Performance in playoffs vital to Crew’s future
Tim Bezbatchenko and Caleb Porter have never shied away from discussing their ambition for the Crew.
After a 10th-place finish in the Eastern Conference and 20th overall in 2019, their first year as president/general manager and coach, respectively, the Crew made sweeping changes to its roster and improved to third in the East and fourth overall in points per game in a pandemic-altered season.
As good as the regular season was — second-highest points per game in club history — everyone from the front office, coaching staff and players has understood they will be judged by the performance in the postseason.
A new chapter in the club’s post-save The Crew era will begin Saturday against the New York Red Bulls, marking a significant moment for the club’s future.
“We’re 0-0. We need to be 4-0 to raise a trophy,” Porter said, referring to the number of wins needed to claim the MLS Cup.
Besides some ties to Ohio, the obvious quality that made Porter and Bezbatchenko attractive candidates to new owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam and Dr. Pete Edwards was that they’re both proven winners.
Porter has a 6-3-3 record in the MLS Cup playoffs with one championship and two first-place finishes in the Western Conference with the Portland Timbers. Bezbatchenko built Toronto FC into one of the league’s best clubs, with one MLS Cup in 2017.
Introduced to Crew fans at the same time in early 2019, Bezbatchenko and Porter talked about the Crew being a perennial contender that would be smart and bold with its approach to adding players both domestically and internationally.
Their drive to turn the Crew into a top club in MLS by the time a new Downtown stadium opens in July 2021 showed this past offseason as they acquired midfielders Darlington Nagbe and Lucas Zelarayan. Getting Nagbe required a club-record transfer of allocation money. Acquiring Zelarayan required a club-record $8 million transfer fee.
Both players have shown their value as the core of a team that aspires to win championships, despite missing a combined 15 games with injuries in their first seasons with the Crew. Now at full strength entering the playoffs, Nagbe and Zelarayan are prepped to be the impetus for any postseason run.
“Historically, it was a good season and that’s something we’re proud of,” Zelarayan said through a translator. “I think we’ve shown that we’re one of the better teams in the league and we hope to be able to finish what was a great season by winning a trophy.”
Under sporting director Gregg Berhalter, the Crew was known as a difficult team to play against in the playoffs. As the No. 5 seed of six teams in the East in 2017, the Crew made a run to the Eastern Conference finals and was a goal away from its second MLS Cup appearance in three years. The next year, the Crew won a road elimination game again as an underdog.
With a roster that has more talent and depth than those two teams — even though the team won only three of its final 10 games — there are higher expectations for the Crew this time around.
Bezbatchenko and Porter expect that to be the case every season.
“We have a team that’s driven to win it,” Porter said. “Not right now all of a sudden, but we’ve been thinking about it all year.” jmyers@dispatch.com
@_ jcmyers