seeing as how I had to be up at 5:00 am the next day. I turned off the push messages on my phone so they would not wake me up in the middle of the night with the scores. I was feeling a little guilty going to bed and not watching the match but I felt the race was more important. When I got up at 5:00 am the next morning the first thing I did was to check the score of my beloved Crew.
Much to my surprise I saw a 3-0 score line. I assumed that it was in favor of the Crew. I was wrong. After shaking the cobwebs from my head I saw San Jose 3, Columbus 0. Wait what? I mumbled something that I will not repeat here and my wife rolled over and asked, “What?” I gave her the score line and her reply was, “Oof”. No truer words have been uttered at such an early hour. I suddenly felt no guilt for going to bed early.
Well I have read the reports and like I stated earlier San Jose scored all three goals in a twelve minute span, 50th, 59th, and 62nd minutes. Well here comes the part of me that says keep on writing because it is the “I told you so” side. I have been saying since I started to write for this site that the Crew defense is solid, BUT it has moments of sloppiness. That was shown on Saturday. Seeing them live and on TV I have seen the same scenario played over and over again, solid defense for 75 or so minutes. In the past the Crew have been able to stave off the opposition through a timely tackle, clearance, or great save by William Hesmer. Not this time. San Jose went to the bank and cashed three checks. Other teams have been threatening this all season and Robert Warzycha seems to turn a blind eye to it because of the timely play I talked about above. I have one thing to say to Warzycha; change the formation. Go back to 4-4-2. Use two strikers, any two will work because of the talent wasted on the bench in the position. If the Crew are able to better hold the ball in the final third of the pitch, the defense will not have to worry about the sloppy moments to happen and the Crew will not see three goals go in the net in twelve minutes.
(image courtesy of Getty Images)
