Revolution at Columbus Crew, 8.13.11: O-HI-O!

If your defense is bad, you will lose. This is true in virtually every team sport, from basketball to American football, but it is particularly true in soccer. The Revolution’s defense was horrible against the Eastern Conference-leading Crew in Columbus on Saturday and so the Revolution lost. The loss wasn’t all due to the defense, as midfielders Shalrie Joseph and Stephen McCarthy each had relatively down games and failed to control the middle of the field, but the defense bears most of the blame. The Revs’ back line—consisting of Chris Tierney on the left, Kevin Alston on the right, and A.J. Soares and Darrius Barnes in the center—consistently failed to mark attackers and maintain their shape. They looked adrift and lifeless, particularly Soares, which is uncharacteristic of him and leads me to believe that he may have been fighting a summer cold or maybe a hangover, though the latter seems unlikely since Columbus is not widely known for its alluring nightlife.

It is true that I’ve never been to Columbus, which I suppose leaves me open to charges of being an ignorant east coast snob. But since the Revolution’s play has been so dreadful lately, let’s change gears for a bit and discuss Ohio. My wife’s parents both hail from the buckeye state, and I have spent some time there. My first trip, in 1994, was to North Canton. I stayed in a house that at first seemed to me to be the height of middlebrow modesty, with vinyl siding on the outside and some 1970s faux bead-board walls on the inside. When I looked a little closer, however, I spotted the period musket on the wall, the polished tiger maple end table with inlay in the living room, the working 18^th century grandfather clock near the front door, and, across from that and above the couch, the oil painting of swing dancers that would not have been out of place had it been hanging in the National Gallery of Art.

In short, that “modest” North Canton house contained the most tasteful (and valuable) collection of privately held antiques that I’d ever seen, and I grew up in suburban Washington, D.C., my mom an antiques dealer. The place was the spiritual opposite of an east coast corporate office building, the kind of building that seems at first impressive—with fixtures that appear to be brass and tables and doors that appear to be wood—until you look a little closer and realize it’s all just ersatz crap.

I’d like to think this little anecdote says something good about Ohio, that it speaks to a statewide hatred of pretension combined with understated good taste. I saw the flipside of this tendency—or the hatred of pretension without the modesty and good taste—a couple of summers ago during a trip to Ashtabula County, Ohio. Ashtabula had some natural beauty, and my wife, daughters, and I had a good time and a hell of a breakfast when we stayed at a place called Peggy’s Bed and Breakfast, which was tasteful enough. But an almost unbelievably high percentage of front yards on some of the county’s major roads overflowed with trash and rusting junk. I suppose it’s all very bourgeois and like a wet-liberal of me to say so, but if you’re an unpretentious keep-the-government-out-of-my-face type, you’d gain credibility with the rest of us by getting off your tail and cleaning your property.

But let’s return, somewhat regrettably, to the subject of the game. Despite being dominated by the Crew in almost every important statistical category, the Revolution managed to emerge from the first half up 1-0. The Revolution goal was a good one. Benny Feilhaber received a throw-in on the left sideline, faked a shot to create space for himself, and passed to Pat Phelan at the corner of the 18. Phelan used his body effectively to shield the ball from the defender and played the ball into space where Feilhaber ran onto it and slammed a scorching, accurate shot into the side netting of the far post.

Feilhaber deserved the goal. It was his strongest game so far in a Revolution uniform, which unfortunately isn’t saying much. But he played hard and looked confident and strong out there, often running back all the way to the Revolution end to help on defense (and equally often glaring at the defense that he had to do so). In the 53^rd minute he drew a foul in the final third. He angrily called for the ball and, as far as I can tell, made the executive decision to take the kick himself, though the normally reliable Tierney was over the ball.

That free kick wasn’t a great one, but another Feilhaber free kick in the 62^nd minute, from virtually the same spot, was a beauty. It sailed to McCarthy, who was waiting at the far post and who headed the ball back across the goalmouth. Milton Caraglio was poised to head it into the net, but Soares ran onto it and kicked a shot up onto the bottom of the crossbar. The ball caromed down towards Soares and away from the goal. Another inch towards the net and the ball surely would have gone in.

That was a disappointing missed opportunity for the Revolution, but don’t get the wrong impression. The Crew deserved to win the game by at least two goals, and they did, 3-1. They could have scored on at least two other occasions, once when Emilio Renteria sprinted down the end-line and inexplicably missed a wide-open teammate standing in front of the goal, and once in the final minute of stoppage time when the exhausted and uninspired New England defense let Robbie Rogers dribble freely at the top of the box and get off a low shot that just missed the target.

And speaking of exhaustion, Caraglio looked positively gassed starting around the 57^th minute, when he received the ball at the top of the box but was apparently too exhausted to do anything with it. He looks strong and big out there, but he obviously needs to get into better shape, especially with Rajko Lekic out with a broken toe. Caraglio stayed in until the 79^th minute, in my opinion well past the point where he was effective, but maybe Steve Nicol is trying to get him into shape on the field.

This loss, combined with recent positive results for D.C., Houston, and even Toronto, likely killed New England’s already slim chances of making the playoffs.