The Columbus Crew must stop this dangerous trend moving forward

Picture yourself sitting in front of your tv watching some of the high-quality programming available these days and commercial comes on with one of the usual pitchmen for a product called Easy Goal. It might go something like this:

“If you’re a big-time soccer team, you need Easy Goal! All you need to do is pressure the Crew deep in their own end and you, yes YOU, can be the beneficiary of a turnover in a dangerous area that leads to an…Easy Goal!! Get yours today!!”

While the above is written as tongue-in-cheek, it does not lessen the frustration of the Crew’s trend lately of bad turnovers in a dangerous area that lead to an easy goal. It has happened in each of their last three games. Twice it put them behind and they had to fight back. Fortunately, the gaffes happened early enough to give them time to overcome the deficit. But how long can they get away with this?

 Considering who the Crew will be playing in the Leagues Cup final Sunday night, it will be a very good time for this dangerous trend to stop. After losing the MLS CUP final and then were embarrassed bye the Crew in a 5-1 loss at home last month, LAFC will be rolling into Lower.com Field with something to prove. The Crew simply can’t give away easy goals to a team like that. Despite those two losses, LAFC is a very dangerous team and is arguably the second-best in MLS. If Patrick Schulte or a member of the back line find themselves trapped deep in their own end, they need to blast the ball out of trouble. I’d much rather see an opponent take possession at midfield than in a prime scoring area.

Wilfried Nancy and his team can be stubborn in sticking with what they do, but it is getting them in trouble lately. You can make an adjustment while staying true to your style. Nancy and the Crew need to do this to put a stop to this trend of turnovers leading to easy goals.