In baseball, they call it a June Swoon. If it's true that when it rains it pours, the Crew are suffering a June Swoon Monsoon. The Crew entered the month on a three-game winless steak and a 277-minute scoring drought in league play. Then in the first week of the month, they lost budding folk hero Adam Moffat to another knee injury. Then the Crew's captain, Frankie Hejduk, continued to be pulled in all directions on two continents, racking up more flight miles than John Glenn in 1962. Then the team's exclusive local TV partner, CSN, announced that it was ceasing production operations.
Clearly something evil was at work. It was obvious that some malevolent entity had brought forth a plague of misfortune to Crewville. But who? Who saw to it that our blue skies turned gray, that our sevens became snake eyes, and that what had previously been coming up roses was coming up, uh, giant man-eating Venus fly traps that smelled like stinky cheese?
Before Saturday's home game against the expansion San Jose Earthquakes, Crew PR Director Dave Stephany told me that there was a surprise guest waiting for me in the press box. Aha! Surely this was the culprit! Thinking back to Ghostbusters, I cleared my mind, hoping not to provide a tangible form to this shapeless evil.
Alas, Dave spilled a name. I got a mental picture. I was doomed. I trudged up the press box to greet evil incarnate in the form of Craig Merz. The Crew beat writer for the Columbus Dispatch from 1996-2005, Merz was subbing in for Bob Stein of the Associated Press. While sitting in the front row of the press box, Merz's eyes glowed red as he used his evil telekinetic powers to direct San Jose's only two shots on goal of the game into the Crew's net. He also lifted a scaly, clawed hand and pinched Chad Marshall's neck from afar, Darth Vader style, forcing him out of the game in the 27th minute. I don't even want to think about what he did to Ezra Hendrickson's groin in the 44th minute. He cackled a nefarious cackle when the game ended 2-0 in San Jose's favor, extending the Crew's league winless streak to four games and league scoreless streak to 367 minutes. Then Merz dematerialized to go back to the evil spirit world where he can orchestrate his Crew ruinations from afar in a parallel dimension.
Or something like that.
Of course, Merz isn't really evil. I'm sure all of this was just a coincidence. But I told him if the Crew capped off this miserable week with a home loss to an expansion team, I was going to murder him in print and blame the whole thing on his return. Come to think of it, since he told me to bring it on, it's probably at least partially true then anyway, right?
Roughing Robbie Rogers
In what has become a troublesome and annoying pattern, at least judging by the reactions of coaches, players, fans and media, the Earthquakes mugged the Crew to the tune of 21 fouls. That's 21 that were called.
Understandably, San Jose coach Frank Yallop offered no apologies. In fact, when a reporter commented that the Quakes were physical early on, Yallop was quick to correct him. "Not early on. The entire game. That's one of the things that's been missing for us. It may not be pretty, but I'll tell you what-we fought for every ball. We might have mistimed some tackles. We might have got in some challenges that were fouls. That's football. The other team has to handle it and move on. We've been overpowered in away games, but I thought today was an example of a fantastic away performance. We made it miserable for the other team to play us, we took our chances when they came, and we didn't roll over. That was excellent."
Excellence is in the eye of the beholder. Crew coach Sigi Schmid was uncharacteristically terse in his assessment of the physical play. "You'll have to talk to the referees. I have no comment. We have been beaten up in the last four games."
Nobody has been beaten up more than Crew speedster Robbie Rogers. MLS teams might want to share the secrets of their success with Wile E. Coyote.
"The first eight games, people couldn't figure out how to defend Robbie," said Crew goalkeeper William Hesmer. "Once one team started kicking him, now everybody is kicking him. That's the way to defend him now. If the refs could come in here and see Robbie's legs, they might call things differently too."
Rogers' legs were on full "Exhibit A" display as he sat in front of his locker answering questions from the press. Each shin had at least one bleeding wound and a couple of bruises to match. At his age, one might expect Rogers to whine about the roughhouse treatment, but he did not. His tone was annoyed, yet defiant.
"Everybody asks me about it, and I am getting tired of talking about it," he said, which clearly suggested that the annoyance in his tone was more from the repetitive line of questioning than the hacking itself. "I just have to be quick enough that they can't touch me. I have to figure something out. Maybe I need to play more physical too. I don't care what happens, but I am not going to let this ruin the game. It would be nice if the refs helped me out a little bit, but the reality is that I'm only 21 years old. I can't expect that. It's up to me to figure something out."
