All good things must come to an end. Seinfeld ... back rubs ... the Crew's 376-game "not losing on an 89th minute penalty kick rebound" streak.
Saturday's 1-0 loss to the New England Revolution was a heartbreaker. It was the Crew's first home loss of the season and the dramatic climax betrayed the game that had preceded it. Chad Marshall was once again dominant, combining with Danny O'Rourke to lock down the middle of the Crew's defense. New England had a wicked shot from distance by Jay Heaps, but that was about it for them.
The Crew, meanwhile, conducted a near-miss clinic at the offensive end. They put only two shots on goal, but both required heroic saves from New England goalkeeper Matt Reis. On the first, Reis robbed Alejandro Moreno in the 26th minute; on the second, he inconceivably denied an all-but-certain Eddie Gaven header in the 75th minute. Moreno also hit a post. Gaven whistled another shot wide by inches. Frankie Hejduk blasted a shot just over the crossbar. Brad Evans snapped a header just high. And then there were some promising set-ups in the box that were broken up at the last minute by solid defending from the Revs.
Three points to Columbus would have been fair, but disappointing from a New England perspective. A point for each team would have been fair, but disappointing from a Columbus perspective. But to come away with nothing at the last minute? Ouch.
"All it comes down to is that we played well, but the result didn't go our way," said captain Frankie Hejduk. "That's soccer sometimes. That's what makes it such a wonderful game. You have to stay concentrated for the full 90 minutes. You can come out and play great, but if you lose concentration for one minute, it's that one minute that can cost you the game."
The Penalty
The fateful penalty occurred in the 88th minute after a lovely two-man game between Steve Ralston and Shalrie Joseph on the defensive left side of the Crew's penalty area. As Ralston received another pass from Joseph, he made his move to the middle, carrying the ball just inside the top of the box. The box was crammed with players, giving Ralston nothing to shoot at, but then Crew defender Ezra Hendrickson stepped on Ralston's right foot, bringing him down for a penalty.
Neither coach felt there was any doubt about the call, nor did the man who committed the foul.
"I think (Ralston) played it well," Hendrickson said. "I didn't really go into a tackle. I put my leg up to block a shot and then we got tangled up. It was a PK. It wasn't like I went into a tackle, but it was basically one of those soft PKs. We defended so well for 88 minutes, and then to have that happen was unfortunate. But it was a PK. Our feet did get tangled."
To clarify, when Ezra said it was a soft PK, I got the impression that he didn't mean the call itself, but rather the circumstances of the foul. He meant that Ralston didn't have much going on, and it wasn't a hard foul, it was at the edge of the box ... not exactly a vicious foul that robbed a goal-scoring chance. Even Ralston conceded that if he had gotten a shot off, it was probably just going to hit somebody.
Hejduk, however, did his captain's duty and stuck up for his teammate for those very reasons.
"I thought it was a soft call," Hejduk said. "In the 88th minute of a tie game, I think you have to be 100 percent sure it was a nasty foul or takes a good chance away. I don't think that was a nasty-enough foul to award a last-minute penalty kick for, but that's just my personal opinion. I think it's a shame because that's the second soft penalty against us this year. That one and the one against Kansas City were very soft, especially playing at home. Maybe on the road you are going to get those calls against you, but at home? I've seen plenty of refs wave those off, but that's how it goes. That's what we signed up for when we decided to play a refereed sport."
Danny O'Rourke also stuck up for his penalty-stricken teammate, but in his own self-deprecating O'Rourkian fashion: "I told Ezra not to lose any sleep over the penalty because he's nowhere close to catching up to me."
The Save and the Goal
Shalrie Joseph stepped to the spot for New England, and for the third time in four tries, Crew goalie William Hesmer made a penalty kick save. Hesmer dove to his left and parried the ball away, but the elation lasted mere seconds before Kheli Dube nutmegged a recovering Hesmer on the rebound shot.
The penalty kick rebound is the cruelest and most deflating of goals.
"It's disappointing to do the hard part, and then not make the second save," said Hesmer. "After you make the (penalty) save, you're hoping that's the end of it."
