Soccer <\/p>\n
This week, the Sunday Night Soccer presented by Continental Tire show heads to the Gateway City, as a struggling St. Louis CITY<\/a> side \u2013 very new team; very old, proud and currently not super content soccer town! \u2013 host the kicking-it-into-fourth-gear Columbus Crew<\/a> (7 pm ET | MLS Season Pass, Apple TV+<\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Columbus made some huge news this week in taking advantage of the cash transfer system, splashing out beaucoup bucks<\/a> to bring in the DP attacker they\u2019ve been looking for since selling Cucho Hern\u00e1ndez<\/a> over the winter. St. Louis, meanwhile, still really haven\u2019t gotten out of first gear \u2013 they\u2019ve been shut out three straight games, and it\u2019s been 345 minutes since they scored a goal.<\/p>\n These two teams are pointed in very different directions at the moment. Let\u2019s set the scene:<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n St. Louis CITY SC<\/strong><\/p>\n Columbus Crew<\/strong><\/p>\n The fan discontent has gotten pretty loud pretty quickly under new head coach Olof Mellberg. The lineups have been ultra-defensive and have skewed older, and neither of those facts are sitting well with a fanbase that prides itself on its understanding of the game (St. Louis has a longer and deeper soccer history than any other place in America) and the local talent it produces.<\/p>\n Every single game, these questions get louder. That means each subsequent game is a precious chance for Mellberg and sporting director Lutz Pfannenstiel to provide an adequate answer.<\/p>\n A spotlight home game against the team that plays the most attractive soccer in the league, though? Couldn\u2019t find a more ideal time to make a statement (other than, you know, maybe last week against a rival that had just mutually parted ways with their coach).<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n The season\u2019s nearly two months old and the Crew are still unbeaten, one of two teams that can claim that honor. They\u2019re atop the Eastern Conference on points and just behind Inter Miami<\/a> (and Western Conference leaders Vancouver<\/a>) on points per game.<\/p>\n They are, in short, officially among the favorites to win the Supporters’ Shield. And hell, with the way they\u2019re playing and the addition of Gazdag, maybe we\u2019re not just talking about winning the Shield; maybe we\u2019re talking about breaking the single-season points record that Miami set just last year.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve entered \u201cevery point matters \u2013 a lot!\u201d days for Columbus. This team, even after selling MVP finalist Cucho Hern\u00e1ndez and trading goalscorer Christian Ram\u00edrez<\/a> this past winter, is always in the hunt for trophies. This year\u2019s no different.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n St. Louis CITY SC: Who can pick up the pace?<\/strong><\/p>\n I watched back last week’s 2-1 loss at Sporting Kansas City \u2026 and the rhythm from St. Louis when they have the ball is often downright ponderous. Pass. Pause. Pass. Pause. Predictable pass. Pause. Pass backward. Kick it long under pressure. It was too easy for Sporting KC to stay in a good defensive shape and get men around the ball without extending themselves.<\/p>\n At some point, CITY have to speed up play in possession to create some imbalance in their opponent. That\u2019s going to be a huge challenge against a Crew team that\u2019s truly a menace both with and without the ball.<\/p>\n Columbus Crew: Is this the year Jacen Russell-Rowe makes the \u201cleap?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Wilfried Nancy told the Sunday Night Soccer broadcast crew this week that the best finisher on the team is the 22-year-old Canadian. Oh, and that includes this year AND last year, which means Nancy rates Russell-Rowe<\/a>\u2019s ability to put the ball in the back of the net in a variety of ways OVER the likes of Cucho Hern\u00e1ndez and Christian Ram\u00edrez. Huge praise, indeed.<\/p>\n The huge CHALLENGE for Russell-Rowe is to take that raw talent and translate it into every-game impact. He made 14 starts last season\u2026 11 were in March, April and May before he lost the starting job to Ram\u00edrez. I want to see his talent shine through on Sunday (and check out that finishing ability in person) and consistently as the season progresses. This is a big year in Russell-Rowe\u2019s career.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n So far, it\u2019s been about getting numbers behind the ball and just kind of keeping them there, limiting risk as much as possible. St. Louis are currently in the bottom six of essentially all the \u201cdo they want the ball and do they know what to do with it?\u201d stats:<\/p>\n In other words, they don\u2019t really know how to get into the attacking phase of the game, and in the rare times they do, they don\u2019t really seem to know how they want to try to create chances. So they settle for crosses way too often \u2013 they\u2019re 10th in the league in open-play crosses, which isn\u2019t grotesque. But only New England<\/a> have a higher percentage of final-third entries that end up in open-play crosses, which kind of is.<\/p>\n To be clear: Injuries have played a big hand in this and will again this weekend as CITY are expected to be without Eduard L\u00f6wen<\/a>, Chris Durkin<\/a> and Jannes Horn<\/a> (to name just three). And a bunch of other guys have been dinged up all year.