Crew Round 28, NY Win

The Columbus Crew jumped on top early but end up losing decisively 1:3 to the NY Red Bulls.

1ST HALF
Because of a reported injury to Federico Higuain, Robert Warzycha moved Milovan Mirosevic up from is normal defensive mid roll to a forward roll for the evening. Three minutes in to the match Mirosevic scored and had Crew fans changing their perspectives on life. Night was now day and instead of a kaleidoscope of rainbow colors the visible spectrum of light was now only black and gold.

Six minutes later Rafael Marquez dropped a long pass over Chad Marshall and the Crew backline to Thierry Henry for a goal.

The rest of the first half saw the Crew probing and testing the NY midfield and NY soaking it up.

2ND HALF
NY didn't seem too interested in playing through the Columbus MF and was happy dropping long balls over top of it and try to beat the high Crew backline. Nothing came of it but it did loosen up the Crew who, as the match went on, got more and more disjointed.

By around the 75' NY was in full control of the match. Out of that, and off a corner from Henry, Dax McCarty scored (79th minute). Andy Gruenebaum's face collided with the goal post in attempt to make the save and had to leave after laying on the pitch for some time.

The ensuing 9 minutes of stoppage gave Thierry Henry time to line up a gol olimpico on substitute Crew 'keeper Matt Lampson.

GAME OVER
• Thierry Henry now has 4 goals and 2 assists in two games against the Crew this year.

• I'll take another look at this game but no real standout performances from the Crew. NY focused on Eddie Gaven's side of the field and had no interest or worry in Dilly Duka. They gave Duka yards of space. Anyone who has played sports competitively knows what it is like to be seen as a non-threat or the weakest link. I was really pulling for him to make something happen.

• Not sure where to go with Chad Marshall ($341k) and Milovan Mirosevic ($233k) anymore. Good players who are not performing anywhere near where they should. With Mirosevic it could be that he just doesn't fit the Major League Soccer game.

• Away at NY isn't a great place to start; but 10 games now that Columbus hasn't had a shutout. They had 7 in their first 18 matches this year.

Predictions: Crew v. NYRB

The Columbus Crew are up in Harrison, New Jersey to take on the Red Bull. 7:00 PM Columbus Time, 19:00 Quantico, Virginia.

GAME NOTES
• NY home record is stellar. They have not lost at home this year - 9 Win, 3 Draw.
• NY have won last 4 at home. 8 Goals For, 2 Against. Have shutout 3 opponents.
• Crew 2W, 1D, 2L in last 5 on the road
• Crew outscored 7 goals to 6 in last 5 road games
• Both teams coming off extended breaks, rested

PREDICTIONS
"The off week last week will help Columbus but I just like the Red Bulls at home too much in this one." Drew Epperley, WV Hooligan.

NY fans confident over at Goal.com, 76% favor the Red Bulls to win with a likely 2:1 scoreline.

Over at the betting sites we see that NY is favored across the board. Bet365 has NY at 4/5 odds and only 8% picking a Crew victory on WinDrawWin (that's about as low as I've seen it for any team).

Can't find the MLSsoccer.com "Pick 'em" feature for this week.

It's almost 8 AM as I type this and my Dispatch isn't at my door, so nothing from Adam Jardy today either. However, you should check out his work last week on Will Hesmer. It's not exactly motivating. Particularly for the players still on the roster from 2008. It's really great to see news like that though, an independent voice. The Crew (as a franchise) are very insulated by long tenured coaches, folks in front offices and extended media. Even the move from Ohio News Network to Fox Sports Ohio couldn't break this insulation.

Jardy's work on Hesmer will be a touchstone to this season and will linger through the start of next, for sure.

I am looking for the illustration credit for this image, unable to find it. It deserves credit, please email me at ljbaby654 @ gmail.com if you have any info on it.

MY PICK
New York. It's odd that it's tilting so much their way though. My reasoning for picking NY is more to do with their near perfect home form and the Crew's inability to shut anyone out over the last 9 games. The wins have come but the Crew have faced some real bottom dwellers recently; NE twice, TFC and PHI in that time.