Dube blew past Hendrickson to get to the rebound, but Schmid had his doubts. "Dube is either very, very fast, or he got in early for the rebound. We'll just assume he was very fast. It's one of those things that happens."
Replays showed that Dube took two steps into the box before Joseph struck the ball. Technically, the goal should have been disallowed, but Hesmer had no intentions of dwelling on it.
"That's not what I'm focusing on," he shrugged. "That's the referee's job. It's unfortunate if he missed it, but he's got a lot on his plate."
Attitude
Whenever a great run ends, especially for a team that's new to this whole winning thing, there is always concern about the team's attitude when a result finally goes the other way.
"We played a team like New England, who is perennially one of the top teams in the league, and if you look at the game, we played very well," said Schmid in his press conference. "We're disappointed that we didn't get the result. You're going to hit some speed bumps along the way. We just need to make sure it's a speed bump, not a detour, and we need to keep our confidence up."
Fifteen minutes later, the players didn't seem to be lacking confidence in the locker room.
"It's good to be in the locker room this year and feel the disappointment," said Hesmer. "We feel that we played well enough to get three points. We had a great week of practice, came out and played a good game, and then we get nothing to show for it. But we know that when we wake up tomorrow, we're still going to be a good team. We haven't lost our confidence."
"We were trying to get three points and win the game," said Alejandro Moreno. "We had our chances to put the game away. We would be more concerned if we weren't getting chances or if we were getting outplayed. New England is a good team and an experienced team and we still created chances. That said, we have won games where we didn't play our best, and that's just the balance of the game and how the season goes."
"We're not down about it," said Hendrickson. "We fought hard and we played well. At worst, we deserved a point tonight. But that's how it goes."
"I think we can hold our heads high," concluded Hejduk.
Sigi's Sub
Despite the 0-0 scoreline for almost the entirety of the match, Schmid made only one substitution. Midfielder Emmanuel Ekpo entered the match in the 80th minute to replace Eddie Gaven.
"(I only made one substitution) because I thought we weren't playing badly," said Schmid. "Sometimes people want you to use subs just for the (heck) of making subs. I thought we were playing well. We thought Ekpo could give us a lift like he did in the second half at San Jose, and thought he could provide that again, even though I thought Eddie was playing much better in the second half. The team was playing well, so I'm not going to make changes just for the sake of making changes."
On Streamers ... and Bananas?
I'll be the first to admit that I have totally changed my mind on the streamer issue. Twice. I enjoyed seeing Toronto's Todd Dunivant being buried in streamers moments after the Hoser fans tried to do the same to Guillermo Barros Schelotto in the season opener. Then I thought it was kind of played out. But now I have come to embrace it. In fact, I confess to eagerly anticipating the first corner kick taken in front of the Nordecke, just to see a shower of black & gold cascade upon the enemy kick-taker. And I must say that it looks beautiful on television.
Is it juvenile? Sure. But prank calling is a lost art these days thanks to cell phones and caller ID, and Steve Ralston lives too far away to toilet paper his house, so toilet papering Steve Ralston himself will have to do.
Aside from appealing to the juvenile in me, the other thing that has swayed my opinion is seeing the reaction of random patrons throughout the stadium. The streamer thing has become an event. It gets the rest of the stadium into it. And the Crew players love it too.
There have been plenty of "slippery slope" arguments against streamers, saying that the tossing of streamers would lead to the lobbing of more dangerous items. After Saturday, there will be plenty of told-you-so's. That's because near the end of the game, a handful of numbskulls pelted Ralston with beer bottles as if he had joined Jake and Elwood on stage at Bob's Country Bunker. Ralston would go on to tell the Boston Globe that he was also hit with all manner of objects including, almost laughably, a banana. That's right. He said a banana. If Ralston's version of events is accurate, some fruit-smuggling drunkard apparently mistook Ralston's corner kick for a Fozzie Bear routine.
