From Worse to Oh S%$#!

By: Matt | April 7th, 2009

The Crew finished their two game West trip with their second straight loss, a 2-1 loss against Chivas USA. Yet again, the Crew went down a goal in the first half, after Atiba Harris one touched a ball into the back of the net. Like the match against Real Salt Lake, the Crew were able to even things up after going down a goal when Emmanuel Ekpo’s cross found big Andy Iro’s head and was sent into the goal and everything was all square going into halftime. Everything would come unraveled in the second half for the Crew though, starting with Eduardo Lillingston finding the ball after a rebounded shot off the post. Lillingston was able to put the rebound past Will Hesmer and the goats had a 2-1 lead. Any comeback attempts by the Crew were severely hampered just four minutes later when a two footed challenge by Andy Iro saw his night end with a red card. The 10 men Crew side would not find an equalizer and dropped their second straight match and are one of five teams in MLS to be win-less so far. So what’s going on?

-First: For a token bit of optimism, to be fair, when the Crew had these fixtures last year (Houston Away, Toronto Home, Real Salt Lake Away, and Chivas Away), the Crew only earned three points. These are tough games, especially to start off a season, so it might not be time to panic yet. The MLS scheduler did the Crew no favors by starting the Black and Gold’s season with the best team in the West last season, the runner up in the West, the third team in the West, and a rivalry game. This hopefully means there will be an easy stretch of schedule coming up. With that being said…
-As Vince Lombardi would say, “WHAT THE HELL’S GOING ON OUT THERE?!” Emmanuel Ekpo continues to be lost in the central midfield position. It’s time for that experiment to end.
-Defensive errors are killing the Crew. Everyone besides Chad Marshall have struggled. Danny O’Rourke had a decent first two games, but has seemingly regressed the next two. Andy Iro’s performance showed him to be a young, inexperienced defender with slow decision making. Frankie Hejduk apparently hurt himself in US National Team Duty (hear that? That’s the sound of me, a club over country guy, bashing his head against the wall. BAH!) The backline was the rock that the MLS Cup Champion team was built off of, but this year it is more like quicksand.
-Speaking of injuries, if Chad Marshall picked up a concussion on that elbow his face found, this season could get real ugly real quickly (Where was the foul on that, by the way!). Marshall was down for a good amount of time and he has a history of concussions. Another one might end his season this year.
-The offense just seems out of sync. The midfield has no shape and passes seem to be long, hopeful balls rather than a calculated pass. I thought Warzycha was an offensive minded coach? Hopefully he has the cure to this problem, or he could be updating his resume and practicing his job interviews real quickly.
-Finally, soccer is a funny game. While the Crew have certainly had their problems this year, they have just had some bad breaks as well. All of the injuries have certainly been a killer so far, but there is no way to prepare for that. The Crew tried to prepare for that, bringing in depth in most positions. However, when Lady Luck seems intent on turning that depth on its head, all you can do is play through it. It has been a tough run so far, but hopefully a return to Columbus Crew stadium will be just what the doctor ordered.