It rained for most of the day on Saturday, yet the drought continued. Playing their third game in seven days, the Columbus Crew suffered a shutout loss… for the third time in seven days. This time it was Vancouver doing the honors, with the Whitecaps winning a 1-0 whitewash.
Table of Contents
Berhalter Blames Himself
Hurtado Buries the Winner
Trapp's Near Miss
Bouncing Back
Mr. Numbers Nerd: Triple Shutout Edition
Trapp on Streaks
Mr. Numbers Nerd: Unlucky Seven Edition
Circle of Honor Bonus Tracks: Schelotto
Circle of Honor Bonus Track: Hejduk
“A lot of the games I feel like we have been unlucky and that we have been the better team and just haven’t gotten the results,” said Crew captain Michael Parkhurst. “Tonight was a little bit different. We feel like this was the rare game where we didn’t deserve a result.”
“First of all, the guys are running on fumes,” said Crew Sporting Director and Head Coach Gregg Berhalter. “You can see the difference. It was clear.”
Saying that the guys on the field gave everything they had, Berhalter pointed the finger at himself for largely sticking with the same group of players that had already played twice that week.
“If I’m critical of anything,” he said, “it’s my team selection—not rotating more guys and getting some fresh legs in there because, to me, that was clearly the difference. They were just more physical and able to run more than we were.”
With a wickedly fast Whitecaps team whizzing around at breakneck speed, the result was the Crew’s most lopsided loss of the year on the field, although the scoreboard didn’t really reflect it due Vancouver’s inability to capitalize on some golden opportunities. Still, when you’re playing a team in a scoring funk, all it takes is one goal. Vancouver got it.
The Whitecaps scored the winning goal in the 38th minute on a play that started with a free kick taken by goalkeeper David Ousted. At the other end of the field, Erik Hurtado chested down Ousted’s floating free kick, took a touch toward the center of the field with his right foot, then unleashed a vicious 20-yard blast into the upper reaches of the far side of the goal.
“He had a really good strike,” said Crew goalkeeper Steve Clark. “Give him credit. If I’m going to get beat, hopefully it’s something like that.”
The Crew nearly broke through and equalized the game in the 87th minute when Wil Trapp’s 35-yard attempt picked up a deflection and whistled wide of the post.
“I took a touch and thought why not?” Trapp said. “It took a deflection that got me a little excited. We had to draw them out. We were getting too deep on them and the lines were tight. We needed to draw them out, so it was worth a hit. I don’t do that enough. It’s one of those things where sometimes it goes your way and sometimes it doesn’t, but you don’t get it if you don’t try.”
Based on a week of frustrating results and a dearth of goals, the players faced many questions about those subjects.
“I don’t want to say (the shutout streak) is weighing on us,” said Ethan Finlay. “I think not winning is weighing on us. Obviously, you have to score to win a game. It’s frustrating because we’re playing well and we’re creating chances, and I think we’re passing the ball and keeping good possession, but you have to score goals to win. That’s how you win games. Right now, we haven’t done that. We need to change that. Quickly.”
“We’ve just got to score,” added Justin Meram. “I don’t think anyone’s depressed about it, but we need to score to win.”
The players feel that they just need a small taste of success to get back on track.
“I think if we get a couple of goals, the floodgates will open and the pressure will be off,” Trapp said. “Right now the pressure keeps building and building. It’s a test, you know? It’s a test of our character and a test of our mental toughness. Either we’re going to bend or we’re going to break. We have a lot of strong guys in this locker room who want to win and want to do the right things.”
“Once we get a goal, everything will open up because that will bring confidence,” said Dominic Oduro. “Everybody will be excited to play. Right now, it’s kind of a head-down (situation) when you consider the games that we haven’t scored, but we have a great team and we will fix it.”
“We’re going to stay the course,” said Parkhurst. “We have to have the confidence because that’s the only thing that’s going to turn the ship around.”
