Seven years ago, it wasn’t even certain that the Columbus Crew would stay in Columbus. Owner Anthony Precourt announced his intention to relocate the franchise to Austin in 2017 after a period of stagnation for the Crew.
Saturday, the Crew were crowned MLS Cup winners for the second time in four seasons. The club has never been more alive.
The Columbus Crew won MLS Cup in 2020, but Saturday’s 2-1 victory over Los Angeles FC – played in front of a sold out crowd at the magnificent Lower.com Field – made an even bigger statement on the club’s upward trajectory. Far from being the MLS 1.0 club Precourt saw it as, the Crew have become the epitomise of the league’s modern vision.
With Wilfried Nancy at the helm, Columbus have set a new standard in MLS this season and there could be a lot more to come from this team. The Crew have demonstrated what is possible when a coherent plan is put in place and complimented with shrewd recruitment and good coaching. The rest of MLS has ground to make up on Columbus.
MLS has produced legendary head coaches, but few have achieved in a single season what Nancy did in 2023. Hired by Columbus for the start of the season, the Frenchman imposed a style of play that made the Crew the most attractive, entertaining team in the league. His principles underpin everything.
This was evident in the way Columbus played against LAFC in Saturday’s MLS Cup final. The Crew smothered their opponents for the majority of the match. Their counter-press was so energetic that LAFC struggled to build possession moves throughout with Cucho Hernandez and Diego Rossi threatening in the final third.
Even when LAFC got a goal back through Denis Bouanga to give themselves a chance of a comeback, Nancy introduced Christian Ramirez and Julian Gressel off the bench to keep Columbus on the front foot. At no point did it feel like the Crew sit back and protect what they had. That’s the sort of team they are.
By scoring twice against LAFC on Saturday, the Columbus Crew finished 2023 with 82 goals between the regular season and post-season – the most recorded by a MLS Cup winner in league history. Everything they do is geared towards creating scoring opportunities with the highest frequency possible.
Darlington Nagbe and Aidan Morris controlled the centre of the pitch and cut off the LAFC front three as a result. Cucho collected the MLS Cup MVP award, but the Columbus Crew had several standout performers who made the difference on the night. All of them have bought into Nancy’s ideology.
The turnaround in the Crew’s fortunes from last season to this has been remarkably quick. Last season, Columbus failed to qualify for the playoffs, finishing a lowly eighth in the Eastern Conference. Caleb Porter left the club at the end of the campaign and Nancy was lured from CF Montreal where he’d led the Canadians to their best-ever season in 2022.
Nancy has remoulded the squad he inherited in his own image with several players promoted from the Crew’s MLS Next Pro team. In almost every area, the Frenchman is in full control. He knows what he wants the Columbus Crew to be and how to deliver that. It culminated in the MLS Cup win over LAFC.
Heading into 2024, there will surely be several MLS clubs aiming to copy the Columbus Crew. They will attempt to implement an attack-minded style of play which puts the team ahead of the individuals on the pitch. Achieving this, however, is extremely difficult and managers like Nancy are rare.
“Impossible is an opinion,” said the Frenchman after Saturday’s MLS Cup triumph. It was a line that summed up so much of what Nancy and his players have achieved this season and the extraordinary way the Columbus Crew have been revived by the events of the last few years.
Indeed, the Crew’s situation in 2017 looked impossible. They had an owner who wanted to move the franchise out of Ohio, a team in need of new direction and an ageing stadium that reflected how the franchise had been allowed to grow stale. Now, though, everything at the Columbus Crew is in fine working order.
