The Columbus Crew's success is a product of more than just talent

Herb Brooks, the legendary coach of the Miracle on Ice hockey team, once told them they were not talented enough to win on talent alone. The Crew are one of those rare teams that IS capable of winning on talent alone. But like all great teams in sports history, they are filled with intangibles that help separate them from the merely good.

Resilience

I’m a big fan of horror/sci-fi classic movies from the 50’s and early 60’s. One of my favorites is The Thing from 1951. Towards the end of the movie, as the small group was waiting with fire axes, one asked what would happen if the plan for electrocuting the alien did not work. The reply was, “Just keep swinging at its arms.” The message was to just keep battling. No matter what happens, keep fighting. This is what the Crew does. They keep coming. No matter the score or the situation, they keep swinging away at their opponent. This was on full display in the Leagues Cup Round of 16 when Inter Miami led 2-0 and had taken the air completely out of the game as the Crew struggled to get anything going on offense. Undaunted, they kept up the pressure until Miami’s defense finally cracked in the 67th minute. That was the beginning of a 3-2 comeback win.

Resourceful

Offensively gifted teams, who are capable of scoring a lot of pretty goals, can get to the point where they only want to score pretty goals. This isn’t the Crew. They’re willing to get their hands dirty, so to speak, and score a goal that isn’t exactly highlight reel material. They’ll battle in front of the opponent’s goal on a set piece or crash the net for a rebound. And as we saw in the Leagues Cup final, they don’t mind scoring that fluke kind of goal either. In a tie game that looked like it was headed to a shootout, what looked like a pass from Cucho somehow found its way into the net. They are resourceful and if they can’t score one way, they’ll keep hunting until they find another.

Unselfish

Wilfried Nancy’s team has earned a reputation for being unselfish. That distinction was backed up by two things that happened during and just after the Leagues Cup final. Just after having taken a 2-1 lead in the waning moments, Cucho, who already had two goals, found himself with the ball in a 2-on-1 situation. Even with an LAFC defender having an angle and closing the gap on him, he could have easily kept the ball and tried for a hattrick. Instead, Cucho slid a picture-perfect pass to Jacen Russell-Rowe, who calmly put his shot past LAFC goalkeeper Hugo Lloris to seal the Leagues Cup title for the Crew. The second example came just a few moments later. When the final whistle blew, Patrick Schulte made a beeline for Nico Hagen who had been given the start over him. When he reached him, Schulte just about mauled Hagen in a display of unbridled joy for the success of his goalkeeping partner. On a night when he could have easily sulked and pouted, Schulte chose to celebrate Hagen becoming a Cup-winning goalkeeper. Unselfishness like these two examples is a large part of the Crew’s success.  

It is not easy to figure out who gets credit for all these things. Wilfried Nancy has gotten his players to buy in and embrace the culture he has created. The Crew is supremely talented, but there is so much more to this team’s success than talent.