My younger self never could have imagined me contemplating which of the Crew’s three MLS Cup titles is the best. Growing up in Cleveland, I was accustomed to heartbreak and torturous near misses, and the early Crew continued that tradition, losing four conference finals and seeing a Supporters’ Shield winning season go up in flames in the first round because of two missed penalty kicks. Columbus had a loveable and exciting team that was very good but never quite great. And there I stood in a jubilant Lower.com Field on December 9, 2023, trying to categorize not one, not two, but three MLS Cup championships. I didn’t have any success in that moment.

2008 is clearly the best championship because it was the first and it capped a Shield-Cup double, something that has only been accomplished eight times in league history, making that Crew squad one of the very best in the annals of MLS. Plus, the first championship always means the most, because it spares you the angst of wondering if you will ever see a title before you die, which is something that plagues me with Cleveland baseball. The difference in sports fan angst as it relates to my two favorite teams is incalculable.

Then again, 2020 is clearly the best championship because the Crew, minus two vital starters, completely dismantled the dynastic Seattle Sounders, dominating them from the opening whistle to win 3-0 in the most lopsided MLS Cup ever played. And they did it upon the sacred ground that is Historic Crew Stadium. So it’s the best title because it was the best MLS Cup performance, and the team rose to the occasion in the face of what many believed to be insurmountable misfortune.

Then again, 2023 is clearly the best championship because of the exciting soccer played by coach Wilfried Nancy’s team all season, setting a record of 82 combined regular season and playoff goals, the most ever of any MLS champ. And whereas 2008 was played out in California and 2020 was limited to just 1,500 fans because of the pandemic, this game was played in front of a packed madhouse of more than 20,000 fans in an incredible downtown stadium, just a few years after this team and this city were supposed to be wiped off the MLS map because absentee ownership insisted what was happening before my very eyes could never ever happen at all. The joy, the noise, the passion, the celebration, the communal triumph of the team, the club, the city, and its people, it was unlike anything I had ever experienced in 28 seasons of Columbus Crew soccer.

And to think that instead of being there and feeling that energy in my bones, I was supposed to be watching it on television from a hospital room.

********

I cemented my love of soccer from my dad. Not that he knew the slightest thing about soccer when I was a kid. No, he was a baseball guy who dreamed of being a Little League coach when his kid started playing ball. But I took an interest in soccer, mainly because all my neighborhood friends played it, and then I scored a goal in my very first game in Euclid rec league action as my Sharpshooters downed the Pac-Men. (It was the early 80s. If you know, you know.) From that moment on, it was all soccer for me.

Even though my dad was a baseball guy, he did what any good parent should do. He let me forge my own path and didn’t selfishly use me as a vessel for his own dreams. While I became an avid baseball fan, and we would attend, watch, and listen to many Cleveland Indians games, I never competed on the diamond. There would be no Little League coaching in his future, just lots and lots of soccer games, and he was there for nearly every single one of them from my rec league games in first grade through the conclusion of my solid but unremarkable high school career. He was there every week, even when for a few years my travel team schedule inexplicably featured Sunday afternoon games. In the fall. In Cleveland. That’s sacred time where I’m from, but Dad and I listened to the beginnings and endings of many Cleveland Browns games in the car on our way to and from my soccer games in Mentor or Beachwood or North Royalton or wherever. I fell in love with soccer and he was there every step of the way.

He wasn’t one of those obnoxious parents who shouted “advice” from the sideline throughout the game. (“Kick it!”) He did, however, possess one special weapon in his arsenal. Whenever he sensed the moment was right, he would let loose with a loud, ragged, bellow of “LET’S GOOOOO….. EEEEUUUUUUCLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIID!” Much to my amusement, he also began doing this at Cleveland sporting events, substituting Cleveland for Euclid. He would never do it on command. He would save it for whenever he felt the moment was just right, when there was a lull in the energy on the field and in stands, and the team was in dire need of his over-the-top exhortation.

