Don The Hard Hats - Crew Prepare To Defend Cup
By Mark Hoffmann, Columbus Wired Contributor, Photos by Dave Liggett (Columbus Wired)

Don the Hard Hats

It is pleasing to look back to the Crew’s 2008 magical season. Their charmed campaign saw the team sprint out of the gate and take six of their first seven contests. Yes, they then stumbled slightly, but they regained their early season composure and form to outpace all competitors to garner the Supporters Shield en route to capturing the MLS Champions Cup.

They jogged through drink stops along their marathon seven month trek reclaiming the Trillium Cup and collecting multiple MLS individual accolades. However, like the spring equinox on March 20th marked the leveling of the earth’s axis relative the sun, the March 18th kickoff in Seattle signaled the leveling of the playing field in Major League Soccer standings.

"It won't be easy (to duplicate last years results)," said Warzycha, who is back in charge once again after Sigi Schmid decided to transfer to the northwest team in green and coach expansion Seattle. "But we are capable, yes."

The winter team hiatus, a down time that saw the heralded head coach depart for greener pastures (well at least greener kits), has come and gone. He departed to head the leagues latest expansion team, the Seattle Sounders FC. The man in the muffler nabbed mid-fielded Brad Evans during the expansion draft, to accompany him in the soggy city near Mt. Rainier.

Not many people are exactly sure why he left so quickly; some rumor he was drawn by a comedian from Cleveland or was just tired of taking the red-eye home to his family home in California. I can only assume the price was right.

Let us wish Sigi and Brad both good health and fortune until the Crew show up in Seattle as unwelcome house guests on October 3rd of this year. It will most likely be chilly by then, but an end of the season match-up will probably mean at least one of the two combatants will be in dire need of the three points. Gloves will most likely be dropped in a fight to capture those late season points. Let’s get ready to ….

The 2009 season kicked off for the Crew at Robertson Stadium, aka the sand box. The Crew’s lack of successful results at the Dynamo’s home field most likely make the field feel more like Omaha beach than a well groomed pitch.

Despite the unfriendly territory and drought stricken sod the Crew had the better of the run of play and possession during the first half. Eddie Gaven’s hard work around the box attracted Pat Onstad’s ire a couple times as the Crew applied intense offensive pressure around the thirty minute mark of the game.

A few minutes after Gaven’s two half chances, Guillermo Barros Schelotto served a free kick cross to Chad Marshall who headed it soundly in the back of the net. However, as quickly as the ball caught Pat Onstad flat footed, it was called back as a penalty. On replay it looked to me that Marshall’s only transgression was to not fall down under the weight of the two defenders draped all over him in the box, but admittedly mine is an untrained if not slightly biased eye.

Chad, the ultimate professional brushed himself off and continued play by recovering to his defensive zone. The Crew maintained pressure and the majority of possession for the rest of the half but went into to break tied at nil. The proverbial sand in the wound from the denied goal came as both teams were just settling into second half play. At the 53 minute mark, a give and go feed back to Brian Ching from Chris Wondolowski freed Ching up the center from Chad Marshall’s marking providing him just enough separation to toe poke the ball past Will Hesmer. The goal ignited the Houston crowd which in turn picked up the Dynamo defensive effort.

A 2005 – 2007 slumping Crew slump era may have pulled their tent stakes from the sand and let bad luck history repeat at the Robertson, meekly accepting defeat. However the current MLS Champs have confidence, swagger and stubbornness to not roll over and call it quits till the job is done.

As the clock marched towards the 80th minute I suspect that more than one Crew fan was expecting to see Steven Lenhart, the guy that just scored the most opportune goals last season, get substituted into the game. But the dapperly dressed Coach Warzycha, pronounced (var-ZEE-han) selected Jason Garey as his tactical adjustment to crack the Dynamo’s pressuring defensive scheme. In talking with Will Hesmer about the coaching differences, he said that, "Bobby (Coach Warzycha) has played more recently and though he now looks at the game as a coach he can still see and understand the game as a player.”

Will went on to point out that the line-ups may have basically remained the same as last year, with Emmanual Ekpo sliding in to take Brad Evans slot but that a main difference between the coaches styles was that “Bobby is not hesitant at all to push them forward, more willing to send them forward and get them going after it and apply pressure, where as Sigi played a more cautious game, sitting back, but pretty much the rest of their game has remained the same.”

Any pessimist sitting in Claddagh Pub, that started formulating their logic as to why putting Garey in instead of Lenhart was the wrong move, had approximately three minutes to second guess the old, new coach’s substitution decision. At that time Alex Grendi, the Coach’s first substitution (46), necessitated by an slight injury to Robbie Rogers, delivered a cross to the tactical, second substitution (79) Jason Garey, who headed it down to the left foot of last years MLS MVP, who promptly delivered it to the back of the netting past Pat Onstad’s right shoulder knotting the sides at one each.

