The weather outside was frightful. Then Federico Higuain’s penalty kick attempt was flightful. Then Higuain’s hamstring got tightful. Then Salt Lake’s goal made the scoreline plightful. Then Salt Lake’s goalkeeper was dynamiteful. Then Ben Speas’ pass was insightful. Then Ethan Finlay’s chip was delightful. It salvaged a point, on the side that’s brightful.
Anyway, now that I got that bit of weirdness out of my system, here are some notes, quotes and stories from the Crew’s dramatic 1-1 draw against Real Salt Lake on Wednesday night.
Table of Contents
Choose Your Alliteration: Ethan's Equalizer/Finlay's Finish
Speasy Does It
That Attinella Fella
Drink with Dunny Comes to Columbus
Dunny at Home in Columbus
Dumb Question, Great Answer
CHOOSE YOUR ALLITERATION: ETHAN’S EQUALIZER / FINLAY’S FINISH
It just seemed like a night that wasn’t going to go the Crew’s way. A huge rainstorm hit Columbus, star player Federico Higuain skied a penalty kick and had to leave the game with a first-half injury and Salt Lake goalkeeper Jeff Attinella was in the midst of playing the game of his life with the Royals clinging to a 1-0 lead.
It all seemed to point to certain doom, but the Crew finally broke through in the 88th minute. Funny enough, although Higuain was not in the game, the goal was positively Pipa-esque. It started with Ben Speas splitting the Salt Lake defense with a long pass that hugged the grass, just like both of Higuain’s assists during the Crew’s previous home game. On the receiving end of Speas’ pass was Ethan Finlay, whose first and only breakaway touch was to “Pipa chip” the ball over an onrushing Attinella and into the net.
I’m no lawyer, but Finlay may be required to write Higauin a royalty check for that goal.
“I might have to,” Finlay said. “I don’t know how that works. I’ve seen him do it enough times that I figured I’d try it myself.”
By coming off the bench and nabbing the late equalizer, Finlay has a goal or an assist in four consecutive matches. The three goals in that time are a game-winner vs. Chicago, a late equalizer vs. Salt Lake and a late go-ahead goal in Portland that would have been the game-winner if the Crew hadn’t allowed a late goal to re-level the score.
“I’m just really feeling it,” Finlay said. “I can’t take all the credit because I’ve had some great setups. I’m just getting myself in some really good places, and then there’s obviously the importance of getting in front of goal and finishing when you’re there. Recently I’ve been doing really well with that.”
When Finlay speaks of great setups, he certainly speaks of Speas. The through ball that sent Finlay in one-on-one was picture perfect. It was the result of some unspoken communication moments earlier.
“I saw Ethan and we knew that run was on,” Speas said. “We made eye contact right before that and we knew next time we were going to do that. It just worked out. I got the ball from Tony (Tchani), turned, there was a bunch of space and Ethan was wide. There was a big gap, so I just played it through and Ethan did the rest. It was a great finish.”
The game marked the second consecutive outing that Speas has come off the bench to record an assist. After not playing all season, he assisted on Agustin Viana’s goal in Toronto just minutes after entering the game. Four days later, he followed it up with the dramatic assist on Finlay’s goal. That’s two assists in just 75 minutes of playing time.
Lately, the theme in Crewville has been of players working their way in and making the most of their chances. Berhalter specifically pointed to Finlay’s ascendance as an example. Now it’s Speas who is following suit.
“Now you’re seeing what we’ve been seeing in training for months,” Finlay said. “He has the ability to be a good player. Obviously, it’s tough for him being behind our Designated Player (Higuain), but he was able to come into a game like this and change it for us. Without that ball from him, there’s no way that goal happens. It was a fantastic pass by him. That’s back-to-back assists for him and I think you’ll see more.”
“I think everyone in this locker room knows how good of a player Ben is,” said defender Eric Gehrig, who himself is making the most of his recent playing opportunities. “Ben is one of those guys, like Ethan, that prepares to play every week, whether he’s playing or not. It’s tough because everyone wants to play, of course, but we have a deep team and it speaks volume about the guy he is that he’s waited his turn. For me, I didn’t expect anything less out of him. Once I saw Pipa go out, it obviously hurts our team, but there are guys chomping at the bit, and we saw that Ben Speas is a great player and he changed the game. Props to him.”
Finlay attributes these types of successes to the communication style of Crew Sporting Director and Head Coach Gregg Berhalter.
“It’s a testament to Gregg’s strategy for guys,” Finlay said. “Guys that you might have thought in preseason were on the outside looking in when it comes to the 18, he always has a plan. He’s really good at player management. He’s been fantastic with every player. He’s making sure he’s talking to them and getting a good idea of what their mindset is and building them up. He makes sure they understand the system we’re going to play, so that on a day like today, Pipa can come off the field and Ben can step right on and help.”
And that’s exactly what Speas did.
“I’m confident in my abilities and I do what I can when I am out there,” Speas said. “It’s unfortunate that Pipa had to come out, but I just go in there and try to make a difference.”