As we got to our seats at MLS Cup, I didn’t know if the Crew would at some point need my dad’s energizing services, but if so, I knew they would have to go without. My dad doesn’t have the voice for that right now. It hurts for him to even speak because of a serious medical issue. He was supposed to undergo a gruesome surgery on Wednesday, and I intended to distractedly watch MLS Cup from his hospital room as he began his long and grueling recovery.

Instead of going through with the surgery on Wednesday, we talked about alternate plans, both medical and personal. He had yet to see a game at Lower.com Field and had never attended an MLS Cup. He thought it would be fun. I did too.

So we did it.

********

Before the game, Dad asked me what I thought. I told him my biggest worry is that LAFC’s biggest strengths, counterattacking and set piece scoring, coincided with the Crew’s biggest weaknesses. I told him the Crew would undoubtedly have the ball in the LAFC end for most of the game, but all it takes is one bad pass or failed dribble to turn Carlos Vela and Denis Bouanga loose on a lethal counterattack, and if slowing that counterattack requires a foul, that’s small consolation given LAFC’s prowess on dead balls.

When the game started, none of that really came into play. The Crew had the ball in the LAFC end most of the time as expected, but they didn’t make any mistakes that made for easy counters. When LAFC did manage to get ahold of the ball, the Crew would immediately win it back or at least pressure LAFC enough to disrupt a quick counter, giving the defense time to reset. Mo Farsi and Steven Moreria were all over Bouanga, who could never really shake free. And as for set pieces, it was LAFC chopping people down, not Columbus.

“LA looks frustrated,” Dad said. “They’re losing their cool.” I hate that I had to make him repeat himself a few times before I could understand what he said, knowing how speaking is painful. But such was the incessant noise of 20,802 people at the LDC Death Star.

********

A half-hour into the game, LAFC caught a bad break when the ball deflected off Diego Palacio’s chest and then bounced off his extended right arm, which was not in a natural position. The result was a penalty kick for Columbus and a high-percentage chance at that all-important first goal.

I have never in my life been more certain that a penalty kick would be converted than when Cucho Hernandez stepped to the spot. I can’t explain such confidence as I am normally a nervous wreck watching the Crew take a penalty kick. Former Crew defender Brian Dunseth can attest to how I nervously paced back and forth while repeatedly muttering “He’s gonna miss” after Tony Sanneh took the ball from Jeff Cunningham in that disastrous 2004 playoff game, only to hit one of the most feeble PKs of all-time, dumping the Crew’s Shield-winning season into an early grave. With a penalty kick, a goal is expected, so the potential of not scoring seems catastrophic, especially in a game of this magnitude.

But Cucho is something special. In his very first game with the Crew in 2022, he scored the winning goal to cap a road comeback from a 2-0 deficit to give the Crew only their second such road win in club history. A week before MLS Cup, he had an unselfish headed assist to cap the third such road win in club history, coming back from 2-0 down to defeat FC Cincinnati in the Eastern Conference final. After the midseason departure of friend, teammate, and attacking partner Lucas Zelarayan, Cucho went on a tear of historic proportions. Converting the penalty kick would give him 18 goals and 6 assists in 19 matches in all competitions since Zelarayan’s departure. The only comparable stretch in Crew history would be Stern John’s final 19 games in all competitions in 1998, when he scored 20 goals and added 4 assists. If you are on equal footing in terms of goal contributions when compared to Stern John’s unfathomable late-season blitz in 1998, you are not a mortal, but a legend.

As Cucho approached the ball, he opened his hips and sent LAFC goalkeeper Maxime Crepeau diving to Cucho’s right. At the last possible moment, Cucho’s hips swiveled, and he calmly and convincingly thumped the ball into the side netting to his left. 1-0 Columbus.

The roar. My goodness, the roar.

********

My very first childhood experience with a raucous sold-out sports crowd was a winner-take-all Cleveland Force playoff game Dad took me to on April 23, 1983. The Force played in the Major Indoor Soccer League when I was a kid, and since that was the only pro soccer in town, Dad thought it was good to take me to games so I could see professionals play. In that rousing 7-5 first-round playoff victory over the Chicago Sting, the Force attracted a flash crowd of 19,106 for the decisive third game, packing the Richfield Coliseum beyond its listed capacity. Our tickets sat us on folding chairs placed behind the last row of real seats near the ceiling. It was the most electrifying sporting event I had ever attended to that point in my life and it kicked off a love affair with the Force, not just for me and Dad, but the entire city of Cleveland for the next few years. (So much so that I am more than 200 pages into writing a book about the Force’s brief but remarkable ascension to major league status in mid-1980s Cleveland.)