MR. NUMBERS NERD: TRIPLE SHUTOUT EDITION
Although the team had never done it in the span of seven days before, the Crew’s week of futility marked the fourth time in club history that they’ve been shutout for at least three consecutive games. The other instances are peculiar.
It is the first such streak since the Crew were blanked four times in succession back in… 2008? That most Massive of seasons when the Crew won the Supporters’ Shield and MLS Cup? Yep.
2008 (17-7-6):
May 17: 0-0 draw at Toronto
May 24: 1-0 loss vs. New England
May 31: 2-0 loss at Chivas USA
June 7: 2-0 loss vs. San Jose
Sure that was weird, but what about the time before? That would be… 2004. Wait, the year the Crew won their first Supporters’ Shield? Yep.
2004 (12-5-13):
April 17: 1-0 loss at Kansas City
April 24: 2-0 loss at Los Angeles
May 1: 0-0 draw vs. Dallas
Fine. But the other time it happened, it definitely had to happen to a crappy team, right? Certainly not a team that finished well over .500 and cruised into the playoffs. Definitely not an offensively-loaded team like 2001. Wait… seriously? 2001? Yep. 2001.
2001 (13-7-6):
April 21: 3-0 loss vs. Kansas City
May 5: 0-0 draw vs. Miami
May 12: 4-0 loss at Dallas
What a weird bit of history. This marks the fourth time the Crew have been blanked in at least three straight games, and the other three all happened in the early part of the season, while the combined record of those teams went on to be 42-19-25. All three made the playoffs, and the trophy haul included two Supporters’ Shields and an MLS Cup.
Next you probably think I’m going to tell you something even crazier, like that the Crew’s seven-game winless streak was last equaled in 2009, when they won yet another Supporters’ Shield.
You’d be right. That actually happened too. You couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried.
I don’t bring up all those insane statistical tidbits as a definitive declaration that the Crew are going to win three Supporters’ Shields and an MLS Cup this year, but their counterintuitive improbability offers a reminder that even good or great seasons can have grim stretches. As bad as the past week was, it doesn’t in any way have to be season-defining.
“I think the biggest thing is we can’t read too much into it,” said Trapp. “We need to get back to things that make us ‘us’ and not read too far into the shutouts and not scoring. You’re only going to lose confidence if you overthink the game. We just have to be mentally strong and keep plugging away. It’s a long season. We still have 24 games left. It’s not always going to be perfect and peachy.”
As we have seen, should they need inspiration, the Crew have some incredible examples of resiliency from the club’s own history.
MR. NUMBERS NERD: UNLUCKY SEVEN EDITION
The current seven-game winless streak (0-4-3) is the fifth such official streak of seven or more games in the annals of Crew soccer. For the record, here are the other winless streaks of seven or more games…
July 6 – August 16, 2003: Seven games. (0-4-3)
June 10 – August 16, 2006: 13 games. (0-7-6)
May 5 – June 16, 2007: Seven games. (0-4-3)
March 21– May 2, 2009: Seven games. (0-2-5)
Bonus addition if we treat 1996 as real soccer instead of shootout soccer…
May 15 – July 20, 1996: 13 games. (0-7-6 in actual soccer games, but officially 2-11-0 thanks to a pair of shootout wins and four shootout losses. The longest official “winless” steak in there was just six games due to a shootout win “ending” it. Since shootout victories were only worth one point, we can definitely include the 1996 streak if we clumsily rephrase everything as a “not-getting-three-points streak.” Take that, Mr. Official MLS Record Book!)
Let’s move on to some brighter moments in Crew history. My Circle of Honor profile on Guillermo Barros Schelotto went up earlier this week. It was already clocking in at over 2,000 words, so I left out these comments from fellow finalists Mike Clark and Brian Maisonneuve. Both guys remain Crew fans and follow the team, so it was neat to hear their thoughts on Schelotto as fans.
