Which five Crew teams are the best in franchise history? Let's take a stab at ranking them
The Crew’s roster was overhauled before the summer transfer window closed last month. It is possible that the team is better now than it was before the window opened – even with the crushing loss of attacking midfielder Lucas Zelarayan, who was sold to a team in Saudi Arabia.
Given coach Wilfried Nancy, his style of play and the talent he has at hand, the 2023 Crew have a chance to be one of the best Black & Gold sides in the 28 years of the franchise's existence. Of course, we’ll know more by Decision Day, Oct. 21.
Thinking about the quality and potential of the 2023 Crew was the impetus for the following exercise. Which Crew teams were the best? I have my own ideas. I consulted people I respect. I circled back to a piece we ran on the all-time starting 11. I came up with a list of five.
Success and personnel were the most important criteria. Interestingly, the 2015 team, which made it to the MLS Cup final, did not make my top five. I think that another Gregg Berhalter-coached team made a more indelible stamp on our collective memory. Indeed, as I went through this process, affection − as in how certain teams affected fans, touched their souls, etched their collective memory – was the separator.
Discuss among yourselves ...
No. 1: Massive in 2008
The 2008 Crew were on a mission. Their absentee owner had squeezed their budget into pocket change, and they wanted to win in spite of Hunt Sports Group. They were very good at it.
They lost one of their last 11 games and claimed the Supporters’ Shield, the second in franchise history, by a six-point margin. On their march to the coast, they vanquished an old rival, the Chicago Fire, in the Eastern Conference final. The MLS Cup championship game in Carson, California, wasn’t a no-sweat affair, but the Crew didn’t need any hydration breaks, you know? The Crew beat the New York Red Bulls 3-1.
The moving image of Guillermo Barros Schelotto somehow spotting a run by Frankie Hejduk on the right flank, flipping the ball out of a phone booth of defenders at the top of the box, and parachuting a pass that met Hejduk’s head at the apex of a flying leap – it was the coup de gras of a Massive year.
Schelotto was MVP of the regular season and the MLS Cup. Chad Marshall was Defender of the Year and Sigi Schmid was Coach of the Year (an award now named for the Big Man. RIP).
This team was a machine with Alejandro Moreno up top, William Hesmer in goal, Brian Carroll and Brad Evans as masters of the midfield, and Eddie Gaven and Robbie Rogers oozing danger on the flanks. And then there was the incomparable Schelotto, the maestro, directing everything, including regular team barbecues at his house because, well, Clark Hunt wasn't going to feed them.
No. 2: A trophy in 2002
The U.S. Open Cup, which dates to 1913, is the oldest ongoing soccer competition in the country. U.S. Soccer in 1999 named the trophy awarded to the event's winner after Lamar Hunt, American sports pioneer, co-founder of MLS and the father of the Crew.
In 2002, after years of frustration, Lamar’s team won Lamar’s Cup in Crew Stadium, the first soccer-specific stadium in the league. In the final, the Crew beat the LA Galaxy on a goal by Freddy Garcia in the 30th minute. The Galaxy had won the MLS Cup not a week before.
This Crew team is No. 2 on our list for its breakthrough victory, and for its roster:
Brian McBride was the first Crew legend; defender Mike Clark is second all-time (behind Marshall) in appearances for the Crew; Jeff Cunningham had 16 goals in 2002 and went on to score 62 during his Crew career; Brian Maisonneuve and John Wilmar Perez controlled the midfield; Robert Warzycha, aka “The Polish Rifle,” remains one of the greatest assist men in team history; Kyle Martino was MLS Rookie of the Year.
It was the peak of the early Crew years and old-time fans hold this team in their hearts yet.
No. 3: Back-to-back Shields in 2009
Schmid left for Seattle after winning the 2008 Cup and took Evans with him. Warzycha stepped in as coach. How was he supposed to match what happened in the season of peak Massivity?
The machine kept rolling along. The Crew was not as dominant as they were the year before, but Schelotto was Schelotto. Although the Crew lost three of their last five games, they repeated as Supporters’ Shield winners with a 13-7-10 record.
They flamed out in the first round of the playoffs after Warzycha sat Schelotto for the first leg of a two-leg series against Colorado.
No. 4: Porter delivered in 2020
The Crew won their second MLS Cup in 2020, a pandemic-shortened season. Thanks to a string of upsets, the Crew, third seed in the East, wound up avoiding a road game. The championship game was also in Columbus.
The was extraordinarily fortunate for the Black & Gold, who might be the only championship team in the history of sports to go winless (0-5-5) on the road.
That said, this was a talented team built in a short period of time by president/general manager Tim Bezbatchenko. And full marks to coach Caleb Porter in what was his only playoff appearance in Columbus.
Before a personally distanced crowd of about 3,000 in the old Crew Stadium. Porter improvised and motivated. He was without midfielder Darlington Nagbe and flanker Pedro Santos, both of whom had tested positive for COVID. Nagbe’s replacement, Aidan Morris, then 19, became the youngest player to appear in the MLS Cup, and he was everywhere. Santos’ replacement, Derrick Etienne Jr., scored a goal.
The Seattle Sounders were heavily favored despite being on the road. They were blown off the field 3-0. Zelarayan painted a masterpiece, and conjured Schelotto, with two goals and an assist.
Some of the best to wear the Crew jersey – Jonathan Mensah, Eloy Room, Milton Valenzuela, Gyasi Zardes and the great Zelarayan – were on this team.
Two years after Anthony Precourt and the league tried to steal the team away to Austin, the Crew were on top of the MLS world. And that is why ...
No. 5: Amid the maelstrom in 2017
Coach Gregg Berhalter got the Crew to the MLS Cup final in 2015, before a series of unfortunate events unfolded in the first half. But I think Crew fans would tend to agree that 2017 was peak Berhalter. The team had the grit of its nearly incomparable leader, Federico Higuain.
You have to remember that the team’s very existence was under a mortal threat. Save the Crew was fighting an owner, a league commissioner and the Austin City Council. Protesters were gathered, lawsuits were flying, acrimony was the order of the day.
Crew coaches and players didn’t know whether they’d be playing in the capital of Ohio or Texas the next year, or the year after. They were caught in the middle of an emotional tug-of-war. They created a bubble. They went undefeated (6-0-4) over the last 10 games of the regular season and hauled themselves over the playoff bar.
In the first (knockoff) round, they pulled off an upset at Atlanta in a shootout. Goalkeeper Zack Steffen saved three of four penalties.
The Crew won a two-legged conference semifinal over the New York City FC, 4-3 on aggregate. Then they faced one of the best teams ever assembled, Toronto FC, built by Bezbatchenko. That Toronto team had three designated players – Michael Bradley, Sebastian Giovinco and Jozy Altidore – who each made as much as the Berhalter’s entire roster.
A goal by Altidore in the 60th minute of the second leg of the conference final was all that separated the teams.
Goodness, but Ola Kamara nearly tied it in the 87th.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Which are top 5 teams in Columbus Crew history?