As I looked around the sold-out LDC Death Star after Cucho’s goal, where it was too loud to even speak, I thought of that night in Richfield, and how Dad and I were now in another super-charged capacity soccer crowd four decades later. The circumstances, both personally and in terms of the state of the sport in America, could not have been any more different, but there was comfort in knowing that something we did together 40 years ago was still something we were doing together right now.

********

In a championship season, many things have to go right. When the Crew lost left wingback Will Sands for the season thanks to Charlotte’s turf field, it was devastating news. To plug the gap in the roster, Crew mastermind Tim Bezbatchenko made a move to acquire Danish left back Malte Amundsen from New York City FC. Amundsen had been glued to the bench in 2023, not making a single appearance for NYC, but he made 36 combined regular season and playoff appearances, including 17 starts, for the Pigeons when they won MLS Cup in 2021. He even made a 30-minute substitute appearance in the final. It’s not like the 23-year-old was some slouch, but I don’t think many, apart from maybe Bez, Wilfried Nancy, and Amundsen himself could have envisioned the difference-maker the Crew acquired at that time. Instead of left wingback, Amundsen shifted to left centerback. That left wingback position would ultimately be claimed by Yaw Yeboah, who blossomed playing for Nancy.

In the 37^th minute, all those roster and lineup machinations would coalesce into what many have called the greatest team goal in MLS Cup history. After Aidan Morris intercepted a pass, the Crew made 11 passes in 31 seconds, with nine different players touching the ball, drawing the LAFC defense toward the Crew’s right side and isolating Yeboah with LAFC defender Ryan Hollingshead on the left side. The tenth pass in the sequence was Darlington Nagbe dropping the ball off to Amundsen in the center circle. Amundsen then delivered one of the most breathtaking passes I have ever seen, firmly rolling the ball 35 yards on the ground to split the entire LAFC defense and hit Yeboah’s diagonal run perfectly in stride. Yeboah took a touch and then tucked the ball under Crepeau with the outside of his left foot. 2-0 Columbus.

When you see a 35-yard assist that stays entirely on the ground, you’d normally associate that with someone rolling a ball into empty space on a counterattack breakaway. In this instance, LAFC had all 11 men behind the ball when Amundsen played it. He rolled it through every layer of LA’s defense, hitting his target with inch-perfect precision in a way that would be the envy of nearly any NFL quarterback trying to complete a 35-yard pass.

Dad and I have seen some astonishing plays together at sporting events over the years, including Cleveland’s Asdrubal Cabrera turning an unassisted triple-play in 2009, but that pass from Amundsen has to rank near the very top. Pure perfection.

What are the odds that one soccer team from Columbus, Ohio now has claim to probably the two most iconic passes in MLS Cup history? In 2008, it was Guillermo Barros Schelotto spotting a recklessly daring and unexpected run from Frankie Hejduk out of the corner of his eye, then scooping the ball over the New York defense and dropping it just short of oncoming goalkeeper Danny Cepero, with the ball falling to Hejduk’s head so he could bump it over Cepero and into the net to seal a 3-1 Crew victory for the club’s first MLS Cup title.

That’s Boca Juniors legend Schelotto to U.S. Soccer legend Frankie Hejduk. Amundsen to Yeboah was just as brilliant in a completely different way, without the star power attached to it, and it was the game-winning goal in another Crew MLS Cup title. What a world.