While an undaunted and determined Rogers works on upping his maximum sprinting speed from Warp 5 to Warp 6, his teammates had their own suggestions on how to end the weekly hackfest:
• Guillermo Barros Schelotto thinks the Crew just need to play to their abilities: "We need to play the same (as we did before.) I knew before the game that San Jose would play with many fouls, but we did not play (like we are capable of)."
• Frankie Hejduk thinks the Crew need to let the ball do the work: "To be honest, we need to get rid of the ball sooner. We need to play a two-touch game. When you take 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 touches, you're inviting tackles. We need to play the ball quicker instead of dribbling around the field, which is what we're doing, and that's inviting tackles and fouls. So yeah, teams are hacking us, but that's because we're not playing two-touch soccer."
• And Hesmer thinks the Crew need to make the other teams rue their trip and tug transgressions: "The way to stop it is to make them pay on set pieces, and we're not doing that right now. If teams know that fouling us in the final third could lead to a goal a game, they would have to ease up."
The suggestion box is full of good ideas. Now it's time for the team to implement a few.
Goalless
The Crew's offense, which was the league's most potent in the opening month of the season, has now sputtered to four consecutive league shutouts for the first time in club history. However, the 367-minute scoreless drought in league play is not a club record. The 2004 Crew put together a 420-minute drought in April and May that spanned only three shutouts and the large part of each game on either side of those shutouts. But maybe it's a perverse good omen, since the 2004 Crew rattled off an 18-game unbeaten streak and went on to win the Supporters' Shield for the only time in club history.
Anyway, the goalless drought was another hot (and surely annoying) line of questioning in the locker room.
"It's not that we're not getting the ball into the offensive end or we're not getting chances," said Schmid. "We're not catching the breaks right now."
"It's frustrating, but we're creating chances, so there's not much more we can do," said Rogers. "I don't know what to say. We're going to score goals. And to be fair, in the middle of this, we scored two goals in the U.S. Open Cup game against Salt Lake. Tonight we got off to a bad start and fell behind. We can't start out flat like we did tonight. Starting out flat is more of a concern to me, because I know that we are going to score goals."
(UPDATE: To follow up on Robbie's point, the Crew scored two more goals in Tuesday's U.S. Open Cup match against Chicago, meaning the Crew have scored four goals against MLS clubs while in the midst of their league scoreless drought. Now back to Saturday's comments...)
"Bounces were going our way earlier in the season, and now they are not," observed Hejduk. "Scoring goals can be a hot and cold thing. We need to get our forwards some goals to get their confidence back up. When we had confidence, we were leading the league in goals. Now, for whatever reason, it has stopped. And that doesn't mean it's just the forwards. Goal scoring is a team thing. We need to look at video, see what we're doing wrong, and then get back to the drawing board."
Big Brown
The Crew did put the ball in the back of the net once on a diving attempt by Alejandro Moreno, but it was correctly called back because Moreno hit the ball into the goal with his arm.
The play did inspire Sigi to briefly break his no-comment pledge about the refereeing, as he delivered this Triple Crown inspired gem about the defensive effort of San Jose's Jason Hernandez on that play: "I'm not doubting that the play with Alejandro was handball, but the guy was riding him like Big Brown. It has to be either a goal or a penalty."
Moffat-less Rocket
Adam Moffat may be out of the lineup for the foreseeable future, but strange as it may seem, the fans were still treated to a Moffat Rocket on Saturday. The stand-in rocketeer was Jed Zayner, who roasted a 35-yarder off the crossbar in the 35th minute of his first career league start.
"The ball came down, I heard 'man on', and I thought, 'Why not have a go?'" said Zayner. "I didn't think I hit it that well, but then I looked and thought '(gasp) Oh my God!' Then it cracked the crossbar from 35 out. It's one of those things that you might pull off one in a hundred, but you take your chances and hope it goes in. That time it didn't, but at least I hit it well."
Katie's Curls
Knowing that the Crew were in a funk, television sideline reporter Katie Witham took matters into her own hands. And by "matters" I mean "a curling iron." She curled her hair. It seems that the Crew were undefeated when Katie's hair is curled. "They're at least 4-0," she said before the game. "It better not rain tonight. It's bad for the curls, and we need a win."
