Sunday, May 8, 2016

Crew Issues are Many, Run Deep

The wheels have come off. There have been similar events over the last five years like last night's embarrassing failure, but not many. And they are not things you want to measure yourself against.

The intensity of which events happened last night drew out the teams investor / operator, Anthony Precourt (via Twitter):

I will say this. We need to huddle up as a fan base and as a team. We need to stick together. Crew SC stands for that. Easier said then done. I'm hearing of dissent amongst supporters. We need you to figure it out. And inside the club we will do the same. We still got this!

FIRST: The team part of this is in regards to apparent trouble between his two highest paid players in Federico Higuain and Kei Kamara. The latter going far enough to say that he doesn't need Higuain and that he actively worked against him since last year. Even preventing him from getting the league's Golden Boot award.

...it has been going on since last year? Why hasn't this been addressed?

It's easy to focus on what's right in front of us but let's not forget the release of promising CB signing Amro Tarek and the ongoing spat (or whatever) between Gregg Berhalter and Tony Tchani ever since he decided to play for his home country over the USA. Not to mention normal day to day issues like with what's going on with Waylon Francis.

SECOND: You may have noticed that the banners are gone in the supporters section. You may have also noted there is a new one on the opposite side (the fact it exists is the point, size of which matters not). There is a big problem "in the stands," but it has nothing to do with what's happening with the team on the pitch. Absolutely nothing.

Want to know what's going on? Listen to one of many the podcasts here in town. Columbus Crew SC created this problem. Self-inflicted wounds. The wrong hands are all over this situation. Until they pull them off, it'll keep going.

MANAGEMENT STYLE

It's passive. Restrained. Controlled. Insulated. I've written about the "new crew" leadership approach here a few times (one particular event had me worked up). The Crew run a closed shop and the media that follows it leans more brand journalist than anything else (save for Shawn Mitchell, whose talents are being wasted in this league).

Everyone has their own way of operation. The Crew way happens to lead to things like what we saw last night. A slow burn that has turned into a raging wildfire. It happens, of course. And it can be put out. But it won't be put out via social media gifs and the like. They will have to directly address issues.

Good can come from conflict, but from Tchani to players being released, to your DPs disliking each other, you've got put the passiveness aside. Get in somebody's face and fix it. Not now. But right now.

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