Also, if at the end of the regular season, you were told one player would deliver the Crew’s best assist of the playoffs and the Crew’s best goal of the playoffs, I can’t imagine anyone would have predicted Malte Amundsen. I don’t mean that as a knock, but the fact is Amundsen had some moments in the Crew’s MLS Cup run that even the league’s highest-paid superstars dream about and aspire to. In addition to his otherworldly MLS Cup assist, Amundsen hammered the Crew’s best goal of the playoffs in the decisive first-round match against Atlanta. When I say best, I mean in terms of the goal itself. Obviously, there are other goals, like the winner against Cincinnati, that felt more momentous and will have a bigger place in club lore, but I am talking about the aesthetics of the finish itself. In that Atlanta game, Amundsen uncorked a 28-yard dipping rocket into the upper-90, then fired an imaginary arrow in celebration. It was a stunning strike that came out of nowhere.

So hats off to Malte Amundsen, owner of the Crew’s best goal and best assist of the playoffs. How’s that for a midseason pick-up of a guy NYC wouldn’t play for even a single minute in 2023 before dumping him off in Central Ohio?

This offseason, if he were the gloating type, Bez would be justified showing up to some league function wearing one of those “I (Heart) NY” t-shirts.

********

If I could see a readout of my internal monologue throughout much of the of the match, especially after the Crew took the lead, there would be lines and lines of “Get it to Nagbe.” Any time the Crew would win possession of the ball as LAFC tried to assert themselves in a comeback effort, I would think “Get it to Nagbe.” There is no safer place for a soccer ball than at the feet Darlington Nagbe. It doesn’t matter the situation or how much pressure he is under, he will keep the ball secure. A wiggle, a waggle, a shimmy, a shake, a start, a stop, whatever it takes. Sometimes it feels like he just stands completely still and lets the defenders rush past to take themselves out of the play, as if he is tossing them aside with his mind. I knew his reputation before coming to Columbus and from seeing him from time to time with Portland and Atlanta, but watching him week in and week out for four years has been a revelation. I don’t know how many times per season he makes me laugh out loud by successfully doing something absurdly calm under intense pressure where even the slightest mistake could result in a goal.

Sure, he’s good for a bomb of a goal from time to time, but it’s the little cool-under-pressure plays he routinely makes game after game after game that can’t be replicated, at least not to the same degree that he makes them look so easy and carefree.

After missing MLS Cup 2020 with COVID-19, I was thrilled to see him on the field doing things like I’ll go this way, no back this way, no nevermind, I’ll just completely stop for a second and now that all of you have gotten out of my way, I’ll make this nice easy pass. It’s such a joy watching Darlington Nagbe sucker defender after defender into a losing game of one-ball monte.

Plus, I got to explain to my dad that Nagbe is from Lakewood, so there’s a Clevelander captaining the Crew. I told him how Nagbe played at Lakewood and St. Edward, so he played on some of the same fields and against some of the same schools that I did more than a decade and a half before him. Our journeys before and after the general experience of playing high school soccer in Cleveland are dissimilar in about every conceivable way, but for some small window of Darlington Nagbe’s life, he and his parents did exactly what Dad and I did, and those are good memories.

By the end of the night, Lakewood’s Nagbe would be a four-time MLS Cup champion. Other Massive Champions would include Sean Zawadzki (Olmsted Falls), Evan Bush (Concord Township), Josh Williams (Copley), and Isaiah Parente (Medina.)

Northeast Ohio is Massive.

********

Of course LAFC had to make it interesting by scoring a goal in the 74th minute. The scoring ace, Bouanga, had nearly the entire net to shoot at from close range and instead opted to turn the face of Crew goalkeeper Patrick Schulte into mashed potatoes. After blasting the ball off Schulte’s jaw, Bouanga chased down the rebound and knocked it in from a sharp angle. Schulte was down for several minutes after bravely throwing himself at the ball and absorbing the thunderous shock of the initial shot.

Among the many reasons the Crew were even playing in MLS Cup was because of the stupendous save Schulte made in the early stages of the second half in Cincinnati. Aaron Boupendza appeared poised to give Cincy a potentially insurmountable 3-0 lead when Schulte rose to the occasion to keep the deficit manageable for his teammates. At the time, I tweeted “The rest of this game exists because of Patrick Schulte.” The rest of that game was the stuff of legend.