Looking at the Defense: Putting Milovan Mirosevic beside Chris Birchall in central defense will not keep NY from scoring. It'd be wise to put Danny O'Rourke in that spot or Cole Grossman or even Eric Gehrig. The Crew should also move Josh Williams back to the middle along side Chad Marshall if they want to have a shot at keeping 2 goals from going past Andy Gruenebaum.

Up top; I think Jairo Arrieta is carrying a more serious injury to his ankle then he lets on. So keep an eye on that.

It's going to be a tough one for Columbus today. Legs will be live with energy after the break and temps will be cool so, if anything, this one will be fun.

You never know, maybe Jersey natives Eddie Gaven and Dilly Duka have some magic for the Crew fans today.

Perhaps It's Fitting, The Cleveland Browns

Perhaps the game the original Cleveland Browns played is dead.

Art Modell died last week.

In 1961, at about the age I am now, he purchased the Cleveland Browns from a group of owners that included the team's namesake and coach, Paul Brown.

"I am cheering at his death, and frankly I don't care if anyone else thinks that makes me a bad person. My father worked his ass off to support us kids (I'm in my 30's now) and this football team was one of the few things that brought joy to his otherwise very hard life. Outside of my grandfather dying, when they announced that the Browns were moving it was the saddest I've ever seen him. For that alone, I will piss on his grave if its location ever becomes public knowledge." - A comment under the Deadspin post "Art Modell, 1925-2012: Grifter, Traitor, Model NFL Owner"

If you go back 16 years before Modell purchased the Browns you find a newly named Cleveland coach, 36 year old Paul Brown.

"A winner never whines." - Paul Brown

Only moving to Ohio in 2006, I realize that I'm an outsider to the Browns legacy. I grew up a Northern Virginia farm boy cheering on the teams in the Washington DC area. But that's not to say I know nothing of Cleveland because Cleveland, to an outsider, is just as much an ideal as it is a place. What ideal, depends on your perspective though.

The Cleveland I know is the cradle of the game of football. The Cleveland I know doesn't have lakes that catch on fire to fuel someone's feeble attempt at socially conscience comedy - they catch on fire because some truly fucking hard work was done there that caused that fire.

Art Modell was born in 1925. Paul Brown in 1908.

The age that both these men grew up in is so vastly different then our own. The Northeast Ohio both of them knew was the one that was big enough to be a regular bidder for the Olympics. It was an age that saw us to the moon on nothing more then something less then a C64 type powered computer and packs of smokes (as opposed to a Xbox 360 and fast food).

The very game of football was forged in Cleveland's backyards and she regularly won every title the game put in front of the city.

To track the playoff appearances of the Browns is the track the manufacturing prowess of this great country post WWII. 1946, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1957, 1958, 1964, 1965, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1971, 1972, 1980, 1982, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1994... and 2002.

Only during the Ford and Carter presidencies did the Browns struggle, something I find amusing. The Reagan years saw a Mr. Bernie Kosar take the team to new heights. Some might say that the 1980s saw the first screws being removed from the United States mighty midwestern industrial complex.... That General Motors incesent penny pinching was what brought it down, but I say that Roger B. Smith's handling of General Motors during that time is still being (re)written. Yes.

Where was I?

Perhaps it's fitting that Cleveland lost a team in 1995. In a lot of ways it's like some old factory getting shutdown for operations in a far off land, just as many were during that time. As if the football gods wanted to book end what the game was (mud, piss, blood, sweat) before it turned completely into what it is now (domes, fake fields, pass interference, roughing the passer and challenge flags) Perhaps it's a bit of a mistake that the city was able to retain the teams history and restart the franchise in 1999. Perhaps that was just too soon.

