Crew Wages, Porter's First Man

The Major League Soccer Players Association released their annual player salary list this week. Here are a few tidbits and observations from Columbus, about Columbus.

Let's hit the HEADLINES:

1. ZARDES LOST AND GAINED A MILLION
The original release had him making about $2.3 million a year. Which was quite a jump from his $630k salary in 2018. It was so large a jump that The Athletic took notice and off it went on other social media channels. Well, low and behold, less than 24 hours later the MLSPA said that figure was incorrect (it is now $1.5m). Strange happenings seem to follow Zardes around (the poor touch video that USSF forced off youtube comes to mind). This is strange and bad. It blows yet another big hole in the credibility of these released figures.

2. POOR 2019 ADDITIONS
No doubt the front offices here in Columbus are busy with just making sure the lights are on after the change in operations, but you can't overlook the player side of the team. On the inbound side human body acquisition we have (wage, % change from 2018):

Joe Bendik ($144k, -24%)
David Accam (%1.1m, -5%)
Waylon Francis ($200k, +2%)
David Guzman ($320k, +33%)
Robinho ($198k, --%)

Red was used to highlight a change down in pay for Bendik and Accam. In MLS this typically means "spare parts." Alarmingly, Bendik dropped quite a bit. What this tells us is that the Crew were just looking for decent MLS players, not inspired (scouted) selections.

[I can't remember if Robinho was scouted before Berhalter left, but he was basically brought in to fill an outside mid-fielder role on the team. He's kinda done that, but again, no diamond in the rough. He does seem to be growing into the role, individually speaking.]

Lastly, and most importantly, David Guzman. Oh hell, let's give this a headline point...

3. PORTER'S FIRST MAN
David Guzman! Porter knows him from his Portland days. Coaches, especially big ego guys, tend to want to fill the room with "their guys." In some ways, it shows weakness in that you want a bunch of yes-men agreeing to nod along with you when you give out orders. In others, it's okay. It greases the rails a bit in the locker room. Regardless, we know that Guzman is Porter's guy because he got a hefty raise by coming to Columbus. No easier way to make a man yours than by giving him money. You don't see this sort of thing overtly anymore. It's possible that Guzman got a raise before Porter snagged him, but doubt it.

Regardless, he's the first Porter man. The start of the future. Think about that for a few minutes. No Federico Higuain 2.0 or even a Kei Kamara. Just a grinder in the midfield. Should that be celebrated or not? Who's to say.

NUMBERS FLYOVER

The Crew 2019 report brings Columbus out of the stone ages and into the industrial revolution. Their $10.4m annual wage bill is good for 14th. Which is fine, from a top line number. Middle of the pack. A good chunk of the increase from 2018 ($7.7m) comes from pay increases. In fact, 63% of the wage increase is from raises that the current operator/investors don't have a lot to do with.

Perhaps that's were the problems with this group are coming from. Either way, that's all I got.

Crew Realities Setting In

Now that the season is about 1/3 of the way in we can take a step back now as the fog of the early season has lifted. In some regards, it is a little more fun than in the past because there are more teams and therefore it is easier to say "well, this team is great and this team sucks" with a little more certainty than when there are fewer teams.

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PPG	Team	P	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
2.25	Los Angeles FC	12	8	3	1	29	8	21	27
2.11	Houston Dynamo	9	6	1	2	17	10	7	19
2.00	Seattle Sounders FC	11	6	4	1	20	13	7	22
1.92	Philadelphia Union	12	7	2	3	23	12	11	23
1.92	DC United	12	7	2	3	17	11	6	23
1.83	LA Galaxy	12	7	1	4	18	16	2	22
1.70	Atlanta United	10	5	2	3	12	8	4	17
1.64	New York City FC	11	4	6	1	15	12	3	18
1.60	Toronto FC	10	5	1	4	22	17	5	16
1.55	FC Dallas	11	5	2	4	16	14	2	17
1.54	Montreal Impact	13	6	2	5	15	19	-4	20
1.36	Minnesota United	11	4	3	4	19	18	1	15
1.33	Chicago Fire	12	4	4	4	19	13	6	16
1.27	New York Red Bulls	11	4	2	5	16	14	2	14
1.23	Columbus Crew	13	5	1	7	12	18	-6	16
1.18	Real Salt Lake	11	4	1	6	15	20	-5	13
1.09	Orlando City	11	3	3	5	13	17	-4	12
1.09	Vancouver Whitecaps	11	3	3	5	11	14	-3	12
1.00	San Jose Earthquakes	11	3	2	6	14	22	-8	11
1.00	Portland Timbers	10	3	1	6	13	21	-8	10
1.00	Sporting Kansas City	10	2	4	4	19	19	0	10
0.92	FC Cincinnati	12	3	2	7	10	18	-8	11
0.85	New England Rev.	13	3	2	8	14	31	-17	11
0.18	Colorado Rapids	11	0	2	9	16	30	-14	2

With that, let's get to...

