Match date: April 26, 2003
Columbus Crew 0, NY/NJ MetroStars 1

by Steve Sirk, Columbus Wired

Finding the perfect adjective to describe the Crew's 1-0 loss to the MetroStars is proving to be a difficult task. So instead, I will offer the following list of 13 off the top of my head: dismal, dreary, tedious, humdrum, boring, flat, soporific, depressing, sluggish, uninspiring, somnolent, listless and lifeless. Choose the one that works for you.

The Crew have an electrifying team, and Crew Stadium is usually an exciting place to be, but everyone has an off day from time to time. For example, I'm sure that every now and then, Leonardo da Vinci would complete a painting that even his own mother wouldn't hang on the refrigerator. Of course, they didn't have refrigerators back in da Vinci's day (although I'm sure he designed a prototype anyway.) And even if they did have refrigerators back then, I have no idea how one would go about nailing a framed painting into the door, which would seem counterproductive to holding the cold air in, so this analogy doesn't work in any way, shape or form, which, now that I think about it, makes it all the more perfect for this game. I guess.

The game in a nutshell: The Crew looked lifeless and sloppy, the Metros looked skill-less and choppy, and 90 Nyquil minutes later, the home-team shuffled off the field empty-handed. Blah.

All Aboard The Metro Blandwagon

The Metros were unapologetic for the bunker mentality that produced this snoozer.

"We still know that our soccer needs to get better," understated Metro head coach Bob Bradley, "but today was about sticking together and getting a win."

While Bradley didn't profess to be ecstatic with his team for ceding possession and territory to the Crew all in the name of packing the box and destroying the flow, but he was proud of the result.

"When it's early in the season, and when guys haven't experienced a win yet, and you get the lead on the road, there's a pretty strong attempt the guys to keep things tight and to not let the other team get back into the game. It can work both ways. In those stretches, it would still be nice if we could hold the ball better or play out of the back better. You can scream from the sidelines all you want, but the guys on the field are responding to the situation and doing what they feel they need to do to get a win. Look, for us, when a team is growing and trying to figure out what it feels like to be a team, it's a good feeling to have a bunch of guys who played hard and found a way to get three points."

Crew forward Brian McBride summed it up more succinctly.

"They're good at breaking things up," he said. "Bob Bradley always has his teams organized. They know when to slow the game down with a foul or a certain tactical play. They did that well today."

Something to Consider...

The MetroStars share the Meadowlands complex with the New Jersey Devils, who have single-handedly tried to kill the beauty and skill of the NHL with their neutral zone trap. Therefore, the Meadowlands has now spawned a blight on two sports. It must be something in the water. (As in some sort of pollutant, not the decomposing mafia corpses, which, as far as I know, are harmless. Well, except to the dead guy.)

14 Day Turnaround

Bradley noticed a difference between today's game and the 1-0 Crew victory just two weeks prior in New Jersey.

"They got the goal in the first game and we got the goal today," he said in an attempt at levity. "Look, we played two tight games with them. I thought that in the first game, we were pretty solid. I was disappointed that as that game moved a long, I didn't see enough guys with the look on their face that we were going to win that game. I thought we were just trying to sruvive until the end. Today was different. Today there was a look that said that they had worked hard for the lead and they weren't going to give it back."


Credit Where Credit Is Due

Despite the boring tactics employed by the Metros, central defenders Eddie Pope and Steve Jolley deserve recognition for the jobs they did on the Crew strike force of Brian McBride and Jeff Cunningham. Pope in particular was outstanding, rarely losing a battle all game long.

"I really feel good about the way Steve Jolley and Eddie Pope are playing in the center of defense," said Bradley. "Eddie has come into our team and has not only been a great player, but a great leader. I think his day-in, day-out influence with Steve has been a plus."

"Pope and Jolley did a great job in shutting down our forwards and limiting their opportunities," agreed Crew head coach Greg Andrulis.

"They were very organized and didn't give us much room to take shots," said Cunningham. "They did an excellent job of shutting down Brian and myself. A lot of credit goes to them."


Get Rummy On the Phone ASAP

The Crew were not able to penetrate the dense Metro defense. Clearly some of those GPS-guided bunker busters are needed. Except, like, with passing the soccer ball and not with real bombs and stuff.

"I think they were allowing us to attack from the left," said Andrulis. "They shifted over to our right to try and limit what Frankie could do. I think Eric Denton did a good job, and Freddy's final touch just wasn't quite there. They also bottled up the middle so Kyle and Jeff couldn't get going. We needed to play a little quicker to make something happen."

