2024-08-26 21:20:02
I thought Crew fans had it good back in 2008, when the team dominated MLS en route to a Supporters Shield win and the franchise’s first MLS Cup. The 2020 MLS Cup win was almost too good to be true, a happy exclamation point at the end of the Save The Crew saga. But what Wilfried Nancy has accomplished in less than two seasons as head coach has been unprecedented. The Crew are playing some of the greatest soccer in the history of this nation – soccer so dominant and aesthetically pleasing that I’m dying to see how they’d fare against the greatest clubs in Europe. They did recently obliterate Aston Villa in an exhibition…
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Right now, it’s time to take stock of the team’s performance against competition from this hemisphere. Sunday night at Lower.com Field, Columbus pulled off a thrilling 3-1 victory over Los Angeles Football club to win their first Leagues Cup, a new-ish midseason tournament featuring all clubs from MLS and Mexico’s top league, Liga MX. (A condensed version of Leagues Cup launched in 2019 before the current expanded format began last year.) It was the second trophy in nine months for Nancy and the Crew following last December’s MLS Cup victory over the same team at the same venue.
The Frenchman has cultivated an uncommon grace amongst his charges. For most of their nearly three decades of existence, the Crew have not been especially impressive. Even when Columbus achieved success, it often seemed to happen through grit and good luck and against the odds. Under Nancy, the Crew are hard-working and disciplined yet easygoing and free. The players seem to truly love playing for him, and he relishes watching them bring his fluid, risk-taking vision to life. Conflicts arise, such as the team-imposed suspension of superstar forward Cucho Hernández for unspecified infractions. But the culture is such that the Crew always seems to come away stronger after every rough patch. Cucho has been the epitome of professionalism lately. (“To grow, you need time,” his coach remarked when asked about Cucho’s transformation in postgame comments.) Nancy has repeatedly asserted that for him, results are not as important as the pursuit of excellence. But with ever sharper execution has come an ever fuller trophy case. They keep outdoing themselves.
The Leagues Cup win offered a form of redemption for Columbus, which spent the spring surging to the final of the CONCACAF Champions Cup – a tournament involving the top clubs from North and Central America plus the Caribbean – only to be embarrassed by eventual champs Pachuca at their high-altitude fortress on June 1. Many on the Crew were suffering from food poisoning; outgoing general manager Tim Bezbatchenko wouldn’t rule out foul play. Winning another championship at home against MLS competition won’t fully exorcize those ghosts, but it reaffirmed the notion that this version of the Crew is operating on a tier never before seen in Columbus.
No such redemption would be had for LAFC. The team otherwise known as Falcons have now lost three straight to Columbus in increasingly deflating fashion. Last December, the Crew took a two-goal lead and let LA pull one back before holding on for the victory. On July 13, Columbus traveled to Los Angeles and throttled LAFC 5-1 in league play, instantly silencing the whispers that LA coach Steve Cherundolo might become the new U.S. men’s national team coach. That depantsing had LA’s star striker Denis Bouanga asserting (in French) ahead of Sunday night’s rematch, “We are going to be ready. It’s not going to be like last year’s game. There’s a feeling of revenge, and we’re going to be eager to win that game.”
Bouanga was right to some extent. The Leagues Cup final followed a different trajectory. The Crew controlled the first half to an astonishing degree: The team claimed two-thirds of the time of possession, completed 91 percent of their passes and chipped away at LA’s airtight defense until finally breaking through with a Cucho Hernández header in the 45th minute. When Cucho burst through the penalty area to nod home Mo Farsi’s floating cross, it was as if a pressure valve that had been building in the stadium let loose. The Crew and their supporters were euphoric. But unlike in Los Angeles, when the floodgates opened up in the second half and LAFC crumbled, this time Falcons would put up a fight.
After the break, the momentum switched completely. French legend Olivier Giroud, making his first start for LAFC, got away from Steven Moreira in the 57th minute to head a corner kick into the net and even the score. (Ryan Hollingshead shoved the Crew’s Rudy Camacho to the ground on the play, but you can’t get every call.) LAFC spent the next half hour looking like the sharper, hungrier side. The Crew seemed out of sorts, trying to force passes on offense and allowing numerous close calls on defense. And then suddenly, as the clock ticked past 90 minutes, the dynamic shifted again. It was time for a new flavor of Crew magic.
When you envision a game-winning goal in stoppage time, it probably doesn’t look like the one Cucho corralled in the 92nd minute. Launched from the left side of the pitch, well outside the penalty area, it was almost certainly intended as a cross to be headed in by Jacen Russell-Rowe. Yet as JRR rushed towards the goalmouth, he seemed to put LAFC keeper Hugo Lloris on the wrong foot, and the ball sailed past the both of them into the right side of the net. In an instant, Cucho was shirtless, reveling in front of the Nordecke. Somehow, against the run of play, Columbus had emerged with a dagger.
If there was any question that Columbus would walk away with another championship, they put it to bed two minutes later. With LA scrambling for an equalizer in the match’s waning seconds, a pair of headed clearances sent Cucho and Russell-Rowe on a breakaway. Both strikers raced down the field, Cucho laid off a pass to JRR, and the Canadian casually slotted it into the lower left corner from the edge of the box. At that moment, Nancy’s tears started flowing, and the sold-out crowd crossed over into full-on celebration mode.
The insult-to-injury moment erased any remaining doubt. Columbus would be the last team standing from a field of 47. Cucho would be named the tournament’s best player – despite a phenomenal Leagues Cup from former LAFC stud Diego Rossi, whose six goals were the most of anyone in the competition. And once again, Cherundolo – who claimed LAFC were the better team in last year’s MLS Cup – would be left squirming at his postgame press conference. “It was a fun experience, fun tournament for us, but it’s over,” an obviously anxious and annoyed Cherundolo told reporters after the match. “You won’t hear me speak another word about it after we’re done here.”
Leagues Cup was a fun experience for Columbus, too. At some point the Crew’s advancement to the final started to feel inevitable – especially thanks to the home field advantage they enjoyed throughout the tournament and their bye to the Round of 32 – but there were just as many nail-biters as blowouts along the way. Four days after a 4-0 dismantling of Sporting Kansas City on Aug. 9, Columbus fell behind 2-0 to a Messi-less Inter Miami before pulling out a come-from-behind win. After another four days, a quarterfinal clash with New York City FC ended 1-1 before the Crew prevailed in penalties. A commanding 3-1 performance against Philadelphia last Wednesday punched the team’s ticket to a rematch with LAFC and clinched entry into next year’s CONCACAF Champions Cup.
With Sunday’s win, Columbus secured a bye into that tournament’s Round of 16. More importantly for Nancy, there were “six or seven” moments that gave him goosebumps. And anyhow, the Crew have more business to attend to before 2025. The rest of the MLS season awaits, as does the Campeones Cup, a one-off match against Mexican champion Club America to be played at Lower.com Field on Sept. 25. There’s potential for much more hardware, and many more goosebumps, before the calendar runs out on 2024.