CREW REALITIES

1. LAFC has a really good team. Despite the post-game comments by Crew HC Caleb Porter saying the team is improving and were in it, they were not. LA was on the road, didn't have much trouble scoring the opening goal and sort of just held serve until Columbus rolled over and LA dropped another couple goals on them.

2. PORTER ADRIFT

It's pretty clear that Porter came into the season wanted to play a similar style as Gregg Berhalter. And guess what? It worked! A strong start to the season was the result. The problem with what Berhalter did is that it takes constant care and getting buy-in from players. AKA hard work and a fair higher understanding of the game, which comes from experience (particularly outside of MLS). Porter doesn't have that. So once a couple losses came he decided to switch it up and go his own way. More direct and using speed (the signing of MLS speedster vet David Accam) to get behind defenders. To each his own - and Porter has a right to do whatever he wants as coach, but the league has moved on from this type of play. He'll nab one here and there, but it is not sustainable over a season. Meaning; Mid-to-low table finish.

3. NO GOALS

Crew are 2nd to last in goal scoring out of 24 teams. Only Cincy is behind them. Again, Porter seems to be working on some masterplan that apparently takes 6 losses out of 7 games, but there is no excuse, absolutely none, to be this low in the league. Also, look at NYCFC as an example of switching things over. They stayed disciplined - it was a rough start to the season but we see the fruits of that labor now.

Finally, I know I'm beating up on Porter this season. I've never met him personally and I'm sure he's a good guy. The community is small here so if people are voicing displeasure from dark corners of the city he probably hears it. That said - something isn't quite right. Even when at Portland and he won a Cup it was there. This sort of thing manifests itself in public ways. You could see it when he couldn't get the U-23's to the Olympics (losing to Canada and then not being able to beat El Salvador) and then when he purposely went after Bayern in an All-Star Game (so bad Pep refused to shake his hand afterward) and again when he abruptly left Portland with no other options and in the same year he signed a new long term deal with the team.

It's possible he marches to the beat of his own drummer. He's had great success in coaching. At Akron and in Portland, so he knows how to win. Just something doesn't feel right in Columbus. Who knows, maybe he gets a player or two this summer and they turn it around.

...and another Crew loss

We are at four in a row here in Columbus. Not a common feat for this team. It's never happened in the "modern" era of MLS - meaning, not in the last ten years.

Apparently, this forced a 1.5-hour "leadership council" meeting earlier this week. Caleb Porter might not be on any sort of hot seat within the organization, but he is on my hot seat. It's just not clicking in Columbus.

Among other things, and outside the abysmal last month, when interviewed by the Columbus Dispatch and asked who is on the leadership council he said that it was "top secret." It's not though. With the roster still remarkably similar to last year, we can just go back to the council Gregg Berhalter openly listed.

Here's seven of them:

Ricardo Clark
Zack Steffen
Hector Jimenez
Federico Higuain
Wil Trapp
Josh Williams
Jonathan Mensah

Who knows number eight, Meram maybe. What difference does it make and why would it be top secret info to anyone over the age of 10 years old. Regardless, having over a third of your roster tripping over each other on some sort of 5th century BC Greek Council is nuts, man.

Anyhow, Crew are now officially bottom half. Outside of 2016, you have to go back to Robert Warzycha years to get 1.30 points per game with a negative goal difference of nearly half what the team has scored.


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PPG	Team	P	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
2.44	LA Galaxy	9	7	1	1	15	8	7	22
2.30	Los Angeles FC	10	7	2	1	26	8	18	23
2.29	Houston Dynamo	7	5	1	1	15	8	7	16
2.00	Seattle Sounders FC	9	5	3	1	18	12	6	18
1.89	FC Dallas	9	5	2	2	14	9	5	17
1.86	Toronto FC	7	4	1	2	19	13	6	13
1.70	Philadelphia Union	10	5	2	3	15	10	5	17
1.70	DC United	10	5	2	3	13	10	3	17
1.70	Montreal Impact	10	5	2	3	12	14	-2	17
1.56	Minnesota United	9	4	2	3	18	15	3	14
1.33	Orlando City	9	3	3	3	13	14	-1	12
1.33	New York City FC	9	2	6	1	11	12	-1	12
1.30	Columbus Crew	10	4	1	5	8	11	-3	13
1.25	Sporting Kansas City	8	2	4	2	19	15	4	10
1.14	Atlanta United	7	2	2	3	6	8	-2	8
1.11	Real Salt Lake	9	3	1	5	11	16	-5	10
1.00	Chicago Fire	9	2	3	4	12	13	-1	9
1.00	New York Red Bulls	8	2	2	4	9	9	0	8
0.89	San Jose Earthquakes	9	2	2	5	12	19	-7	8
0.88	Portland Timbers	8	2	1	5	11	19	-8	7
0.80	FC Cincinnati	10	2	2	6	8	16	-8	8
0.80	New England Rev.	10	2	2	6	10	19	-9	8
0.67	Vancouver Whitecaps	9	1	3	5	7	12	-5	6
0.22	Colorado Rapids	9	0	2	7	12	24	-12	2