On May 29th 2013 the Crew were facing USL Pro side Dayton Dutch Lions for the 2nd straight year in a row in front of a few hundred folks.
Since the Crew had been knocked out the previous year by them Robert Warzycha and company decided it was important to field a very strong side that featured Federico Higuain, Danny O'Rourke and Eddie Gaven.
This was an exciting match for me as I had been watching a lot of the Lions before this game. Dayton had to play a couple USOC games just to get to this point and were starting to find some form.
In fact the Lions had already taken on the Crew not long before in Dayton for a Reserve match. That game was hotly contested so I expected a good one for the USOC.
The Crew ended up dominating most of the first half and not long into the second Eddie Gaven scored off a beautiful assist from Higuain to put the Crew up 1-0.
I think Warzycha thought this game was won by that point, so he took Higuain off the pitch to keep him from getting injured.
What happened as Higuain was jogging off I will never forget.
He took a detour and found Eddie and forceably applied the captains armband on him. He must have tried this before because it wasn't a hand off it was grabbing Eddies arm and looping it in. Higuain would then give a couple claps to the crowd and jog off.
Eddie, in true Eddie form, would drop his head and quickly slide off the armband and take it over to a nearby Danny O'Rourke. Danny didn't seem to hesitate in accepting it, almost like he expected it from Gaven.
Shortly before the game ended Eddie was chopped down, no foul was called but he tore his ACL.
The picture of Danny over Eddie reminds me of this exchange because you can see the captains armband sort of half put on, comforting Eddie.
No doubt a sad moment captured forever but it will always remind me of the armband exchange which has quickly become a favorite Gaven memory.
This is the type of player that he was, the kind of person he is. Wishing him the best in his post soccer career.
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The top photo is one I took before the game started and the bottom one of an injured Gaven was taken by Greg Bartram-USA TODAY Sports but with my liberal use of filters, cause I'm addicted to them right now.
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