What I see from my little corner of manufacturing in Ohio is the tilt and shift away from building things where labor is cheaper and long shipping timelines made sense. I personally see the thirst for domestic manufacturing coming back and have been part of meetings that prove the economic stupidity of moving things away. Now we face a different problem... we have forgotten how to do shit here.

But you know what? We can figure it out.

I recall a conversation I had with my boss shortly after Steve Jobs died. "Take a good look at what's on your desk," he said. "It's not going to change for the next 10 years." As soon as he said it, I nodded in complete agreement. I even jotted it down in my notebook.

A couple days later I brought this profound statement up with my father over the phone. Now, my father helped found what is now known as Skills USA / VICA. It's an organization that trained folks how to DO things. Ask an electrician, bricklayer, mason, pipe fitter, iron worker, welder, machinist... they probably know about VICA. My father ran it from the mid-1960s through the late 1980s.

His response to the comment my boss made about our desktops that I thought was so profound? Dismissive.

"No. Someone else will push things forward. Things will change. This is America, boy."

They will. It is.

I was up in Cleveland this past Sunday for the 13th opening game of the 2nd iteration of Paul Brown's Browns. I witnessed tens of thousands of fans scream their hearts out for a team that has its 3rd owner and 2nd version since the 1960s. An owner that walked into it willingly and seemingly has his head screwed on straight. It's the start of a new day in Cleveland. A fresh new day.

Fort Columbus

Columbus Crew Stadium showed herself well last night as the 23k strong cheered the USMNT to a 1:0 win over Jamaica. In March of this year I wrote about the advantage the USMNT has in Columbus and other cities (with team records / goals) and how the the United States is still looking for its Wembley.

You can find that here: "Yes! Columbus is a Fortress".

Updated HB Player Score, Crew

The metric I like to track is points earned per game + average goal difference when a player starts. I call it the Helltown Beer Player Score.

The chart above is a visualization of the score. I use a 5 games started minimum so some players are not on the chart. If you would like to see the data you can go here.

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SOME HIGHLIGHTS
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Federico Higuain passed the 5 game started mark last week. He is averaging 2.40 Points per Game (1st) and a +0.40 (3rd) average Goal Difference.

+0.80 : Cole Grossman
+0.60 : Carlos Mendes
+0.40 : F. Higuain
+0.38 : Danny O'Rourke

Higuain also carries the Best Goals For average and Worst Goals Against. Here are the players with the highest Goals For per start.

2.00 : F. Higuain
1.60 : C. Grossman
1.60 : C. Mendes
1.50 : Dilly Duka

You'll notice it looks similar to the players with best avg GD. That is in large part due to the Columbus Crew's consistency in defense game in, game out all year. Where things change is in average Goals Against per start.

1.60 : F. Higuain (5)
1.42 : Chad Marshall (19)
1.40 : Bernardo Anor (5)
1.36 : Jairo Arrieta (11)

I felt it important to call out number of games started here (on the right in parentheses) for a couple reasons. The team GA average is 1.19 so for any player (especially a defensive one) as far out of control as he is at 19 starts is not good. Marshall has started 3 shutout games in his 19 starts. Without him in the starting line up the team had 4 shutouts in 8 games.

As a team, after shutting out 6 opponents in their first 15 games the Crew haven't blanked anyone in there last 9.

Looking at Points Earned per Game is about as true and clean a metric you can track, especially in Major League Soccer where lineups rotate quite a bit. Below are the players getting the best results. I'm going to move the minimum to 10 games, which makes these guys even more key to getting a positive result:

2.10 : C. Mendes (10)
1.92 : D. Duka (12)
1.85 : D. O'Rourke (13)
1.82 : J. Arrieta (11)
1.65 : Josh Williams (20)

Team average right now is 1.56. Here are the folks significantly enough south of that:

1.08 : Tony Tchani (12)
1.33 : Nemanja Vukovic (12)
1.37 : Milovan Mirosevic (19)
1.42 : Chad Marshall (19)

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THE NEXT 7 GAMES
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If you take a step back and look at the season so far you see a rough early start (lots of player rotation in starting lineup) - then a mid part of the season where defending was excellent and results started to improve even without key players, to now... which is a post a traumatic event with a new expensive and productive signing.

