'S Crew, Them

The soccer pages are getting a lot of traffic lately, relatively speaking, so let's keep this going, shall we? I'll relive the game so you don't have to?

• Authentic Mexican food in Columbus? Really?
• It looks like 4 defensive midfielders behind Blanco, but Gutierrez and Pause are fully capable of pushing forward. Whether or not they have free rein to do so is a different question.
• With Wilman Conde in the lineup, Segares goes to the bench. Injury or coach's decision?
• Soumare with his first clumsy foul not even a minute into the match, and the Crew almost convert.
• Early on, I'm a little worried that Diego Gutierrez is pinching into the middle too much.
• Through seven minutes, I don't know about Conde. Some questionable man-marking, a bad ball out of the back, and then bitching to the linesman all in the space of about one minute.
• Eight and a half minutes, and Blanco has already drawn a yellow. Sounds like he may have gotten fouled by Schelotto a couple of times already, but was pretty clearly a foul from behind in its own right.
• Virtuoso wins a corner for the Crew, and there's Matt Pickens yelling at Conde for double-teaming him instead of picking up Moreno in the penalty area.
• Wow, two subs due to injury in the first twenty minutes for Columbus. Sucks for them.
• You gotta love Blanco free kicks in close, but not if that's all the offense we get.
• If Rusty Pierce got the start over Ezra Hendrickson, then we can safely assume that he's Better Than Ezra. Yes, this game is boring enough that I have to resort to dumb jokes.
• I had a bad feeling about a brisk backpass to Pickens in this weather, and Pickens makes a mess of it to prove me right. Any other day, that's nothing for anyone to worry about.
• Dasan Robinson, with his Angelo Moore haircut, sees yellow. The Fire defense inexplicably lets the resulting free kick bounce less than six yards from goal. I'm getting less optimistic about this match by the minute, as the Fire have had zero offense to speak of in the run of play, and are on the verge of a defensive breakdown.
• Robinson forced to mark two guys -- no sign of Conde nor Gutierrez -- on a cross and Moreno almost finds net.
• Once again, it's time to play "spot three consecutive Fire touches in the offensive third."
• No sooner said than the Fire string together some possession, ending with a weak shot from Chris Rolfe. Then a turnover and Wanchope can't convert on a 3 on 2 with Rolfe and Blanco. But it's something. Fire getting aggressive defensively in Columbus' half of the field.
• Beauty of a snap header from Wanchope, but not enough to get by Hesmer, and Rolfe with a heads-up attempt on the rebound. Now Blanco 1-v-2, finds Rolfe, whose touch is too heavy.
• And we have a weather delay, which means this commentary is going to be mercifully cut off before the end of the match, unless I've got enough buffer on the DVR.
• We're back, and a quick memo to our defenders. We're the ones wearing red.
• Conde looked like he was actually trying to flick the ball back toward Pickens that came to Virtuoso for the Crew's last best chance of the half. I hope he wasn't, 'cause that's way too cheeky.
• At halftime, I like the high pressure the Fire started applying about midway through the first half. I don't like how Diego Gutierrez is playing so far. He seems a little lost, positionally. And I'm not sold on Conde. Right now, though, we look at least as likely to score as get scored on in the second half.
• Looks like I'll be short about twenty minutes. Backline is turning the ball over way too easily to start the second half. I'll need to watch for whether or not the midfield is showing for the ball, but I'm guessing no.
• Meanwhile, Nate Jaqua scored for Houston.
• Soumare with -- surprise -- a clumsy foul in a dangerous position in the 51st minute. No card, but there's one coming.
• Fucking homers. Jacob Thomas is fully to blame for that challenge on Pickens. Period. The ref called it, and the rest is just posturing. That's to be expected when you go in hard on the 'keeper.
• Lousy camera angle on Robinson's challenge of Gaven. The only other angle they've got has a bit of a hit at the hip, but nothing to really write home about, and nothing to make Gaven fall the way he did.
• The question is whether Jacob Thomas gets a card before he draws one on a payback foul. It's coming.
• More easy turnovers from the Fire, now in the midfield. We can't score if we can't keep the ball.
• Gutierrez with another horrible pass, but somebody gets a leg on it to force a corner.
• Banner for Gutierrez, which is a welcome change given those last couple of awful passes.
• And the Fire dodge a bullet as the header off the corner hits the post.
• Then, suddenly, the Crew forget how to execute an offside trap, and Wanchope makes them pay. Goal Chicago. The ball came in so early -- from Conde, so he's regained some standing for sure -- that the Crew defense couldn't react.
• As an aside, if this game were next week, I'd almost certainly have enough buffer to simply rewind to watch the end of the game, assuming TiVo buffers both tuners.
• Banner seems to have been working on his crosses since last week, but Wanchope can't find it.
• The "tape" runs out at 69 minutes. Rewinding the DVR buffer might get me a little bit more towards the end, but it's moving awfully slowly. Or maybe it just seems that way because there's no picture to speak of.
• We pick things up in the 85th minute. Calen Carr and Chad Barrett are in the game -- I'm guessing Chris Rolfe and Paolo Wanchope are off, and Barrett is called offside.
• Meanwhile, Nate Jaqua has scored twice.
• Isn't Dave Johnson normally the DC PBP guy? He's sighing like Ron Santo in this one, which makes me wonder if you can be a homer for two different teams.
• Barrett makes the selfless play and Carr skies it over the bar. Somebody won't be getting that pass again anytime soon.
• Carr with another good chance, but takes it too wide and then puts it back toward goal instead of going to the corner flag and stepping on it, but we end up with a corner kick.
• Full time, and the Fire actually win a must-win game for once. Weird sort of pow-wow with Pickens, the backline and the defensive midfielders that might be some sort of clean sheet ritual.
• So, we can upgrade Conde to a good debut, and Wanchope, in particular, had some really good chances. Rolfe and Gutierrez had rough games, and we still gave up the ball far too easily on passes out of our half of the field. A better team would have punished us for that, but what can you say, it's Columbus, the cure for what ails you.