Although some of the exact projectiles can be debated, there is no mistaking that a line had been crossed. I asked a couple of Crew players about it, and their responses were great. I'm not talking about the words they used, which were just fine. Rather, I am talking about the way in which their words were delivered. There were no freaked-out overreactions. Rather, just acknowledgments that it went too far this time and the hope that next time will be better.
"We'd rather not have beer bottles be thrown," said Ezra Hendrickson. "Someone could get hurt. It's the first time they've done something like that. We love those guys. We feed off their energy. We don't want them throwing beer bottles, though. That can make even one of our guys get injured. At the end of the day, we want them to get keep supporting us like they have, and as long as they stop throwing dangerous things like beer bottles, we will have no problems."
"Obviously, we want to keep it clean," said Danny O'Rourke. "Bury guys in streamers and make it intimidating. That's fine. It even gives us a little breather and a chance to get set. All we ask is that everyone keeps it clean."
And if you can't trust Danny O'Rourke when he tells you to keep it clean with the opposition, who can you trust?
Anyway, the players recognize that a good thing is going in the Nordecke. There was no panic or overreaction to the bottle episode, assuming it was a one-time event as part of the section's growing pains. Even Ralston himself commented on the improved atmosphere and said he didn't mind the streamer shower until it got out of hand later.
So I say follow their lead. It's not a time for the organization or the league to overreact and ban streamers based upon one bad night. Going forward, it would be unfair and unfeasible to expect the supporters to police themselves without help from security. People are there to enjoy the game, not play policeman. And the last thing anyone needs is vigilante justice in the stands. Also, it would be unfair and unfeasible to expect security to be able to discern who is throwing what once the corner kick melee starts. And nobody wants heavy-handed security meddling with the Nordecke. But perhaps having a few extra bodies hanging around, specifically for Projectile Patrol, wouldn't be a bad thing.
Hopefully a compromise can be reached whereby supporters can discretely point out the small minority of knuckleheads in their midst, and then the club provides adequate security to handle the issue from there. Both the supporters and the club owe it to the team to work together to keep a great thing going.
Dunc & Danny
In the last two notebooks, we have had a little bit of playful fashion sniping between the DO Duo: Duncan Oughton and Danny O'Rourke. Before Saturday's game, Oughton told me that O'Rourke delivered a "weak response" in the last notebook. I told him that Danny said it was out of respect.
Oughton scoffed, "Respect? I'd call it lack of wit."
When I spoke with Danny after the game, he declined to discuss the Oughton matter. "We lost the game tonight, so I'm not going to start on Duncan," he said. "People might think that I'm a sore loser and that I take it out on senior citizens."
London Calling
After the game, Frankie Hejduk received word that he was called into the U.S. National Team to replace the injured Jonathan Spector. Hejduk flew out the next day to join the team in London for Wednesday's match against England. He will rejoin the Crew on Thursday in Los Angeles.
As you can imagine, a last minute oh-by-the-way-you-have-to-fly-to-London-tomorrow phone call set off a flurry of activity once he finished his post-game treatment in the trainer's room. First came the congratulatory conversations with teammates, along with the take-care-of-Salt-Lake-and-I'll-see-you-dudes-Thursday-in-LA reciprocation. Then came the phone calls. Then logistical conversations with the equipment staff. Then logistical conversations with the training staff. Then Michael Arace from the Dispatch ran back in to get some quotes. Then more phone calls. Then conversations about phone calls that needed to be made. Then phone calls were made to set up other phone calls that needed to be made in the morning. Then ... oh yes, a shower. After a half-hour of scrambling around in a towel to get things in order, there was time for a post-game shower after all.
Meanwhile, I just sat in front of Guille's locker and watched the Colorado-Chivas match on television.
After the shower came another phone call. Then another logistical conversation with team staff. And then, at long last, once he was dressed and had a moment, I finally butted in. Frankie seemed amazed.
"Dude, you waited through all that just to talk to me?"
I explained I wasn't on deadline, and it was obvious he had a lot of stuff to take care of, so I just watched the game on TV instead.
"Naw, man. You just should have interrupted. All this other stuff will get taken care of anyway, dude."