McBride agreed that quickness of thought and action is what is needed to bust the bunker.

"I don't think we moved the ball like we can," he said. "We aren't the team we can be when we don't move the ball well. When we did combine quickly, we opened things up a little bit."


Road Sweet Road

Initially, I planned to debut a new notebook feature this week. Basically, I thought it would be fun to see if the Crew could amass more road points this year than the Blue Jackets did in their recently completed 2002-03 season. Granted, the Crew get three points for a win whereas the Jackets only get two, but the Jackets get a point for an overtime loss and the Crew get nothing. Oh yeah, and the Jackets play 41 road games to the Crew's 15.

So as of right now, here is the road point comparison:

2002-03 Blue Jackets: 22 points
2003 Columbus Crew: 6 points

Of course, a lot of the fun of this was snatched away by the fact that the Crew are once again piddling away home points.

"We cannot give up three points at home," said defender Brian Dunseth. "The worst case scenario needs to be a tie, but we need to win at home. Last year we got punished for it."

The Crew's six home wins last year were third fewest in the league, which was a devastaing shortcoming for a team that missed a conference title by one point. After back-to-back road wins, the Crew wanted to keep the momentum going at home. But perhaps there was a feeling that home success would inevitably follow road success?

"Maybe we relaxed a little bit after coming back from the road," said Crew goalkeeper Jon Busch. "We can't do that. There are no easy games in MLS, on the road or at home. Anyone can beat anyone on any given day. We went to New York and scraped out a 1-0 victory and then they came here and scraped out a 1-0 victory. It's going to bethat way all season. We need to knuckle down for 90 minutes and put teams away."

Busch scoffed at the suggestion that this was a game that could be filed away.

"You don't file this one away," he said. "You learn from it. We can't keep dropping points at home. We have one point in two home games and it is unacceptable. I don't know if the fire wasn't there or what. We've got to learn from it. We dropped points at home last year, and we ended up shooting ourselves in the foot."

Jeffro's Sneak Attack

In a slick move that woulda/coulda/shoulda turned the tide of the entire afternoon, #11 decided to put the "cunning" in Cunningham. (Feel free to slap me at any time.)

In the first half of play, Metro goalkeeper Tim Howard gained possession of the ball. After holding it for several seconds, he rolled the ball out to his feet so he could buy a little more time before playing it down field. But there was one small problem that he managed to overlook. Jeff Cunningham was hiding behind him. As soon as Howard dropped the ball, Cunningham raced around him, stole the ball, and attempted to knock it into the net. Unfortunately for the Crew, Howard possessed the instinct and reflexes to get back in front of Cunningham's attempt.

"The goalkeepers have six seconds to get the ball out of their hands and into play," Cunningham explained. "Knowing that as a forward, you kinda wait for him to put it down. He did a good job of recovering, because as soon as I took the ball from him, he was able to get down and get a hand on it."

"I've seen that move a few times in different leagues and different highlights," said McBride. "I think only a goalkeeper as quick as Timmy is going to be able to get down that quick."


#3 All-Time!

After post-game interviews, I told Columbus Dispatch reporter Craig Merz that I have officially ranked this game as the third worst in Crew Stadium history and asked him if he could name #1 and #2. (By "worst", I mean that it's just an awful game to watch, regardless of result.)

"Number one would have to be the 0-0 tie against Miami," Merz said after giving the matter the briefest amount of contemplation.

Ding ding ding! We have a winner! The 0-0 tie with Miami on May 5, 2001, in which both teams literally stood on the field in the nearly 100 degree mid-day heat, was indeed the worst game in Crew Stadium history. (Interestingly enough, I later posed this question independently to two of my friends, Flick and Z-man, who also immediately cited that Miami game as the worst ever, so it's clearly unanimous.)

Merz struggled with #2. I finally told him that for #2, I have the September 12, 1999 game, in which the Crew lost 2-1 to the lowly, worst-team-in-MLS-history MetroStars. It was a game much like today's, but it wins the tiebreaker because that game accounted for one-fifth of the Metros point total for that entire season.

"I was covering an NHL preseason game at OSU that day," recalled Merz. "But if it was worse than today's game, I'm glad I missed it."

Crew Cribs III(a): Dunseth Responds To Duncan's Response To Dunseth

Hoo boy. This Cribs thing is getting messy. As many of you are aware, the "Dun-amic Duo" of Duncan Oughton and Brian Dunseth are engaged in a war of words over Dunseth's brief stay with Oughton before the season. Dunseth accused Duncan of being a chocoholic with an empty refrigerator and a mouse infestation. Duncan responded by accusing Dunseth of being a clean freak live-in-maid who monopolized the television to watch salacious cinema and MTV, so he could sing along to Britney Spears.