<\/p>\n That includes both Hartel and Cedric Teuchert<\/a> (who will hopefully be good to go from the start in this one), who are game-changing players when healthy and in their best spots. I don\u2019t think this early-season stretch should have us thinking otherwise about them.<\/p>\n I am less convinced about the other attackers, and the need to have a wide threat has been glaring all season. Well, that\u2019s why I mentioned Joyner way at the top, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n Point is, this team has been shut out five times in seven games this season. It\u2019s time to take a chance on some attacking play and some attackers.<\/p>\n On the other side of the ball\u2026<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Brilliant stuff from Sporting KC, who were able to exploit some St. Louis confusion re: where and when to get pressure to the ball. pic.twitter.com\/ihV0n7ACjt<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Matthew Doyle (@MattDoyle76) April 6, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n As the season rolls on, teams get more comfortable \u2013 sharper and more incisive in possession. Which means you need more than just numbers behind the ball; you need organized pressure to it and you need to keep attackers in cover shadows off the ball. There\u2019s not really much of either happening in the above sequence.<\/p>\n Nancy pretty famously doesn\u2019t gameplan specifically for each opponent. Instead, he focuses on his team\u2019s plan with the understanding that if they execute, they can crack open virtually any opponent, no matter what their defensive shape is (it\u2019ll be a 5-4-1 for St. Louis) or where they draw their line of confrontation. It feels almost solipsistic, with the focus all on oneself, but there\u2019s a real argument for that approach.<\/p>\n Think about it. Soccer players \u2013 athletes in general \u2013 thrive on confidence, and I can\u2019t imagine a message more galvanizing than \u201cwe\u2019re going to go out there, we\u2019re going to own the ball, we\u2019re going to control the game with it, and we\u2019re going to win because of that.\u201d Crew players hear that every week and are absolutely fearless because of it, and while that does make for the occasional WPIOOTBGW boo-boo<\/a>, they never look shook. They just get on the ball and do it all over again, no matter if they\u2019re facing Montr\u00e9al<\/a>, Miami or anyone in between.<\/p>\n They build from a 3-4-2-1 that becomes either a 2-3-5 or a 3-2-5 in the attacking third, and my god, this video from Ben Wright is so great that I\u2019m begging you to take 90 seconds of your life and watch it all with the sound up. You will not regret it!<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Wilfried Nancy and the Columbus Crew are absolutely elite at building freedom and improvisation out of a well-drilled structure. It’s spectacular to watch.pic.twitter.com\/vVvJTT9MFR<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Ben Wright (@benwright) April 8, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n It covers basically everything that makes the Crew the Crew \u2013 the courage on the ball, the build-out structure, the freedom to swap positions within that structure, the counter-press, the refusal to settle for low-percentage crosses and the determination to craft chances via possession. It looks perfectly free-flowing and improvisational, and in some ways, it is. Counter-intuitively, though, that\u2019s because it\u2019s so ruthlessly and relentlessly drilled. Talk to anyone who\u2019s played under Nancy, and they will rave about how involved and detail-oriented he is both in training and film sessions.<\/p>\n This type of soccer doesn\u2019t just happen. It has to be downloaded and installed by every single player on the field.<\/p>\n I suspect that Gazdag will be a quick study, even after coming from a Philadelphia Union<\/a> system that was much more about vertical running than about positional play. The note to make here, though, is each of the Crew\u2019s three dedicated attackers has to be ready to toggle from playmaker to winger to goalscorer, and that\u2019s how you end up with touch maps showing Jacen Russell-Rowe (the only actual No. 9 on the roster) getting on the ball more in the right half-space than in the box, while Diego Rossi<\/a> (the star attacker who\u2019s playing at a Best XI clip and man, it\u2019s an oversight that I haven\u2019t mentioned him in this column until now!) attacking space behind the opposing backline like a modern-day Pippo Inzaghi.<\/p>\n You can probably tell I really, really love watching this team.<\/p>\n Defensively, the Crew\u2019s whole thing is \u201cget the ball back quickly and keep it.\u201d They want to avoid defending in their own box, where they are only adequate. They\u2019re an excellent defensive team everywhere else on the field, and the data shows it.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n I want to do some wishcasting, but Joyner hasn\u2019t even made the first-team bench this year. So I\u2019m just hoping for a debut, not a start. Expect the usual 3-4-2-1 that shells into a 5-4-1 when they\u2019re playing against the ball.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n It\u2019ll be the usual 3-4-2-1, just with veterans Nagbe and Rudy Camacho<\/a> still battling injuries. Also, I expect Gazdag to walk straight into the XI alongside Rossi.<\/p>\n\n
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St. Louis CITY SC<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
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Columbus Crew<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
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