With her main employer, CSN, shutting down production operations the day before, it had to be a rough couple of days for Katie. It was the elephant in the stadium, but we joked around for a few minutes anyway. When a wayward soccer ball rolled our way from the little kid scrimmages out on the field, Katie hit a 20-yard ball right to a kid's instep. I told her she hadn't lost a thing from her playing days at Capital. "I hit that ball in heels too," she proudly noted. When another ball drifted our way and a kid raced after it, I urged her to go after the 50/50 ball Danny O'Rourke style. Given her footwear, she jokingly threatened to go in "stud up."
Anyway, let's fast forward a few hours. Thanks to the June Swoon Monsoon, we all know which of the available streaks got snapped on Saturday. When I saw Katie after the game, she forced a wan smile and said, "So much for the curls, huh?"
Snakeless?!?
One of the great things about soccer is that it is such an international sport, one can't help but learn about the world when conversing within the diverse community of players, coaches and fans. I have known Duncan Oughton for eight years now, and while Dante, Dunny and I have cracked just about every New Zealand joke imaginable, there is still so much to learn about the Kiwi's homeland.
This weekend, Duncan informed me that New Zealand does not have any snakes. Zip. Zero. Nada. I couldn't believe it, so I did some research. Sure enough, the New Zealand government advises visitors, "New Zealand doesn't have any snakes, scorpions, bears, wild cats (of the ferocious variety) or alligators/crocodiles. We do have spiders but only one of them is capable of causing a nasty bite - and it's never fatal." Further reading also revealed that New Zealand is free from rabies, so should you be bitten by a bat, a hedgehog, or a naughty, naughty sheep, there is no need for big needles in your bellybutton.
"It's a very peaceful land where I come from," said Oughton.
This is all the more astonishing when one considers New Zealand's proximity to Australia, where Steve Irwin made a (shortened) career out of wrangling an endless assortment of deadly animals commonly found in people's back yards. The New Zealand government goes through great pains to keep unwanted plant, animal, insect and disease pests out of the country. They have a Biosecurity Ministry that maintains strict preventative measures to deny entry to unwanted pests and, failing that, the government is quick to quarantine and eradicate. The country's snake policy is so unyielding that snakes may not even be brought onto the islands for display in a zoo or for research purposes. New Zealand's miniscule swat team of biosecurity snake handlers receives its training in Brisbaine, Australia.
In late April of this year, a yellow sea snake made its way to shore at Baylys Beach on the north island. A few dead sea snakes wash ashore every year, but the frigid Pacific waters typically serve as a protective barrier from living specimens. Once the live snake was discovered by a man walking his dog, the beach was shut down as if it were a Jaws movie. The snake was captured and deported.
More alarming is the prospect of deadly eastern brown snakes, common to Australia, which are sometimes intercepted at port or at shipping facilities. Should the eastern brown snake take hold, it would have disastrous consequences for New Zealand, whose ecology would have no defenses. When your national symbol is a flightless bird, one has to shudder at the thought of six-foot snakes quickly making the kiwi as relevant as the dodo. Eastern browns would also change everyday life in New Zealand, where residents currently experience nearly risk-free enjoyment of the natural beauty their homeland has to offer. Hikes through fields or forests would suddenly shift from carefree to cautious, from delightful to dangerous.
The Biosecurity Ministry works tirelessly so as not to duplicate the problems created by other foreign species that have taken hold in New Zealand in the past. These include wild goats, deer, weasels and possums, all of which have caused great harm to the environment by eating and destroying plant life while competing with native species for food. The possum in particular is cited for the decrease in kiwi numbers, as the omnivorous marsupials have been known to eat kiwi eggs and chicks.
Here in Ohio, it must seem funny that possums were introduced to New Zealand in the mid-1800s in the hopes of establishing a fur trade, or that the possum, which we consider harmless in our environment, has become Rogue Wildlife Enemy No. 1.
However, it seems that New Zealanders at least share our sense of humor about the possum's typical fate. From NewZealand.com, concerning wildlife pests and invasive species: "Possums are the worst - their population is estimated to be about 70 million despite intensive eradication programmes and the presence of their formidable foe - the car."