If the Crew are to have a shot at making more noise late on this season and hopefully carry it into next, they need to take the defending from the middle part of the year with and meld it with smarter attacking play.

I think with some better play in the defensive midfield and continued offensive production up top this Crew team will have continued success over the final seven games.

Crew Round 27. Money Talks in Loss

The Columbus Crew hot streak of six unbeaten was cooled off by a New England club who hadn't won any in their last ten.

1ST HALF
The Gillette Stadium turf made this a difficult watch from the outset but 1st year New England coach Jay Heaps had this team ready to go. His team was fully motivated and fearless in their approach to the Crew.

The Crew, on the other hand, seemed lethargic and borderline disinterested. The Revs deserved a goal in the first half but it didn't happen. Plenty of chances, but poor finishing from the rebuilding Eastern Conference club.

2ND HALF
The Revs got the goal they earned in the 53' (Congolese new boy Dimitry Imbongo) off some sloppy defensive play in the 18 yard box. From there the Crew still couldn't seem to get in the mood. 20 minutes of soccer balls skipping off the turf passed before Chad Marshall fumbled a headed back pass over the head of a charging Andy Gruenebaum and directly into his own net.

The final 15 minutes saw only one flurry of activity from the Crew and Federico Higuain's indoor soccer shoes. Game over. 0:2 Revs.

NOTES, MONEY
For the 2nd straight week Columbus started their "A" team. By that I mean; the highest paid. The only player in the top 13 on the club not to get a look is Olman Vargas. From there, the only players making over $100k to sit out where the injured Carlos Mendes and recently fined Julius James.

Last night's Crew "A" team values out at $2.2 million dollars* in annual guaranteed salary. New England's starting salary came in at under $1 million. Those numbers probably don't compute if you are a regular Crew club watcher.

Coming off a crowded August schedule Crew Coach Robert Warzycha banked on squeezing one more ounce of magic against a very weak side. It didn't work. In fact, the plan failed miserably.

20/20 hindsight, but you know what team could have given Crew fans something to cheer for and for less then half the cost ($900k)?

GK: Andy Grunebaum
RB: Eric Gehrig
CB: Josh Williams
CB: Danny O'Rourke
LB: Nemanja Vukovic
DM: Cole Grossman
RM: Justin Meram
CM: Eddie Gaven
LM: Ethan Finlay
CF: Aaron Schoenfeld
ST: Ben Speas

Plenty of excuses for the Crew last night... Heavy legs, bad playing surface, normal distribution of data. Fact remains thus: Championship teams with special players don't lose games like last night.

Disappointing not to see Williams in starting lineup.

* No official word on Federico Higuain's salary. I used $350k, which is the hit the Crew will take to salary cap next year with him on the roster.

Opponent Difficulty, Crew Players

"Imagine Druids cavorting at Stonehenge, and you'll get the idea. They danced in the spaces where the big blocks were not. They didn't run right at them (or, if they did, it's no surprise that their religion died out)." - Steven Goldman, Baseball Between the Numbers.

One of the things that's got me scratching my head is the absolutely ridiculous start Federico Higuain has had in Major League Soccer. It's literally video game-y. More specifically, the kind of numbers you see when an experienced FIFA 12 player drops the CPU difficulty. Do that - and every cross Sebastian Miranda makes drops perfectly for a Ben Speas who is suddenly averaging 2 goals and 1 assist (to Olman Vargas) per game.

I generally consider the quality of Major League Soccer sides to be negligible but after watching enough games like last night's San Jose destruction of Chivas USA, I've started to change my thinking. Perhaps opponent difficulty in the real MLS world is something that should be weighted more heavily when measuring player performance. Perhaps MLS opponent difficulty is more like difficulty level on a video game then I previously thought.

