Michael Arace: The Crew have allowed eight goals in two games. Where are their hard hats?
If there was one thing the Crew could hang their hard hats on ... Wait. Have the hard-hat guys been banned in the most recent rebranding? In the previous rebranding, they were banished from the official logo, but not exactly exiled. Are hard hats allowed in the new stadium? “The LDC,” as some are calling it? Does that sound like the name of an alt-synth-punk-EDM band?
It has been a long week.
If there was one thing the Crew could hang their hard hats on, it was their defense. Despite a roster that was spread thin through myriad injuries and a raft of national-team call ups, they punched the clock and played sturdily in their own end. They allowed a mere 12 goals through their first 15 games. Only Seattle, the Western Conference leader in the city where the game was invented, was in the Crew’s stalwart class.
In Game No. 16, against New York City FC in Yankee Stadium last Friday, the Crew got drummed, 4-1. An aberration? Did the narrow field fluster them? Chalk it up to an off night?
The Crew had another off night, if that’s what it was, in Game No. 17. It was the last game of the first half of the season. The visitors were D.C. United, who pinned three goals on the Crew in the first half en route to a 4-2 victory at the LDC. A crowd of 18,398 paid witness. (Two blocks to the east, the Clippers beat the Omaha Storm Chasers 6-4 before 6,161 at Huntington Park.)
Here’s a stat: In a span of 124 minutes against NYCFC and United, the Crew allowed seven goals. That used to be a month for them. It happened in less than three halves. “Fewer than three” is proper English. Under?
It has been a long week.
The Crew’s bid for their eighth shutout of the season was dashed in the 19th minute Wednesday night. Crew defender Aboubacar Keita got the ball stuck in his feet and was quickly dispossessed. It was enough to give old Blue Jackets fans a Rusty Klesla flashback. Ola Kamara had a completely empty box to prance through and a completely naked Crew goalkeeper in front of him. Eloy Room had no chance.
By halftime, it was 3-0. The third goal came after the captain, foundational defender Jonathan Mensah, had a Keita/Klesla incident and got his pocket picked. Mensah tried to recover but committed a foul in the box, which led to a penalty kick by Kamara in stoppage time.
“I think the first one was really deflating,” coach Caleb Porter said. “You don’t expect the third one out of (Mensah). But the first one really rattled the guys. ... You could see it deflated the whole stadium.”
Porter started neither striker Gyasi Zardes, who played 120 minutes in Team USA’s Gold Cup victory over Mexico Sunday night, nor winger Pedro Santos, who has had little respite this season. They came on early in the second half and gave the Crew some life. For a while there, it looked like an improbable comeback was possible.
Zardes fed Kevin Molino for a goal in the 65th minute. Lucas Zelarayan scored (emphatically) off the rebound of a Molino shot in the 71st minute. It was a one-goal game and the crowd was alive. Then, the Crew defense was once again addled by a D.C. transition and conceded a goal in the 74th minute, and that was it. Game over.
D.C. jumped from eighth place to sixth in the Eastern Conference. The Crew slipped from sixth to seventh, just above the playoff line. The Crew had been scrabbling up the ladder before they slipped. Now, they’ve given up eight goals in two games, which is weird.
“We gifted them four goals,” Porter said.
Perhaps it’s just a midsummer swoon.
Keita, who has been playing pretty well, got abused on two goals. He’s 21 years old and it happens. We’ll see how he handles it. Mensah is a 31-year-old captain and rock-solid. That’s what was so strange: He’s not prone to gifting goals. Now, he must carry forward like a leader.
They will both need help from their teammates.
The pace of the compressed schedule will not ease anytime soon. The D.C. game was the fifth in a span of nine games in 36 days. Until last week, their depth was holding up well, all things considered.
It has been a long week.
Where did their hard hats go? They need to find the yellow buckets and jam them back on before Atlanta, representing soccer's birthplace, visits on Saturday.