And then on that gracious note, Frankie took a break from the madness to speak for several minutes about Saturday's Crew game and his international call-up. The Crew quotes have been scattered throughout this article, but here are his thoughts on his call-up and his SoCal rendezvous with the Crew.
"It's going to be an awesome game," he said of Wednesday's friendly against England. "Any time you get called into your national team, it's an honor. It's good that someone is getting noticed from the Crew, and that comes from our team playing well. My teammates have helped me play well, and if we keep playing the way we are playing, more guys will be seen and might get some looks."
"It's going to be a great atmosphere," he continued. "The England fans are obviously not happy about their team not qualifying for Euro 2008. From the squad I've seen, it looks like they've called in all their big guns, so it's going to be a big challenge for us."
Hejduk noted that the England match is just the tip of the iceberg. "We have three great games coming up," he said. "They're considered friendlies, but they aren't going to be that friendly. As I said, England wants to win that game to prove to their fans that they are still a soccer power. Then we have Spain, who is in Euro 2008, so they will be tuning up and all gung-ho. And then we play Argentina, and 10 days after we play them, they start World Cup qualification, and one of their first games is against Brazil. That'll be three great tests for us, so if there is any way I can contribute, I want to. I'm probably going over to London as a back-up, but I want to help out any way I can."
Hejduk has his fingers crossed that two of his Crew teammates will get similar call-ups during this run of high-profile friendlies.
"Eddie (Gaven) and Robbie (Rogers) are both in the player pool for these games, so hopefully they will get their looks," he said. "That would be big for them, especially since they are getting ready for the Olympics. The more guys we can get noticed on that level just shows the year that we're having in Columbus. In years past, it wasn't like that. Now guys from the Crew will get some looks."
Meanwhile, it will make for an eventful week for Hejduk, who will play for the Crew Saturday after his transatlantic voyage.
"It's a lot of frequent flier miles," he joked. "Those plane rides can take a lot out of you, so you have to do everything you can to keep yourself ready to play that next game. U.S. Soccer does it right and flies us business class, which is great of them to do. They do it the right way, and that allows us to recover correctly."
And not only is he making a transatlantic voyage, but in a double whammy, as he also has to make a transcontinental trek to meet the Crew in California. "Yeah, it's going to be an eight-hour difference, so it's going to be a weird one," he laughed. "Sleep is going to be a little bit off. It's something that I'm used to and that I've done before. It's part of being a professional. Sometimes you have to suck it up and do whatever you need to do to be ready for the game."
Dwight's Spiffy Jacket
Now that Dwight Burgess anchors the CSN Rotating Cast of Bald Television Broadcasters Booth, I do not cross paths with The Voice of the Crew as often as I used to back when he plied his trade on the radio. But before Saturday's game, I ran into Burgess as he walked along the concourse in his bumble-bee striped Crew warm-up jacket from the late 90s.
"Like my jacket?" he asked with an excited smile. "I'm trying to relive the Rob Jachym era!"
(Jachym was the Crew's first-round pick in 1997, and he appeared in just three games during his one-year Crew career.)
Bugging Elias Sports Bureau: William Hesmer Edition
Now that William Hesmer has saved three penalty kicks this season, he is knocking on the record book. After bugging the ever-helpful Peter Hirdt at Elias Sports Bureau, we have learned that Hesmer is the first MLS goalkeeper to make three penalty kick saves in one season since Dallas' D.J. Countess in 2003. That year, Countess saved four PKs to tie Joe Cannon's league record, which he set in 1999 with San Jose.
Armed with that helpful info from Elias Sports Bureau, I dug deeper into the record book, and here is a look at those two historic seasons.
Joe Cannon (San Jose, 1999)
4 saves, 2 goals
Progression: Save, Save, goal, Save, goal, Save.