The potential loss of Schulte for the final quarter hour of MLS Cup could have taken some of the air out of the stadium. While the goalkeeper laid there and received medical attention as the stadium murmured its concern, I wondered if Dad would have let out a “LET’S GOOO…. COOOOOOLLLLLLLUMMMMMBUUUUUUUUUUSSSSS!” if at full health. It seemed like the type of moment he would have picked. I didn’t ask because I hated that he couldn’t do it, and even me asking if that would have been the moment could have indirectly violated our vow to enjoy the day without talking about serious medical matters.

Schulte eventually returned to his feet and immediately exhorted the Nordecke into a frenzy behind him, which surely gave his teammates a lift as well.

Schulte had Dad covered.

********

Despite multiple late-game collapses during the season, the Crew rather comfortably saw out the remainder of regulation, plus seven minutes of stoppage time. When the final whistle blew, the Crew won MLS Cup by vanquishing the league’s defending champion for the second time in four seasons.

Something I’ve noticed with the Crew over the years is that when your team wins multiple championships, there is not nearly the same level of gut-wrenching panic about title matches. If the Crew never won a title after 2008, I would always have 2008. But all that is just on one person’s timetable. I’ve found that when the championship was in reach in 2015, 2020, and 2023, I wanted it not so much for myself, but for others. Obviously, I want it for the current team. 2008 doesn’t confer Massive Champion status to, say, Cucho Hernandez, Steven Moreira, Patrick Schulte, Wilfried Nancy, and all the other new champs. 2008 or even 2020 doesn’t put a championship ring on the fingers of newer front office people I like such as Rob McBurnett, Katie Foglia, Eunice Kim, and so many others for all the hard work they do behind the scenes. For younger or newer Crew fans, the Massive Season of 2008 would be ancient history and as personally relevant to them as the most recent Cleveland baseball and football championships are for me, so depending on age or initiation, the MLS Cup titles in 2020 or 2023 are important for them.

Every squad, every front office, and the precise makeup of every fanbase is unique from one season to the next. It’s always going to be someone’s first time experiencing the thrill of a championship.

Every star matters.

********

From the stands, Dad and I didn’t know Wilfried Nancy told Katie Witham “Impossible is an opinion.” We didn’t know that Nagbe broke down in tears the moment he saw his midfield partner Aidan Morris in the post-game reverie. But from our vantage point, we did witness one of the most touching of the many special moments down on the field.

Some babies are born with a silver spoon in their mouth. Kash Ramirez was born with a silver cup under his butt. His father, Christian, will forever be a Crew legend for his 2023 playoff heroics. He stepped onto the field in Orlando in the conference semifinal and immediately scored the game-winning goal in extra time, redirecting a pinpoint cross from Julian Gressel. After the game, he remarked he had to get home because his wife was going to deliver their baby.

The next weekend, after Kash was born, Christian played a role in kickstarting the Crew’s historic late-game comeback from a late 2-0 deficit in the Eastern Conference Final when his attempt to latch onto another brilliant Gressel cross created enough visual confusion for a Cincinnati own-goal that halved the deficit. Then, late in extra time, he once again lurked in the goalmouth and tapped in a headed pass from Cucho to cap one of the most incredible matches in MLS history, vaporizing the few remaining molecules of spirit remaining in the exhausted and outclassed Supporters’ Shield winners in Cincinnati. Ramirez scored the winner in the biggest Hell is Real match ever played and sent the Crew home to host the MLS Cup final while still wearing the hospital wristband from Kash’s birth.

In MLS Cup, there was no need for Christian’s Superman heroics. Instead, he was Clark Kent in the phone booth, holding the ball at the corner flag in a confined space, surrounded by LAFC defenders, before winning a corner kick that salted away much of the clock that remained in stoppage time. When it was over and the celebration in front of the Nordecke was well underway, Christian Ramirez and his family posed for a photo, for which Christian gently lowered little Kash into the Cup.

Two intertwined blessings he will cherish for the rest of his days.

