On the surface, Crewsmas is about spending time with the Crew family and celebrating the renewal of spring and strengthening the bonds of our togetherness and blahblahblah. But opening the presents is always the best part. In 2012, Crew fans got to unwrap and enjoy two new Crewmas gifts bought for them by McCullers, Bliss, and Warzycha during the height of the Crewsmas shopping season: midfielder Milovan Mirosevic and forward Olman Vargas. Both would score in their home debut, leading the Crew to a 2-0 victory over the visiting Montreal Impact.
As always, here are a collection of notes, quotes, anecdotes, and/or general silliness surrounding Saturday’s game.
HELLO MILO
Mirosevic was all over the field in his home debit, making tackles near the back line and looking dangerous in the final third. He completed an astonishing 90.4% of his passes. Those are center-back-knocking-it-around-the-back-line accuracy numbers, but Mirosevic did it as a central midfielder.
In the 19th minute, he suffered a red-card elbow to the head while going up for an aerial challenge with Montreal’s Jed Brovsky. Brovsky did not swing his elbow with intent, a la Andy Herron on Jay Heaps several years ago, but his elbow was high and caught Mirosevic in the noggin. With concussion awareness at an all-time high, referees are not apt to be so forgiving for wayward elbows, regardless of intent. None of the Crew players I talked to felt it was a malicious elbow, including Mirosevic, even though he didn’t appreciate the knock to the head.
“I don’t think he meant to hit me as he did,” Mirosevic said, “but there are things in football that always happen, and you have to get used to it. I have nothing to say about that.”
Just eleven minutes later, Mirosevic scored his first goal in a Crew uniform on a penalty kick conversion. The penalty was the result of Emilio Renteria’s relentless effort. The hulking forward had the ball about 25 yards from goal, surrounded by six blue shirts. With nowhere to go with the ball, he decided to bull his way through the crowd. He fought off two challenges outside the box, changing direction each time. Then he accelerated into the box and survived a lunge from behind by Impact midfielder Felipe Martins. However, Felipe would not go quietly. He grabbed Renteria’s arm and lunged from behind a second time. Felipe’s foot touched the top of the ball as he bounced off of Renteria’s muscular frame. As Felipe fell to the ground, he rolled up the back of Renteria’s legs and brought him down with a tangled, reverse scissor tackle, just as Renteria took another touch.
“I think that play was like the game for him,” Mirosevic said. “There were two guys always around him.”
Mirosevic then stepped to the spot and went to the upper left side of the net, beating Montreal goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts. Mirosevic figures to be the primary penalty kick taker on the team.
“It started in preseason,” he said, “and I scored a few there, so I feel confidence in this moment to take them. But when I am not going to feel confident, I will hand the ball to somebody else.”
Since he felt confident on Saturday, he got himself a goal courtesy of Renteria’s grunt work.
“Yes, thank you!” Milo said as he patted Renteria on the back, eliciting a smile from his teammate.
MEET GOL-MAN OLMAN VARGAS
Vargas proved to be a very good aerial target and a dangerous partner for Renteria. In the 66th minute, he got on the end of a Shaun Francis cross and headed home the insurance goal on what Crew head coach Robert Warzycha dubbed “a perfect shot.” Given that Ricketts was playing out of his mind in the Montreal net, a perfect shot was required. Upon scoring, Vargas raced to the Nordecke, turned around, and used his thumbs to point at the name on the back of his jersey.
“It was the first one, so people get to know me,” he said with a laugh.
As for the goal itself, Vargas said, “There was good movement off the ball. We have been working in practice on the movement, like running to the first post. It was a good cross and I finished it well. The experience was unexplainable. It was exciting to come here and score for the first time. It gave me confidence because that is what a forward is supposed to do.”