I am not saying that if Steven Lenhart would have been substituted in this goal doesn’t get scored. I am only pointing out that Coach Warzycha sees the game differently than Sigi did and most likely will respond to what he sees going on in the game not just do what worked in the past.

Both teams made good efforts after the Crew drew back even. Both teams had chances to steal the win in the remaining regulation and extra time, but the game ended knotted. The final outcome of a draw usually sits better with the away team but I doubt any of the Crew players or coaches came away truly satisfied with their first contest result. When you have become accustomed to winning, draws are not as easily accepted, nor should they be welcome. Dynamo’s we will see you all again, in September, in our back yard, the place with grass on the pitch.

“The team (Crew) displayed the same gritty resilience and confidence of the 2008 team in earning the point against Houston” said Mark McCullers President and General Manager in reference to the team’s late surge to achieve a tie in the opener. “The most important off season priority for the team was continuity. The most successful teams in Major League Soccer have been known to maintain a consistent core and this continues to be our strategy and goal.”

Reflecting this goal, the Crew punctuated their offseason with three key player signings; Danny O’Rouke (Defender) and Columbus native, Chad Marshall (Defender) selected as the 2008 MLS Defender of the Year and member of the MLS Best XI squad of the year and exercising the option on the team’s first designated player Guillermo Barros Schelotto (Midfielder/Forward) the 2008 MLS and MLS Cup MVP and member of the MLS Best XL. I move that we just refer to Guillermo (ghee-ZHER-moh) by his first name; it works for all the other great stars! The team having the same determination of last years winner should not surprise McCullers. He is very proud that the team and organization and how well they each did last year, but states “We need to “Raise the Bar” in 2009.

Opposing teams are going to be ready and anxious to battle the Crew now that they are the champions and get to play with the silver ball during their home games. This distinction will have every visiting team gunning for us. This week’s menu calls for a Hawk named Bitchie to be Hibachied. That is right the first leg (installment) of the 2009 Trillium Cup comes due March 28th at 4 pm in Crew Stadium. Nordecke groups, are you ready to BBQ some grinder bird at your tailgate celebrations to honor and welcome our 2,500 guests? Toronto (north end elite) supporters are hoping to muster that many northern neighbors in red and send them to invade our fair city and stadium? I bet their hawk mascot tastes just like chicken.

Hopefully, Coach Carver has his boys ready to get this rivalry started. In a Toronto FC TV interview he stated that “both sides will have a couple key players missing so it should still be very evenly matched” he went on to point out that “they (The Crew) are the defending champions and a very good side, that it is a big day for them being their home opener and going to be presented with their championship rings. Hopefully he can bring his team here and spoil the party.” I wonder if he likes chicken. Toronto kicked off their season at Kansas City. They scored three goals, a feat they only did once when they were playing away last year, but they conceded two. Carver noted that they were good goals against and he did not believe any keeper in the league could have stopped them. But he is not taking it easy this week and relaxing his group. He is going to have his team put in the work and they will be ready for the match against Columbus.

Up to this point in the history of the Trillium Cup rivalry the interleague challenge cup is aptly named since this rivalry is still under construction. Trillium was selected as the name for the cup since the Trillium Grandiflorum species (White Trillium) flower is the official bloom of both Ontario and Ohio. In the first six meeting of this blossoming rivalry the best result Toronto has mustered is a draw.

Three times they have been able to tie the Crew, matching the number of times the Crew have outright beat them. If Toronto does not fair better this season during 2009’s three match series, I suggest the cup’s name be modified to be called the “Trillium Flexipes (drooping trillium) Cup”. The change will add the Flexipes species to the cup title. The change would make the name more indicative of where the cup resides because this particular species, the Drooping Trillium, is abundant in the mid-west, but so rarely found in Ontario soil (just like the Trillium Cup so far in history) that it is protected by law.

Coach Warzycha feels that Toronto will be a challenge. “We took the Trillium Cup from them last year. They have added more players and gotten some new faces, and have made themselves better.” He also pointed out that “They do not want to miss qualifying for the play-offs for three years in a row and they are going to come in here and try hard to take points from us.”

The other side of the challenge for the Crew in playing the first leg of the Trillium against Toronto is that “between players away with their national teams and injuries he has about fifteen players available, and it is not going to be easy. It would be nice to still have the twenty-eight man roster but teams are just going to have to deal with it. This shortened roster is going to be hard on all the teams all season, especially those that are playing in the champion’s league because they will have even more games.”