********

Dad and I had experienced some memorable championship moments before. Or things sort of like one. We were at Jacobs Field on September 8, 1995, when the Cleveland Indians clinched the AL Central division and their first postseason appearance in 41 years. My dad was a little over month shy of his 42^nd birthday that night. You do the math. He teared up a little seeing his beloved baseball team that had been objectively horrible for his entire baseball-conscious life finally finish in first place. (Or as they call it in Cincinnati, “the real champions.” The Atlanta Braves merely won the “little trophy” in “the tournament” that year.) We also attended Game One of the 2016 World Series, which was a 6-0 win and had us dreaming of the slight chance that an injury-riddled Cleveland team could somehow upend the heavily-favored Cubs, just as the Cavaliers had stunned the heavily-favored Warriors in the NBA Finals that spring. It was not to be, but to experience a World Series game together was still magical. And speaking of the Cavaliers, I went up to Cleveland and was able to watch that memorable Game Seven with my dad. Even though it was on TV and not in person, we were still able to watch and celebrate together.

We also had a chance to celebrate three indoor soccer titles together. After going to all those Cleveland Force games when I was kid, the Force folded and were replaced by the Cleveland Crunch, who won titles in 1994, 1996, and 1999. Dad and I were in the building for all three. The Crunch won the 1999 championship on May 14, 1999. The next night, Dad was with me at the inaugural game at Historic Crew Stadium. In retrospect, that weekend in May of 1999 was the final handoff between the indoor game of my childhood and the resurgent outdoor game of my adulthood.

Dad was also at my side for the very first Crew game on April 13, 1996. He hasn’t been to a ton of Crew games, but he was there for some big ones, from Ohio Stadium to Historic Crew Stadium to now, for the first time, Lower.com Field, where the Crew celebrated another MLS Cup championship on the field below.

I put my arm around my dad as we watched the culmination of the first major league sports title we have been able to attend together in person.

Two intertwined blessings I will cherish for the rest of my days.

********

On the drive home to Cleveland that night, we encountered a brief but blinding rainstorm. It was the kind where everyone activates their hazards and drives 20 miles per hour on the freeway and hopes not to hit anyone else. It made me think of the times Dad drove through similar squalls to watch me play in the frigid rain instead of us watching the Browns while dry and warm at home. (Again, the mid-1980s travel soccer scheduling was off-the-charts dumb.)  Or I thought about the time my aunt gave us free company tickets to a Cleveland Force game, only for there to be a massive lake-effect blizzard that evening. I was devastated at the thought of missing the game, so Dad dutifully embarked on a laborious, methodical, slip-slidin’ trudge through the snow belt all the way out to the Richfield Coliseum, strategically following a slow-moving 18-wheeler most of the way.  

This blinding rainstorm was a mere ten-minute inconvenience, but it made me reflect on the favors Dad did for me behind the wheel in the name of soccer.

Seeing as he couldn’t talk much, there wasn’t too much conversation on the drive home. We mostly listened to some of our favorite music, with brief asides about the game. We laughed when we saw that the Ohio Department of Transportation used its freeway signage to implore people to “Be a champ. Buckle up your crew.” Not only was this signage the fastest and most efficient ODOT project ever, but Dad pointed out since it’s the state of Ohio making the signs, they were probably on display in Cincinnati too, which I later received confirmation was the case. ODOT is used to dumping salt on the roads, but now it was dumping salt in the wounds of our thirsty little brothers to the south. (I suppose there could have been worse MLS-themed ODOT signs in Cincinnati. For example, “Buckle up or another shield will be shattered by a premature exit.”)

After a brief one-day respite from a medical-focused reality, we eventually arrived back to Cleveland and an uncertain future. More appointments. More tests. More procedures. More major medical and life decisions to be made.

But for one day, we were able to enjoy life as it should be and add another Massive chapter to a lifelong list of father and son soccer memories.

“I’m glad we did this,” Dad said. “It was a good time. I had fun.”

For all of life’s uncertainty right now, there was one thing I was positively sure about by the end of the night. To me, MLS Cup 2023 is the best of the Crew’s three championships.

It’s the one I experienced with my dad.

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NEW BOOK “A Massive Collection, Volume 2” is now available!

Paperback and hardcover at Amazon.
Hardcover and paperback at Barnes & Noble.

Also, for those who want to support local businesses, signed paperback copies are available at Prologue Bookshop in the Short North.

Email: sirk65@yahoo.com
Twitter: @stevesirk