It took the Crew a while to remember they were in a rivalry game on Saturday night, but when they did the Black & Gold wrote another chapter in the storied history between them and the (now former?) arch-rivals (but more on that later) Chicago Fire, with Mo Farsi scoring the latest game-winning goal (not including playoff AET) in club history.
The Crew didn’t come out looking like they were in a rivalry game (or, dare I say it… derby)- they were sluggish, no doubt because of the mid-week match in Houston. The Fire, on the other hand, came out swinging, jumping all over the Crew with a high press, creating headaches for the defending champs for the first ten minutes of the match. A better team likely would have been ahead by the time the Crew settled into the game, but luckily for the Black & Gold, they weren’t playing a better team; they were playing Chicago, who failed to make the pressure pay.
The Crew settled in after fifteen or so minutes, but didn’t really start looking like a team who were playing a rival until after half-time, when they started the second period with a barrage of pressure that forced the Chicago keeper into action. I can only assume Wilfred Nancy reminded the team about the history between the two clubs at half-time, because the second forty-five minutes was filled with the type of energy and, ahem, fire you’d expect for a game of this magnitude. The passes were sharper, the tackles had a little more bite to them, the players were more amped and at each other. It wasn’t quite the Eastern Conference Final of 2008, but it felt more heated. It felt more right.
The team rose to the occasion, the with young Jacen Russell-Rowe scoring a screamer from outside of the box worthy of the spotlight, and Mo Farsi writing his name in the annals of the rivalry with his absurdly late winner. It was a worthy second half that made up for the disappointing start. The question is- why was the start so disappointing to begin with?
Occam’s Razor tells us that the cause was likely the mid-week game. Chicago had a full week of rest and the Crew very much didn’t, but I think something else was also at play. With the advent of FC Cincinnati and Hell is Real, the Chicago Fire are no longer the Crew’s biggest rivals, but the Crew are still very much Chicago’s.
But that begs the age-old question- were the Fire ever really the Crew’s biggest rival?
The answer depends, as it always has, on who you ask and when they started following the team. If someone was there on April 13, 1996, it’s likely that they have a soft spot for hating DC United- our opponent that first day, and league bogeymen for the early years of Major League Soccer, and the team that knocked the Crew out of the playoffs in those hazy days of 1997 and 98. They were the league’s first dynasty, and despite only being an occasional thorn in the Crew’s side in the decades since, the oldest of old school fans can be forgiven for still putting them near the top of the list.
For me, it was always Chicago. They were the team that crushed our spirits so often when I first became a die-hard fan. They had McBride, at the time, still firmly a traitor in the hearts and minds of Crew faithful, and Blanco, the most annoyingly over-rated player of his era. They bribed refs with post-match souvenirs, dove their way to calls, and fouled our best players like they were going out of style. They cheated us out of our first ever trophy in 1998, when they convinced US Soccer to host the Open Cup final at Solider Field rather than a neutral site. They were the worst of the worst, but also the victims of what I still consider our greatest success- the 2008 Eastern Conference Finals. Before Cincy reared their atrociously ugly heads on the scene, they were my pick for biggest rival, and in the past I would fight you about it. Now, it doesn’t seem to matter very much.
There are other, lesser options, of course. The league tried desperately to situate Toronto as a rival, inventing a cup for us to play for upon their debut. Our dominance over them in their early years never really allowed a rivalry to take shape on-field, it was strictly in the stands and online. By the time TFC got good enough to compete, that hatred had cooled considerably.
There was Seattle, but that rivalry rarely reached the same level of hatred on the field as it did on the internet, and even that hate was often one sided. There was Orlando, who for a flickering moment thought they’d be relevant almost entirely on the shoulders of Ricardo Kaka. There was Atlanta, who the Crew fought in some memorable battles, but ultimately it has never blossomed into a full-blown feud.
In 2024 the answer is obvious- it’s FC Cincinnati. Hell is Real has all the hallmarks of what makes a great soccer rivalry- proximity, stakes, and, after years of FCC wooden-spooning, competitive matches. It’s understandable that some of the passion would go out of the other rivalries the Crew take part in. Does that devalue those rivalries in the eyes of fans?
I don’t think it should. If anything, the fact that we have secondary and even tertiary rivalries should be seen as a badge of honor. How many other teams in MLS can say they have legitimate historical animosity with this many clubs? Not many, likely only other members of MLS’s founding class could boast it. Sure, fanbases will compare their meme-based feuds or rivalries based entirely off of one bad refereeing performance to our actual history of competitive hatred, but even by those standards we come out ahead- we have San Jose and HATWeek and Portland (thanks to the 2015 MLS Cup that never was) if they want to play that game. No matter who our biggest (or, perhaps more accurately, second biggest) rivals are, there is little doubt we have far more history than they do.
And that’s pretty Massive.
A PostScript on jersey colors and tradition (Or, your author as an old man yelling at clouds)
It is with the full understanding of the referees needing unique colors for their shirts that I post the following: It is a damn shame that we were subjected to yet another Columbus Crew vs Chicago Fire match in which the teams lined up in Black and White jerseys. The Banana Kit vs Chicago’s putrid red-with-white-stripe is a classic combination, a battle of good versus evil, and the spectacle of the match would have been enhanced had the teams been allowed to wear their classic colors.
Thank you for coming to my TedxTalk.
Kristopher Landis is a dad, husband, soccer nerd, and writer, usually in that order. Feedback, questions, and comments can be sent to KrisLandis@gmail.com