Story Time With Todd Yeagley
For those of you who actually thumb through FreeKick, the game program, you may have noticed I have been doing a "Where Are They Now?" with former Crew players. I have a bunch of leftover material that I will have to slip into notebooks at some point, but here's one I can't wait to share. While chatting with Todd Yeagley last week for the next batch of programs, I asked him about a story that former Crew coach Tom Fitzgerald told me about a year before his passing.
I advised Yeags that Fitz had told me a story about a game in L.A., and Yeags was quick to cut me off. "The $100 bill under my chair?" he asked. Bingo. The Crew had just fired coach Timo Liekoski after a 6-16 start. They were buried in last place with virtually no hope of making the playoffs. And then Brad Friedel arrived and Tom Fitzgerald took over as coach, and the Crew won nine of their last 10 games to make the playoffs. Now that the scene is set, I'll let Yeags tell the story from the first game in that run...
"It was Fitz's first game as coach," said Yeagley. "We were in L.A., and the Galaxy had a really good team that year. We were in last place. Nobody expected us to do well. I had only started a couple games to that point, and one of Fitz's changes was to insert me into the lineup. Before the game, without me knowing, he taped a $100 bill to the bottom of my chair. We won the game and I played well, although certainly no better than the other guys. It's not like I won the game or anything, but I played well. Afterward, Fitz was giving his post-game speech. He said he was proud of the team for playing so well, but he wanted to recognize one person in particular for stepping up when given the chance. He said, 'Todd, great job.' Then he reached under my chair, pulled out the $100 bill, and said, 'I was bettin' on ya!'"
This exactly matches the story Fitz told me, minus Todd's modesty. After telling me the story, Fitz joked that for the rest of the season, players were always looking under their seats to see if there was any money taped to the bottom. But as Yeags went on with his recollection, Fitz's postscript took on added hilarity.
"After he said he was betting on me, he put the $100 bill in his pocket!" Yeags continued. "I never got that $100 bill! I think he had good intentions, but just forgot in the excitement of the moment. Of course, I couldn't just ask him to give it to me. That's OK, though, he more than made up for it with all the times he had us over to his house for cookouts. That game really meant a lot to me. It's one thing for a coach to put you in the lineup, but for him to believe in you so much that he puts $100 under your chair before the game as proof of his belief in you, and then to come through for him, that was a special moment that I will never forget."
Hopefully this silly anecdote will give you a reason to smile the next time you pass Fitz's memorial rock on the west side of the stadium grounds.
New Zealand Wildlife Tidbit No. 2
Sorry if I am boring anybody with the Kiwi wildlife stories, but Duncan's offhand comment fascinated me and inspired a lot of reading, so I just felt like sharing in case anyone else was interested. I mean, do you really want me to write more about the two-goal home loss to an expansion team? Didn't think so.
Anyway, here's the other interesting tidbit I found: New Zealand has no native land-roaming mammals. Strange, huh?
The only mammalian wildlife species that existed naturally within its shores were bats and seals. All other mammals were artificially introduced. Most of these were brought over intentionally, such as cattle, sheep, horses, rabbits, and the aforementioned Blight O' The Possums. As would be expected, some undesirable species such as mice and rats gained entry as stowaways on ships that came to port. Even to this day, there are just 46 total species of wild and feral mammals in New Zealand, including oft-domesticated farm animals like horses, cattle, pigs, and sheep.
To contrast that locally, there are 58 species of wild mammals in Ohio, excluding all mammalian pets and farm animals. This means your neighbor's golden retriever and the bovines at Don Scott Field don't count. Alas, it also excludes the native mammals that have been extirpated from the state over the last 150 years, such as bison, grey wolves, cougars, elk, lynx, and those dastardly wolverines, among others.
See, isn't learning more fun than wallowing?
Frankie The Indefatigable Frequent Flyer
In the span of 16 days, Frankie Hejduk played in six games while making four transatlantic flights and two transcontinental flights covering the breadth of eight time zones. From May 24 to June 8, he went from Columbus to London to Los Angeles to Santander to Columbus to New York, all while playing 270 minutes for the Crew and 91+ minutes for the U.S. National Team.
Frankie and I were born a day apart, but the gulf is so much wider. I got more exhausted typing that itinerary than he did living it. It blows my mind. After Saturday's Crew game, he was ready to depart again to play against Argentina the next day in New York. It didn't appear to phase him.
