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Crewsmas is here and Cucho Hernandez is gone. What should Columbus Crew expect? | Arace
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- Crewsmas is here and Cucho Hernandez is gone. What should Columbus Crew expect? | Arace
The Columbus Crew season opener is Saturday night against the Chicago Fire in the new Crew stadium. It's another Crewsmas, but there is a gift missing.
In their previous two MLS seasons combined, the Crew posted a 35-15-18 record, scored 139 goals in 68 games and had a goal differential of plus-53. Crazy. In just 24 months under coach Wilfried Nancy, they set standards for success that boggle the mind. They won the MLS Cup in 2023 and, in 2024, won Leagues Cup and made the final of the CONCACAF Champions Cup.
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The Crew have turned Lower.com Field into a fortress – they went 22-4-7 in league play at home in 2023 and 2024, combined – and they have drawn sellout crowds. There is a waiting list for season tickets. Obviously, winning helps. But so does "Nancyball," a style of play professed by coach Wilfried Nancy that is predicated on possession and dedicated to lethal attack. The Crew are among the most entertaining teams in the world to watch, be the viewer a neophyte or an aficionado. Last year's team was beauty, unalloyed.
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A different team will be on the field Saturday night. The starting lineup will be largely recognizable, but it will have a gaping hole in it: forward Cucho Hernandez, former MLS Cup and Leagues Cup MVP, and runner-up to Miami 's Lionel Messi for league MVP last year, is gone. Hernandez was sold to Real Betis of Spain's La Liga for a price in the neighborhood of $14 million, plus add-ons, earlier this month.
Hernandez wanted to return to Europe, and his wish was fulfilled. Then, forward Christian Ramirez was traded to the LA Galaxy for allocation money. Ramirez wanted to return to SoCal, where he grew up. With Hernandez and Ramirez went about half of the Crew's goal scoring from last season.
Crew coach Wilfried Nancy
FC Cincinnati , the Crew's hated rival, recently dealt with a similar problem. The relationship between the team and its star, former league MVP Lucho Acosta , had soured. Cincinnati general manager Chris Albright, using a new league mechanism, traded Acosta to Dallas for $5 million. It was hard to believe that Hunt Sports Group agreed to let go of that many nickels. Within days, Albright turned right around and used the same mechanism to send $12 million to Portland to acquire another MVP-caliber player, Evander . Nobody was surprised that Cincy ownership agreed to spend on talent.
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Wherefore the Haslam Sports Group?
Tall, like his mentor/predecessor Tim Bezbatcheko , professes to be ready for any exigency. Crew fans have to hope he is. What they're hearing from Tall (and Nancy) right now is that everyone should celebrate the fact that Hernandez is chasing his dream. Of course, everyone's happy for Cucho. That's not in question.
This is: What are you going to do about it?
Crew coach Wilfried Nancy (left) leads a Jan. 29 practice at the OhioHealth Performance Center.
Hernandez was only the greatest player in the 30-year history of the league's first chartered franchise. Is there an incoming Evander ?
Tall and Nancy (and Bezbatchenko) deserve credit for the rebuilding of the Crew's academy system and the success of their second team, Crew 2. They've quickly developed a track record of identifying, acquiring and developing young talent. The first team is littered with players who've come up through the system, and there's more to come .
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Nancy's genius goes well beyond tactics and into the realm of rewiring brains and getting the utmost out of every one of his charges. He is the best coach in the league and one of the best in the world. He is a Jedi Master .
But this is Cucho we're talking about. This is not an interchangeable part that was sent over the pond just a few weeks before the season opener. Were you ready?
Crew coach Wilfried Nancy (second from left) and general manager Issa Tall, here flanked by team owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam, have to find answers after losing half their goal-scoring from a year ago.
Some Crew fans will be laid back about all of this, because track record . Others will question whether the first-time GM is as prepared to be as bold as his predecessor, because it remains to be seen. Tall told season-ticket holders that he had contact with "one of the best players in the world" but these talks weren't fruitful. I'm assuming the reference is to Manchester City 's 33-year-old midfielder Kevin DeBruyne, who has expressed a desire to play in MLS and has been linked to the new San Diego franchise, but that's just an educated guess. There are also rumors that the Crew are tracking Flaco Lopez, a 24-year-old Argentine forward with Palmeiras of São Paulo, Brazil.
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Mayhap, the summer transfer window is a more likely opening to land a big fish. In the meantime, the message from management is fans should root for the team on the field, as if the hardcore here haven't been doing that for all or parts of four decades.
On a chilly Saturday night, Crew fans will tip their stocking caps to Gregg Berhalter , Chicago's new coach. And then the fans will root for Triple-G to get his butt whipped. Afterwards, they will repair to their preferred post-game venues and wonder aloud when and if the Crew will begin to spend the pile of money accrued from outgoing transfers and fill the fat slot that is open to at least one designated player, not to mention the U22 Initiative slots.
It's a new season. Is impossible still just an opinion?
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Crew fans must adjust to a new reality as MLS season opens
