Playoff-bound Crew gets stars back at right time
In more ways than one, the Crew has returned to full strength.
Fresh off a rejuvenating 3-1 win against New York City FC to end a fourgame winless streak — and having had a full week to reintegrate midfielders Darlington Nagbe and Lucas Zelarayan and goalkeeper Eloy Room — the Crew has entered the five-game stretch run with momentum as it fights for playoff seeding atop the Eastern Conference.
The Crew (10-4-4, 34 points)
clinched a spot in the 2020 MLS Cup playoffs on Sunday. Sitting four points
behind second-place Philadelphia with one fewer game played, Crew coach Caleb Porter has the advantage of getting his star players and his team back to top form over the next two weeks before the postseason.
“It’s great to be in with five games to go, but we have bigger fish to fry, obviously,” Porter said. “We want to win the MLS Cup, and to do that you want as many home games as possible (in the playoffs).”
Nagbe, Zelarayan and Room will factor into Saturday’s 8 p.m. match at the Houston Dynamo (4-7-8, 20 points), Porter said when he spoke to media members on Thursday. How much time Nagbe and Zelarayan will get is unknown.
Nagbe has missed the past eight games and hasn’t played since Sept. 6 due to a meniscus injury that required arthroscopic surgery. Zelarayan (hamstring) and Room (lower body) have not played since the last trip to Texas, against FC Dallas on Oct. 3.
“We have to be smart in working in players that aren’t 90-minutes fit and not taking new injuries,” Porter said. “How we manage these five games is going to be crucial (for) that push for seeding, but also that understanding that we want to have as many of our top guys healthy and in form and playing together in a rhythm.”
The infusion of Nagbe and Zelarayan back into the midfield will allow the Crew to return to its preferred style of dominating possession. The Crew has been one of the more dynamic attacking teams in Major League Soccer with the two midfielders.
If they don’t start, however, the Crew showed what performance it can deliver without its top two playmakers. Midfielder Artur was perhaps the most integral player against New York City in the club’s first win since mid-september with his passing precision and tenacity when trying to win possession.
“That’s the kind of team we are,” Artur said. “That’s how we were successful in the beginning. We cannot lose sight of that. It’s very important for us, the kind of game we play and the team we have.”
As important as playoff seeding is to the Crew, Houston is fighting for its life. With four games to play, Houston is one point back of the Vancouver Whitecaps for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference. The Dynamo is 1-5-4 in its past 10 games but perhaps will enter Saturday’s game with some confidence after coming back from a two-goal deficit to draw with Minnesota last week.
“We need to go into that game and even do more than we did on Sunday to get the win on the road,” said defender Jonathan Mensah, who signed a multiyear contract extension with the Crew on Thursday. “They’re a good team, they got good players, so we need to go in there with all we got.”
The Crew is in a position for the first time since early September where Porter can throw out his best team.
“We feel like if we’re healthy, no matter even if we have to go on the road some games, that we can still win,” he said. jmyers@dispatch.com
@_ jcmyers