D.J. Countess (Dallas, 2003)
4 saves, 6 goals
Progression: goal, goal, goal, goal, goal, goal, Save, Save, Save, Save
How about Countess? Practice makes perfect, huh? He allowed six consecutive penalty kick goals, and then finished up with four consecutive saves. He capped that streak with two penalty-kick saves against the MetroStars on October 11, 2003. The penalty saves bookended the match. In the 2nd minute, he stoned Amado Guevara, and then in the 86th minute, he denied Clint Mathis. To top it off, the two saves preserved a 0-0 draw.
As for Cannon, it seems that Hesmer is following his exact progression, albeit much ahead of schedule. Cannon did not make his third penalty save of 1999 until August 7.
Dumb Conversations With Dwight, Part One
Should you ever have the occasion to speak to Burgess, be aware that the man has a comeback for everything. Take this instance, when Dwight put on some tiny old man glasses to read something in the radio booth, and then I made the mistake of opening my mouth, allowing Burgess to use the irrefutable facts of history to defend himself.
ME: Wow. If you took that ring of functioning follicles around the bottom of your skull and let them grow the hair out until it was part way down your back, you'd look just like Benjamin Franklin.
DWIGHT: Ben Franklin could have had any woman he wanted. The guy was a legend with the ladies. The similarities are obvious. Thanks for noticing.
(For any readers who happen to be married to Dwight Burgess, let the record show that Dwight purposely keeps his entire head bald so as not to unintentionally entice the modern day equivalent of Ben's Bimbos. You should only become concerned if he ever grows one of those shaggy semi-circles of hair, which is a telltale sign of philandering with a Franklin Floozy.)
Bugging Elias Sports Bureau: Lineup Consistency Edition
In the last notebook, I shared a fun fact passed along by Crew PR Director Dave Stephany: Earlier this year, the Crew fielded the same starting lineup three games in a row for only the third time in the last four years.
This begged the question, when was the last time the Crew fielded the same starting lineup FOUR games in a row?
Once again, Peter Hirdt at Elias Sports Bureau came to the rescue with a most astonishing answer:
Never.
Thirteen seasons in, and not once have the Crew fielded the same starting lineup for four consecutive matches.
Dumb Conversations With Dwight, Part Two
Like part one, this conversation also has nothing to do with soccer, but Dwight hasn't been in the notebook for a while, and I can't help but marvel at how sharply convoluted Dwight can make any conversation. Moments after rubbing it in that his Cincinnati Reds swept my Cleveland Indians last weekend, the following exchange took place. ...
DWIGHT: You know what? I had two tickets to last Friday's Reds-Indians game that I couldn't use. I should have called you. I didn't even think of it.
ME: I couldn't have gone either, but hey, thanks for not thinking of me.
DWIGHT: Any time. In fact, it's more like all the time, so it was really no trouble for me at all.
Frankie, the Fans, and the Beautiful Game
The Crew talked about holding their heads high and not letting the loss get them down, and I saw no more concrete evidence of this concept in action than when Frankie Hejduk left the field. Despite a last minute loss, Frankie was all smiles as he ran toward the tunnel, stopping to give a few high fives and sign a few autographs along the way.
For a notorious competitor like Hejduk, it was noteworthy to see him in such high spirits after a loss. Part of it was because he felt the Crew played well despite the loss. But just a part. Mostly, it was because of the fans.
"They were still cheering, even after we lost," he said with a smile. "In years past, you didn't see that. We probably would have gotten booed a little bit here and there. I think they appreciate how we have been playing and the effort that we have been giving, and in turn, we appreciate the extra boost that they have given us. They gave us that extra boost tonight, so it's a shame that we couldn't come through for them. But they still showed appreciation for us after the game, and it felt really good. I've seen that plenty of times in Europe, and I think we're finally starting to get that European feel in America, which I think is a good thing. People try to dismiss soccer by saying it's a 'European sport', but you know what? Where I'm from, it's one world and one game. If people are passionate all over the world, why shouldn't we be just as passionate in the United States? It's not European or South American or anything else. We're all in this together, and it's just a beautiful game."
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? Unaware that Crew radio announcer Neil Sika is a dead ringer for Cleveland Indians pitcher Jake Westbrook, finely trimmed beard and all? Feel free to write at sirk65@yahoo.com