When the Crew cranked up the pressure in search of an equalizer, Salt Lake goalkeeper Jeff Attinella was a one-man highlight reel. Getting a chance to play while regular starter Nick Rimando is off to Brazil for the World Cup, Attinella finished with six saves, most of which were of the eye-popping variety. The most astonishing save came on a dipping blast from Hector Jimenez. A shot like that deserves to be a goal. Well, except when a save like that deserves to keep it out. Although Attinella lost his shutout late, it was still a sterling performance.
“I kind of like it when their goalie is the man of the match because it says we’re doing a lot offensively,” Berhalter said.
Gehrig agreed.
“I thought guys were decisive in the box and we had some good movements and combinations,” he said. “I thought guys did a good job of picking out corners and putting them on target, but he played a great game.”
Finlay felt that Attinella unquestionably titled the result.
“He was absolutely fantastic for them tonight,” Finlay said. “He was the only thing keeping us from a win.”
What impressed Gehrig most was that Attinella rebounded after a four-goal shellacking by the Seattle Sounders over the weekend.
“I actually went up to him after the game because in the last game, he got shelled on in Seattle,” Gehrig said. “I told him, ‘I think it’s pretty remarkable that you made a comeback like that and it says a lot about you as a player.’ I mean, I’ve been in that situation before where you get a chance and things didn’t go your way in a game and then you have to go out there the next game…but to come out like that? Props to him.”
DRINK WITH DUNNY COMES TO COLUMBUS
On Wednesday night, Notebook Hall of Famer Brian Dunseth made a return to Columbus as a member of Salt Lake’s broadcast team. Since his last visit in 2012, Dunseth has gained some notoriety for turning RSL broadcasts into a drinking game called Drink with Dunny, in which Dunseth triggers mandatory imbibing through the on-air utterance of predefined words or phrases requested by the television audience.
The idea for the drinking game didn’t start out as an idea for a drinking game. Dunseth was at home one night, watching a basketball game on TV with his son Shia. It was a Dallas Mavericks game, and Dunny had done FC Dallas broadcasts with Mark Followill, who also broadcasts Mavs games, so he sent Followill a text to let him know he was watching the game.
“I literally see him on television reach for his phone and text me back,” Dunseth recalled. “I was like, ‘Holy crap! What a great idea!’ Out of nowhere, it came to me that I could be really active on Twitter during broadcasts. I just thought that utilizing social media in a way where you could interact with someone during a broadcast would be really cool. The thought of someone sitting at home, watching the game and tweeting back and forth with the broadcaster…why hasn’t that been done? To my knowledge, it hadn’t been done. Reporters at home do it, but I never noticed a broadcaster doing it while on the air.”
It would be an impossibility for a play-by-play announcer to pull it off, but as a color commentator, Dunseth figured that since he only talks when the ball is in the middle of the field or during replays, he’d have the time to interact. Little did he know that his first attempt at in-game tweeting in the spring of 2013 would result in the birth of an eponymous drinking game.
On that fateful night, Alvaro Saborio scored a goal and the broadcast truck served up five replays of the tally. With each successive replay, Dunny struggled to find new ways to analyze the footage. On the fifth replay, he just let the clip roll and said, “Alvaro Saborio, snap-down header at the back post.”
Then Dunny got a tweet.
“All of a sudden, this guy tweets at me like, ‘Hey (bleephead), there’s no such thing as a snap-down header.’ I get hammered on Twitter. As a broadcaster, it’s part of the job. You have to have thick skin. This time I was like, ‘I’m going to kill him with kindness and be a smart aleck.’ I wrote something like, ‘Hahaha. I know. #Drink.’ The guy was like, ‘Huh? I don’t know what that means.’ So I responded again with ‘#Drink.’ The guy was like, ‘I literally don’t know why you keep writing that.’ I said, ‘We’re playing a drinking game. When I said snap-down header, you have to finish your drink.’ He was like, ‘I didn’t know that. What are the words?’ I said, ‘What do you want me to say?’ He said, ‘Meow.’ I said, ‘One meow, coming up.’ Then on the air I said, ‘Right meow, you kind of feel like Real Salt Lake, if they’re not careful, there’s an opportunity where the transition game can come back to haunt them.’ The guy was like, ‘Holy (crap.) You just said meow on the broadcast.’ I said, ‘Yeah. Want me to say it again?’ He said, ‘Yeah.’ So on the air, I said, ‘Right meow, the back four is in good spots defensively.’ Then all of a sudden people are tweeting why don’t you say this or that.”
The night culminated with Dunny working a requested “yabba-dabba-doo” into the broadcast. And with that, a drinking game was born. Leading up to broadcasts, Dunny started asking fans what they wanted to hear. A noteworthy example occurred during the pop culture apex of the so-bad-it’s-still-bad TV movie “Sharknado.” Dunny got a request to make a “Sabonado” reference about Saborio. To show the fans he meant business, Dunseth nailed it twice in the pre-game segment.