Upon entering the locker room, I was accosted by Dunseth, who said he had a bone to pick with me for spreading "lies and mistruths." Twenty minutes later, I was approached by Duncan outside of the club area, saying he wanted a chance to respond to the latest...uhhh...(lies and mistruths emited by a bull) that Dunseth was spreading.

After the Crew locker room had emptied, Dunseth said he had read what Duncan had said, and wanted to clarify some issues that were misrepresented.

"The Skin-a-max part? I'm an HBO man," he said. "Let's stick with honesty and truth here. The MTV? Yeah, for sure. I watch a lot of MTV. I fall asleep to it when I take my nap. Hey, who could turn down Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera? That's not a tough choice, right? But Duncan, he's pissed off because there's only one TV in his house that works, and that's downstairs. Upstairs I think he only gets Channel 4. He can sit in his room if he doesn't want to watch MTV."

Yeah, but what if Duncan prefers to watch soccer and rugby, neither of which are on Channel 4?

"I don't want to watch rugby," he said. "Hey, if there's soccer on, I'll watch it all day long. But I do not want to watch a bunch of furry Australians running around and punching each other and knocking each other's teeth out. Most of these guys have no ears left. The few that have ears have big ol' cauliflower wrestler ears. I don't need to see that."

Dunseth disputed Duncan's claim that the chocoholic mouse had been "eradicated."

"The mouse was not eradicated," he explained. "I'd go in the kitchen and the mouse would scamper up. I'd yell for Duncan and the mouse would take a look and then it would run away. I think the mouse had a tight gameplan."

In light of Duncan's testimony that the fridge was full when Dunseth arrived, and empty when Dunseth left, which seemingly contradicted Dunseth's claim the the fridge was nearly empty upon his arrival, Dunny felt the need to clarify his original statement.

"His refrigerator was full? Yeah, the fridge was filled with food. That's because I bought it all. It was part of my thing for staying there. I wasn't paying him rent, but I was filling up his refrigerator and cooking him dinner. I enjoyed doing that because I like to cook."

So what did Dunseth cook?

"We did a few different things, but I don't want to get into it and hurt his feelings because he's a solid cook in his own way. He makes a mean bowl of cereal. Malt-o-meal and that other crap he eats...what's it called? Vermin spread? It's some spread stuff that New Zealanders and Australians eat. It's really salty. It's not chocolate. It's some Australian stuff. God, how could I forget what it's called?" (The next few minutes are spent watching Dunseth and Crew equipment manager Tucker Walther rack their brains to no avail.)

"I also took him out to dinner plenty of times," he went on. "We got Mexican food a couple of times. I wasn't afraid to take him to Cheesecake Factory. It was a nice date for me and him. It was solid. Good teammates."

Dunseth was also hurt the by the accusations of being an insufferable neat freak.

"Listen. I make my bed when I get up. I clean my room up. I always make sure things are clean, especially when I'm staying at someone else's house. It's called courtesy. As far as him saying I was ironing his clothes, he doesn't even own an iron. I think he's getting 'iron' and 'lawnmower' confused. I don't think he's got the lingo sorted out yet."

And then all Dunseth could do is sigh. "If he wants to spread rumors and lies, well, I guess it makes him feel better about himself."

Crew Cribs III(b): Duncan Briefly Responds to That

Oughton was displeased to hear of Dunseth's latest comments.

"An HBO man? Then how do you explain the mysterious charges on my cable bill after he was gone? And I hardly think he was napping while watching Britney Spears. And he said he filled the fridge? Yeah, he filled it with so-called 'food', but it was all vegetarian loaf and humus. Have you ever head of a man eating such things? And as for the spread, it's called Vegemite, and it's good stuff for real men, not pretty boy pansies like Brian Dunseth."

(It turns out that Aussies and Kiwis enjoy munching on a yeast-filled spread that is rich in Vitamin B. If, like me, you have never heard of Vegemite until now, go to this ultra-manly and not at all pretty-boy-pansy-ish web site *** http://www.vegemite.com.au/timemachine.asp?area=3  *** to learn about the thrilling history of Vegemite, from its initial conception by a failed cow tongue canner, to the present day, where it is touted as an essential food for pregnant women. Also, be sure to click here to listen and sing along to the ultra-manly and not at all pretty-boy-pansy-ish song *** http://www.vegemite.com.au/singalong.asp?area=4  *** that captures the essence of all that is right about Vegemite.)