MAISONNEUVE: “Oh man, he was so much fun to watch. His passing, the way he saw the field, his sophistication on the ball, I mean, it was second to none. I never met him, but I watch all of the Crew’s games, and just watching him play was so much fun. He was one of those guys where you could just watch him. I grew up watching Michael Jordan and those types of players, and he was close to it. You could watch him on the field, the way he moved, the way he passed, and he was fantastic.”
CLARK: “Obviously, by the time he came around, I was just a Crew fan who watched the games and got to see him play. The first thing that came to mind when I saw him play was, ‘Man, I wish we had a guy like that!’ In my mind, he was a guy that had that same mentality that Robert (Warzycha) had. He hated to lose and you could see it in the way that he played. He played with passion. His skill speaks for itself. There haven’t been many with his combination of skill and that mentality where he just hates to lose. He certainly had that. I had great respect for how he played the game.”
CIRCLE OF HONOR BONUS TRACKS: HEJDUK
Cody Sharrett wrote the Circle of Honor profile of Frankie Hejduk while I was on vacation, but as I chatted with Clark and Maisonneuve, I also asked if they had any Frankie memories for me to include in this week’s Notebook. That turned out to be an impossibly broad question, but here’s what two Crew legends had to say about The Dude.
CLARK: “He was one of those guys who was great in the locker room. I’ve never seen him down. I don’t know if he’s ever had a day where he’s been depressed, but I’ve never seen it if he has. Having a guy like that—especially the year that we overlapped (2003), which had some difficult times—he was always very positive and had a care-free nature about him. When the time came to play, he was suddenly getting stuck in there as hard as anybody and definitely working harder than anybody.
“His stamina is legendary. You could put any type of physical fitness test in front of him and he killed it. The funniest story I have about him is the year before he came here, I spent the offseason working really hard. I was getting really fit and hitting the weight room. Most of us stayed in Columbus to do that. He comes in and we’re doing the beep test. I am fired up. I’m ready to do it. We’re doing this beep test and I am pushing myself to the limit. I put in all of this offseason work and I was one of the last guys to go out. I remember going out—I just couldn’t make it any longer—and then I finally picked up my head and there was Frankie, and he was just cruising along, not even sweating. He was just cruising along until he was the last one going and then he just ended up stopping. I’m like, ‘How?’ He said, ‘I’m a surfer, bro. I spent my whole offseason surfing.’ It was just so frustrating for a guy who has been working his butt off in the gym all winter and then this guys just rolls in and kills everybody.
“His playing ability speaks for itself with the Olympics and the World Cups. The guy had an engine like no other. He could probably go out there right now and beat most of the guys in any sort of fitness test. That’s just God-given talent right there, even though he worked hard.
“And now he was the perfect role as the Crew’s Brand Ambassador. They couldn’t have picked a better person. His energy just rubs off on people. When he was on the team it did and it’s obviously been effective for him now with the new gig he’s got going.”
MAISONNEUVE: “Oh man. (Laughs.) So many good stories about Frankie. Frankie and I played against each other in college and we played together on the U-23 team before MLS started, so we go way back.>
“I remember listening to Bruce Arena after the 2006 World Cup. Bruce was talking about that World Cup afterward and he said, ‘We missed Frankie Hejduk.’ Everyone in the room kind of looked around at each other like, ‘What do you mean?’ But Frankie was an unbelievable player. Bruce said, ‘Everything that Frankie brought to the field and to the locker room made our unit better.’
“I thought about that and my playing days with him, and I thought that was a great statement about Frankie. Obviously he did some unbelievable things on the field, but it was also the things he brought to the locker room with his comments, his jokes and the way he just lightened the mood. Frankie was so much fun to be around and people loved playing with him and being around him. He just made any roster of guys a better team.
“So when Bruce said that, I knew it was true. Frankie was a great player who just made your team better with everything that he did.”
Questions? Comments? Brother, can you spare a goal? Feel free to write at sirk65@yahoo.com or via twitter @stevesirk