Over the past year. Drink With Dunny has become an underground phenomenon. It has a Twitter handle manned by fans, who meticulously track and announce Dunny’s usage of “sip” and “party” words. There have been games where Drink With Dunny has surpassed half a million twitter impressions. The success has led a local Salt Lake City brewery to create its own Drink With Dunny-themed beer named Snap-Down Header, after the comment that started it all.
Generating even more buzz, the drinking game was a topic of discussion at the South By Southwest pro sports Twitter forum. When doing media training for every MLS team, Dunny uses the game as an example how to take a negative social media comment from a fan and turn it into a positive. MLS even asked Dunny to speak about the game at its annual broadcast meetings since the game is serving to further bond the fans with the broadcast, and therefore the club.
Dunny said there’s actually a Columbus angle to that.
“Frankie Hejduk’s kind of the inspiration in a lot of ways,” he said. “Frankie has locked down the Columbus market. One of the big reasons is because he’s the guy you want to have a beer with; he’s the guy you want to hang out with; he’s the guy you want to be friends with; he’s the guy you want to watch the game with. That’s kind of the premise behind the idea.”
And so it was on Wednesday that Dunny stood in the broadcast booth with an array of game notes and Drink With Dunny phrases spread out before him. He found ways to work in “sip” words like “teeter-totter” and “skill-check.” He touched on “party” phrases like referring to defender Chris Shuler as “Daddy Long Legs” and using the phrase “former Crew player” to describe guys like Cole Grossman, Rich Balchan, and Ned Grabavoy. And then he worked in special requests, like when he said a defender “covers more space than Rihanna’s dress.”
Through it all, he did his actual job as a color analyst, interacted with fans on twitter, and even had a funny face making contest with his son, Shia, who was sitting several rows in front of the broadcast booth. When I tweeted about the funny faces, he tweeted back to me, “Shia started it!” Keep in mind that I was standing right next to him. And he was calling a game. And he was still making funny faces at Shia. The multi-tasking never ends.
And that’s the story of how an unlikely drinking game popped up in the most unlikely of locations.
“It’s kind of a big (bleep) you to the perceptions people have about the city,” Dunny said. “Who would have ever thought that there would be a drinking game out of Salt Lake City of all places? But you don’t have to drink alcohol to play. You can drink a beer, you can drink a soda, you can drink a smoothie or whatever it might be. Some guys even eat donuts during the broadcast because they don’t drink alcohol. It’s cool to see how people are adapting it to their own lives and making it their own.”
It has been nearly 11 years since Dunseth was blindsided by the trade that shipped him to Dallas so the Crew could clear room for the disastrous Mark Williams signing. Dunny only spent a season and a half in Columbus, winning the 2002 U.S. Open Cup along the way, but the bond runs much deeper than the amount of time would suggest. After falling in love with the club, the fans, and the city, Dunseth had hoped to make Columbus home, even buying a house as a way of putting down roots. Fate and the 2003 trade deadline had other plans and he is now happily married and living in Salt Lake City, where he is a very public face for Real Salt Lake. (He also scored the very first goal in RSL history.) But when he comes back to Columbus, he still feels that connection.
During the broadcast, play-by-play man Bill Riley remarked on the number of Dunseth Crew jerseys he saw in the crowd. (Dunny retorted, “Some people got ripped off on eBay.”) Fans stopped in front of the open air broadcast booth to chat with Dunny through the window. At halftime, he ran out of the booth to shake hands and have a brief chat with well-wishers. Former Crew teammates Dante Washington and Tom Presthus were at the game and joined Dunny for dinner and drinks afterward. There were old friends everywhere he turned.
“The thing about Crew Stadium and Columbus is that, in a short amount of time, it was really an incredible bond that I was able to form with the city and the fans. Honestly, I attribute it most of all to just taking the hour after every home game to meet fans and sign autographs. I met some incredible people. During that time, I never thought that I would have this type of relationship with a fanbase where it was literally less than 24 months that I was there. I am incredibly honored, touched and humbled that when I come back to town, I see Dunseth jerseys—long-sleeved of course—in the stands. It was always easy to become friends with people here. When I see all those smiling faces when I come back, it’s definitely appreciated by me.”
While this week was my second meeting of Dunny’s older son, Shia, I have yet to meet his younger son, Micah. While chatting with Shia after the game, I decided to inquire about Micah’s personality. Let me preface this by saying that I usually ask poorly-worded questions. Thankfully, players routinely bail me out with much better answers than my interview questions deserve. When talking with a four-year-old, however, there is no margin for error. Everything is at face value. So with that in mind, here’s the sum total of my attempt to get Shia to tell me about his younger brother.
ME: “So, Shia, what’s Micah like?”
SHIA: “Candy.”
I deserved that.
Questions? Comments? Know anything about Micah apart from the fact that he likes candy? Feel free to write at sirk65@yahoo.com or via twitter @stevesirk