All in all, Duncan was disappointed in Dunseth's portrayal of events. "He's a lying (bleep), a backstabbing (bleep) and a (bleepin' bleep). Not only that, he color codes his outfits, which are sorted by color and then by fabric. Have you ever heard of a man doing something like that? If you don't believe me about all of this, ask his mom. She'll tell you what a girl he is."

Funny he should mention Dunseth's mom...

Crew Cribs III(c): Dunseth's Mom

Twenty minutes earlier, Dunseth was talking about his mother.

"You published all of those lies, and then I got a call from my mom, who had read the article on the internet. She was crying."

Wow. Sorry.

"No, she was crying from laughing so hard, which I didn't appreciate. We tend to get into it from time to time, and she used your lies as ammunition. So I felt I had to crank call her for the next week and a half straight to get her back. She bit EVERY time."

Crank calling your own mother?

"She runs a convalescent hospital and she fills all the rooms. So I'd call up and say, 'This is Johnny Johansson from the community hospital. Yeah, we're talking about Cloe Duvall, and we need a room for her.' And my mom would be like, 'Yeah, that would be great. Here's what we can work out for her.' And I'd just keep reeling her in and reeling her in, and then at the end I'd be like 'Well done, dummy!' And she'd say, 'You little....I'm gonna get you!' So that's what I did for a week and a half."

I relayed the story to Duncan.

"The fact that Brian Dunseth gets picked on by his mommy tells you everything you'll ever need to know."

(If Mrs. Dunseth would care to testify in this case, I'm all ears. Please submit all testimony to sirk@thecrew.com)

Crew Cribs III(d): Resolution?

The allegations have been flying back and forth for weeks now. Soon, it will be time to render a judgement on this dispute. "We're doing the Cribs edition, but now we need a People's Court edition," Dunseth concurred.

But who could serve as a fair, impartial, unbiased arbitrator in this dispute? Amazingly, each litigant, without solicitation, suggested the same person while insisting that this person was firmly on their side and would reveal the truth.

"Dante," suggested Dunseth. "God, I wish he was here right now. I called Dante and told him the story. He said he's going to get back with me. We'll have to have a conference call, because this is getting ridiculous. Duncan's getting a little too cocky now that Dante's gone. Dante would throw out a few 'Beakers' to put him in his place, and all this would be taken care of already."

Without making mention of Dunseth's comments, Duncan also started invoking Dante's name. "You know, Dunseth keeps feeding you all of this unbelievably ridiculous (Mr. Ed poo), but if Dante was here, there's no way he'd get away with it. Dante totally agrees with me that Dunseth is a girlish neat freak. If Dante didn't have a game kicking off right about now, I'd call him from here so he could tell you the truth."

Perhaps if Dante can find a few minutes in between scoring Mariner goals to review the mountains of evidence and testimony, he might be willing to offer a verdict. We shall see. In the meantime, we'll see if we can call Dunseth's mom to the stand.

Stay tuned for the latest in the sideshow that will not die...


Yet Another Exclusive Crew Cat Interview

After such a dreary game, I sought out Crew Cat, in the hope he could enlighten me with his keen cat-like insights. Once again, the Notebook is the only resource with the vision to realize that inside that big mascot head, there resides a big mascot brain. As always, I am not making this Crew Cat interview up.

SS: So what did you think about the game today?

CC: The only thing the MetroStars had going for them today was luck. I think they've had it in all their games. I don't think they've had a good goal the entire season. They're 0-for-the-season in terms of good goals. That's no way to build a season. You can't base a season luck, because luck eventually runs out.

SS: After watching Richie Williams claw at people all day, could you, as a cat, relate to his defensive maneuvers?

CC: I've got to tell you-- Richie Williams is no Crew Cat, nor will he ever be. Alright?

SS: New Yorkers are considered rude, obnoxious people. Did you get that impression today?

CC: Are you talking about those shenanigans they were pulling before the game? They were throwing water on me. But whereas most cats run from water, I didn't even flinch.

SS: They were throwing water at you???

CC: Yes they were. From the trainer, to the players, they're a bunch of sellouts if you ask me.


Questions? Comments? Brian Dunseth's mom? Feel free to write at sirk@columbuswired.net

Columbus Wired's Steve Sirk is in his sixth season of covering the COlumbus Crew, the last four of which have been spent with the team's official web site, www.thecrew.com , where his post-game notebook articles bafflingly appear alongside legitimate news and articles of substance.