By John Blakely
We’ve all heard the saying that “defense wins championships”, supporters of the Crew should hope that is true. Columbus hosted Sporting Kansas City on Saturday night and left a cold and rain soaked Crew Stadium with a 1-0 victory.
This was the fourth straight match goal tender William Hesner, or William the Wall as he’s known around these parts, refused to allow a ball to reach the back of the net. This time Hesner shut down the MLS’ most potent offensive squad, while increasing his shutout streak to over 6 hours.
The games only goal was provide during the 53′ by Robbie Roberts, who took a pass from Dilly Duka (The Columbus Crew have four starters with alliterate names (Robbie Roberts, Dilly Duka, Emmanuel Ekpo, and Julius James)! 4 out of 11. No other team even has two. In case you haven’t noticed, I am a big fan of alliteration. So maybe I look for this sort of thing or maybe I am blowing it out of proportion… but I think it pretty crazy.) and threaded the ball between the post and the goal keepers out stretched arms.
It is a good thing Roberts shot went in because other than a spot-on Gaven shot, which was spot-only saved by Neilsen during the 68′, the Crew didn’t really have any quality scoring opportunities. As good as the defense has been, the offense has been almost as bad. Playing with no flow they pass to and fro without any direction or forward movement. Columbus has scored the fewest goals in their conference and have yet to display the killer instinct that has been the calling card of past Crew teams.
Hopefully that will change next week when the Crew travel north of the border (into Canada) to take on the Toronto FC Saturday April 30th. This is also the first leg of the Trillium Cup, which the Crew have won for all three years of its existence. Fun fact: Columbus is the only team in the MLS that Toronto FC has never defeated.
The cold and the rain were not enough to dampen the spirits of non-national anthem performer Ashley Tisdale. The former Disney princess didn’t belt a fabulous rendition of the Francis Scott Key song nor did she stay after the game and entertain fans to a slew of hits, including “Crank It Up”.
Haiku Recap:
Goals allowed by Crew?
Last four games, Nil Nil Nil Nil.
Columbus is hot!
