or,

Shut out in Salt Lake
Crew longballs: can’t get it in
That’s what she said. Sigh.

or:

Salty lake of tears
Yellow team victorious
Hejduk removes shirt

Watch Game Highlights vs. the Galaxy
New Crew Training Facility
A Recap with some good Quotes

Power Ranking after this week (hurts, but it’s hard to argue)

and after all of the that, if you’re still agitated, click here for the Crew vent contest.

Back to the game itself. After being built up to the hype of one David Beckham, to the disappointment of him not playing, to the first of four crucial games that could make or break the chance at the playoffs, this game is BIG! This is bigger than all three of “The Biggest Loser” teams put together. Now, That’s Big! This is a game pitting a team with nothing left to play for (other than pride, of course) and a team that has clawed it’s way back to the playoff picture from being in the basement just a year before. We Need This Game! And by we, I mean the Crew, the Crew Nation, and all of the potential Crew supports that may be out there. This is three of 12 points that we need to get. The other three won’t be easy…neither will this one. However, this one is the best shot of keeping the momentum going. This game is all about momentum. It’s a whole lot better to go into a game with the FC Dallas with a couple of wins in a row and the momentum swinging our way than the opposite. Plus, it wouldn’t hurt if Chicago tripped up a bit and Colorado had a small choking spell soon. A tie will not suffice…we need a win!

Also, which is vitally more important to this game…Me. Of course, there is a perfectly logical and only semi-self indulgent reason behind this. I have been to three Crew games since they have started. Two this year one of which was against United and one against Fire. I have YET to see the Crew win. I am begging, pleading, screaming…PLEASE GET THIS ONE!! I know that it also makes sense with the role this game plays for the Crew with the Playoffs, but I want to see it for me. I want to see the Black and Gold win so I can be the one taunting the visitors and not be the one being taunted. Not that this has happened, but I would still like the option to be in my favor. So Crew, fellas, if any one is reading this, win this one for me…and the rest of the Crew nation.

Or “Blacking Out the Galaxy” maybe closer to blacking out the playoffs.

Both authors found what can best be described, well, nothing to write home about (though they did in the end). To lift one underwhelmed impression from the USSoccerplayer’s piece:

“The fans who did show up were only roused from their seats by the lone goal of the game, and the t-shirt giveaway. The atmosphere during the game alternated between that of a 10-year-old’s birthday party and a classical music concert. There was the occasional in-game ad for some local business. There were yellow cards waved by the Crew fans whenever a United player was booked. Otherwise, Crew Stadium would have been a nice place for a nap. The traveling support from United was the only saving grace, adding a little life to a very lifeless encounter.”

While that is an eyewitness account, it’s also far from a longitudinal study on the Crew experience. The question of what Crew fans, who did of course manage to find the article, thought of it does, however, come quickly to mind. Thanks to BigSoccer, two answers came (readily*) to hand. One thread – and this one linked to the USSoccerplayers piece – assumes the position one often see on BigSoccer threads: i.e. an angry, defensive crouch that, with each successive post, devolves further into attacking “outsiders” with hillbilly ferocity. (And, just a little further down, the conversation completes its tumble into the mud next to the shack with two commenters simply going at one another.)

OK, that’s more fun at their expense than anything: the consensus answer by the end of the thread (before it actually does peter out into dueling posts) is that the atmosphere will improve once the Crew has – and for some time.

The other thread, however, does something both remarkable and, perhaps, useful: it essentially acknowledges a problem exists and looks for a remedy. The central solution on offer, however – e.g. figuring a way to get more people singing – isn’t free of obstacles (which, in truth, the other, more defensive thread addresses sharply and effectively). The biggest: not everyone wants to wave banners, make signs, sing songs, paint faces, etc.

I’m not going to get into my personal experiences in this space (for one, they’re Crew-related in only the most indirect sense, but I’ll work on this for the other space), but the various pieces of this conversation have me wondering what fans, Crew or otherwise, see at Columbus Crew games. You have been called out Crew fans: what say you?

* I emphasize the word “readily” because I’ve got very, very limited patience for the meandering, tribalist ramblings so common to the team-specific boards on BigSoccer. I’ve got a two-thread limit before the chest-thumping, repetition, and fountains of bullshit do more damage to my brain than drinking rubbing alcohol.

Ahem.

With things finally settled down in my schedule, and with the reports of Guillermo Barros Schelotto’s possible arrival in something of a holding pattern, I finally had the time to check on the how the local media viewed the Crew’s goalless draw against Red Bull on opening weekend. After weeks of wondering whether they cover the Crew at all, the Columbus Dispatch came up good enough with a decent perspective piece (the “CREW REVIEW”) on the team’s first game that they posted Monday; they also have a neat-o feature for most the local teams called, Five Games Out, that says who these teams will play over the next, um, five games.

More impressive than that, though, was the summary/analysis compiled by Chris Deville for Sensory Overload, a blog attached to a publication called Columbus Alive. It helps plenty that the author saw roughly what I saw (helps with that whole “credibility” thing, which can be deliciously selective of course), but I also like that DeVille approaches the game as a fan/consumer. I liked this bit in particular:

“Defender Frankie Hejduk chalked up the mediocre start to first-game jitters and repeated that frighteningly familiar mantra, ‘The goals will come.’ But Ned Grabavoy, whose play at midfield outclassed his teammates and stood the test against aging great Claudio Reyna, offered a more sober perspective.”

“‘Obviously you don’t want to leave points on the field, you know?’ Grabavoy said. ‘You can say, “Yeah, we did well, and we did this and that,” but in this league, that’s what happens. You get in July, and you say “That game, and this game, and this game,” and it starts to add up.’”

For those who didn’t catch it, DeVille used the magic word: “Grabavoy.” Between he and Eddie Gaven, you’ve already named the two players drawing the most praise (example; see fourth paragraph) for Saturday’s promising, if futile, performance. Even my daughter noticed him – though only because he looks a bit like Alan Rickman as Severus Snape with the hair he’s rocking.

At any rate, one could describe the sense of the local media as “interested, but without wanting to seem easy,” a reasonable position given the abuse they endured through 2006.

(NOTE: In discussing “the locals” media I should acknowledge one gorilla-sized source: the Crew’s corner of the Big Soccer board. Between unwittingly offending some of them by trying to introduce new customs and the fact that one has to wade through a pound of crap to find a morsel of good stuff (peanuts? sorry…) I’m inclined to limit the use of that space; it’s not bad for what it is – a place for “true fans” to mingle and bitch – but it’s very time-consuming and very insider-y, which makes it troublesome as ready source. But, if you’re a Crew fan, go on over there and yuk it up.)

And that (somehow) brings me to a final note. On the off-chance that people expect to see something in this space at a given time (say, between 9 and 10 a.m. PST), I wanted to mention that I’ll be posting to this space later in the day. The thing is, a lot of what I find on the Crew, I find in places outside the Columbus’ media world; there’s a lot of serendipity involved, as when I found Crew forward Jason Garey among the “13 Players to Watch” in Greg Lalas’ feature for Sports Illustrated (click to #10). In hope to find more of those, then, I’ll post later in the day. All for now.