Below is the average opponent's rank on the most current MLS True Table (pts pGM, combined table) when a particular player is starting.

OPP. RANK : NAME : GMs STARTED
5.5 : Julius James 2
6.6 : Cole Grossman 5
6.7 : Justin Meram 9
8.0 : Bernardo Anor 5
9.0 : Chris Birchall 12
9.5 : Tony Tchani 12
9.6 : Nemanja Vukovic 11
9.6 : Joshua Williams 20
9.8 : Kevan George 4
9.9 : Eric Gehrig 7
9.9 : Dilly Duka 11
10.1 : Andy Gruenebaum 25
10.3 : Carlos Mendes 10
10.3 : Eddie Gaven 26
10.4 : Jairo Obando Arrieta 10
10.5 : Emilio Renteria 15
10.6 : Sebastián Miranda 25
11.0 : Danny O´Rourke 12
11.0 : Aaron Schoenfeld 3
11.1 : Chad Marshall 18
11.3 : Olman Vargas 6
12.6 : Milovan Mirosevic 18
14.7 : Ethan Finlay 3
15.0 : Matt Lampson 1
15.8 : Federico Higuaín 4

Interesting takeaways here come in comparing players of the same position. Like, Meram's 9 starts with a 6.7 opponent team rank compared to Dilly Duka's 11 starts and 9.9. or Chris Birchall and Tony Tchani's opponent difficulty compared to Milovan Mirosevic and Danny O'Rourke.

Take a look now at Higuain, my reason for performing this exercise. The teams he has faced in his 4 starts average nearly 16th on the table (out of 19). It sheds light a little bit on why he has had the early success.

But even when considering the level of opposition, 3 goals and 6 assists in 378 minutes is way out of control on the awesome scale of awesome. No doubt this pace will slow against some better teams, the question is how much.

He should reach his 5th start this week and therefore crosses the first Helltown hurdle. In doing so, even if he stands there for 90 minutes staring at the football lines at Gillette Stadium he will still be tops in the league in Goals + Assists per 90 minutes for players over 450 minutes.

Next hurdle will be the 900 minute mark (league leaders on right) which he could hit on October 7th against Kansas City. And by then, I have to say again, if he just stands on the field with no other goals and assists, will still be at 0.90 per game. Good enough for 13th best right now. My goodness.

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For those looking, here is updated Goals + Assist per 90 totals for the Columbus Crew 2012 season to date.

G+A p90 : Name : Minutes

2.17 : Federico Higuain : 373
0.75 : Jairo Arrieta : 839
0.47 : Justin Meram : 767
0.35 : Eddie Gaven : 2305
0.34 : Emilio Rentería : 1336
0.33 : Tony Tchani : 1084
0.30 : Aaron Schoenfeld : 298
0.27 : Nemanja Vukovic : 1002
0.25 : Chris Birchall : 1092
0.21 : Dilly Duka : 844
0.18 : Bernardo Anor : 493
0.18 : Cole Grossman : 500
0.17 : Milovan Mirosevic : 1556
0.15 : Josh Williams : 1794
0.14 : Olman Vargas : 658
0.13 : Eric Gehrig : 712
0.11 : Chad Marshall : 1606
0.04 : Sebastian Miranda : 2194

0.00 : Andy Gruenebaum : 2205
0.00 : Danny O'Rourke : 1063
0.00 : Carlos Mendes : 769
0.00 : Ethan Finlay : 426
0.00 : Kevan George : 426
0.00 : Julius James : 275
0.00 : Matt Lampson : 135
0.00 : Tommy Heinemann : 5

When putting this post together I came across a Steven Goldman quote atop this post from Baseball Between the Numbers in which he tries to describe how they look "around the numbers, beyond the numbers, and quietly tiptoeing past the numbers".

Crew Round 26. Win 4th Straight

With a goal in extra-time the Columbus Crew send Montreal Impact home with severely damaged playoff chances. The Crew, on the other hand, are back in a playoff spot on the table for the first time since the end of June.