"It's all part of it," he said with a big grin. "It's a grueling process, and it's great, and it's an honor to be a part of it."
Meanwhile, I need a nap just thinking about it.
U.S. Open Cup Shocker!!!
Well, the Crew lost to the Fire, 3-2, in overtime. That's not much of a shocker. The Crew have faced the Fire in the U.S. Open Cup three times since 1998, losing all three games in overtime. It's annoying, not shocking.
The U.S. Open Cup shocker Tuesday night came in the form of Hollywood United FC, an amateur side run by "Without A Trace" TV star Anthony Lapaglia. HUFC stunned the Portland Timbers of USL1 with a 3-2 upset in the Rose City. Of particular interest to me, of course, is that Notebook Hall of Famer Brian Dunseth plays midfield for HUFC when his broadcasting schedule permits. ("I usually play in the Sunday games," he said.)
HUFC is made up of amateur players with a few former pros sprinkled in. Dunny was by far the most decorated player to take the field for HUFC Tuesday night, although Matt Taylor (6 goals in 64 games from 2004-07) and substitute Jason Boyce (3 assists in 19 games from 1998-99) had MLS experience. A few other players had second or third-division experience, and the rest were flat out amateurs. To get themselves ready for their Open Cup showdown with Portland, HUFC upped their after-work practice schedule to Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Although HUFC has different teams at various age and skill levels, the current "open" team has been playing together since September of 2007.
"This team is mostly made up of hard-working California guys who never got their opportunity for whatever reason," said Dunseth. "They all have jobs, but they keep playing for the love of the game. It's a cliché, but it's true. Thanks to Anthony Lapaglia, these guys finally got their shot."
Making the upset all the more stunning is that Hollywood United overcame two deficits to win the game. Matt Taylor converted two equalizing penalty kicks, and then Earl Alexander found the upper-90 in stoppage to cap the, er, Hollywood ending.
The biggest play of the game was a penalty kick save by HUFC goalkeeper Javier Barragan in the 53rd minute. A goal would have given Portland a 3-1 lead. In another Hollywood twist, Barragan is HUFC's back-up goalkeeper. The starter, Mike Littman, was forced to serve a red-card suspension that he earned back in 2003. That's right, HUFC was down its starting keeper because of a five-year-old Open Cup red card Littman had picked up with the third-division Utah Blitzz. The team is long gone, but the suspension remained.
You want another crazy story? How about starting center back Nas Koubouras? Affectionately known as "Spartan" because he's the team's Greek warrior, Koubouras was forced to leave the game in the 70th minute with what is believed to be a torn ACL. After celebrating his team's improbable upset Tuesday night, Koubouras caught a stand-by red-eye flight back to LA, hopped in his truck, and was on time Wednesday morning for his job as a construction welder.
"I'm not even going to rank this game," said Dunny, "because it's not about me. I was so proud of these guys. I am so happy for them. This game was their World Cup. They finally got a chance to prove themselves, and they made the most of it."
"Look, we know realistically that Portland didn't start their first team," he continued. "Fair enough. Neither do a lot of MLS teams when they play USL sides. But when an amateur team beats a USL team, everyone says they were so lucky, but if a USL team beats an MLS team, they turn around and say it shows that the USL is just as good as MLS. That's just how it goes, but we played better than most will give us credit for, especially as our confidence grew in the second half. This result just goes to show that anything can happen on any given day in a cup competition."
So what of Dunny the midfielder? "I should've played midfield my whole life," he said. "I don't have to chase really fast guys all night long. But the truth is that by the 65th minute, I was ready to die, especially playing on wet turf. My back hurt, the hip flexor was acting up, and I didn't even want to think about overtime."
But thanks to Earl Alexander's stoppage-time heroics, Hollywood United did not need overtime to set up their June 24 showdown with the Seattle Sounders. "We've got two weeks to recover and get ready," said Dunny. "We know it's going to be even harder against Seattle, but anything is possible. We are a team without a fan base, so hopefully we'll pick up some underground support along the way. Every little bit helps."
Now that the Crew are out, count me in.
Steve Sirk is a contributor to TheCrew.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs. Questions? Comments? Think that only Moffat can hit Moffat Rockets, and therefore I should have called Jed's shot a Zayner Zoomer or something? Feel free to write at sirk65@yahoo.com