1ST HALF
Some exciting play in the midfield but chances from either side were sparse. Columbus saw less of the ball but were direct and sharp when they did have it.

2ND HALF
Things between the two clubs didn't change much from the 1st half. Play was fast and you could tell that both clubs might have at least one goal in them. Turns out they had 3.

Marco Di Vaio started things off when he patiently put away a ball from 6 yards out in the 73'. Sanna Nyassi provided the excellent run down the left deftly splitting a charging Chris Birchall and backpedaling Sebastian Miranda. Nyassi crossed it to Felipe Martins who pushed it on to Di Vaio.

The lead didn't last long, a few minutes later Federico Higuain found Chad Marshall's head on a free kick taken just off the left hand corner of the box.

Around the 80th min you could really tell that some of the 30-something old legs of the Montreal players were turning to concrete.

Just as it did in Philadelphia midweek, when the game moved into extra time things loosened up quite a bit. Both the Crew and Impact knew that 3 pts are needed to jump into the playoffs. In the end (93') it was Federico Hiquain (again) providing a cross against the run of play to a well positioned Emilio Renteria.

CLUB FORM
It's been a while since the last time the Crew have had this much success over the course of 5 games (since May 2010). And With another win or draw on Wednesday can top 10 game stretches not seen in some time.

What is really telling is that twenty game positive form is not far off. Back in May 2012 the Crew were averaging 0.95 points per game over a 20 game span. That's the worst 20 game form the club had seen since the end of 2007.

Since then the Crew have won 9 of their last 16. The club is marching back to the winning ways of 2010... If things continue we may even see 2009 numbers matched. '09 saw a stretch of 20 games with only 2 losses. August '09 was the last time the Crew saw 5 wins in a row.

Predictions: Crew v. Montreal

Montreal travel down to Columbus to take on the Crew tonight. 7:30 PM EST, 12:30 AM, Kettering, England and 7:30 PM in Front Royal, VA.

GAME NOTES
• Two "in form" teams, playoff implications
• Montreal has won their last five, beating good teams... DC, SJ, NY.
• Montreal has had 4 of last 5 at home, however
• Montreal Away record = poor. 2 wins in 13.
• Crew have 3 wins, 2 draws in last 5.
• Crew last 3 wins against below average teams (TFC, NE, PHI)
• Crew missing regular LB / CB starter Josh Williams (suspension)
• Crew have only lost 3 at home this year (7W, 2D, 3L)

PREDICTIONS
Looks like the betting sites clearly favor the home team (that would be the Crew).

Drew Epperley at WV Hooligan; "This one will be a midfield game but in the end it feels like a draw." Drew also says, "Montreal and Columbus headline a busy holiday weekend." First time I've seen the Crew headline any of the league watchers sites this year.

The folks over at MLSsoccer.com are leaning Crew. 4 for Crew, 1 Montreal, 1 Draw.

Adam Jardy (Columbus Dispatch), who has been accurate with his predictions, is leaning Montreal because of fatigue. "Montreal" he says, "is rested and riding a five-game winning streak. It will take some magic for the Crew to overcome..."

MY PREDICTION
A lot will depend on how "up" for the game the Crew will be. Montreal and Columbus have already met twice this year and split home wins. Neither game really registering on the excitement scale of, well... excitement.

The reason I mention is because Josh Williams brings a lot of energy each time he plays. In fact, he actually controls most of the possession for the Crew. 250 total passes, 11% of all Crew passes for the month of August (positive results). His absence might play a part as to the amount of energy we see from the side.

The weather could become a factor tonight as well. It's humid as all right now, muggy. Feels like NC up in here. 80% chance of rain later today so the surface will be fast and the temps cool-er (we hope).

The Crew absolutely should be able to win this one but the result depends on team energy. By the time the 20th minute rolls around, ask yourself this question...

"Are the Crew playing on their front foot?"

YES: Crew Victory
NO: Crew Loss
I CAN'T TELL: Crew Draw or loss