Charles Boehm

Thursday, Aug 22, 2024, 01:09 AM

Wilfried Nancy spoke during the Columbus Crew’s 2024 preseason of his desire to learn some Spanish, to better connect with his Latino players. Though it’s not clear how close the Frenchman is to fluency, he’s picked up enough of the language to give Crew attacker Diego Rossi some good-natured ribbing in recent weeks about his aerial ability, or perceived lack thereof.

As if on cue, the 5-foot-7 Uruguayan scored the opening goal of Wednesday’s Leagues Cup semifinal win over the Philadelphia Union with a diving header, Rossi alertly latching onto the rebound from Andre Blake’s parry of a dipping cross/shot from Cucho Hernández.

“I'm happy with him because before the game also, I teased him a bit with la cabeza, to score a goal like this, and he did it,” said Nancy after the 3-1 result. “So good for him and good for us.”

Rossi would strike again later in the first half, finishing a chance created by Christian Ramírez’s lovely chipped pass to restore the Crew’s lead for good after Dániel Gazdag’s equalizer. It’s Rossi’s third brace of this year’s tournament, and he’s now scored in eight of Columbus’ last 10 matches, only one of which was a loss.

Home-field advantage

The Crew are usually dominant these days, particularly at Lower.com Field. This victory, which books their place in next year’s Concacaf Champions Cup regardless of what happens in the Leagues Cup final they will host on Sunday, takes their home record under Nancy to a remarkable 28W-2L-12D with a +59 goal differential. Since falling to Pachuca in the CCC final on June 1, they’ve lost just twice across all competitions.

Postgame, Union coach Jim Curtin paid warm tribute to his counterpart, marveling at the holistic nature of Nancy’s work, how effectively he’s coaxed high performance out of superstars and role players alike.

“They can hurt you a lot of different ways, and I think it's a credit to their coach,” said Curtin, pointing to the particular excellence of Rossi, Cucho and midfield general Darlington Nagbe, three dangerman his game plan sought, unsuccessfully, to mitigate.

“The complementary pieces, then with the three real dangerous ones that I highlight in the film session; ‘let's do our best on these three guys and try to force somebody else to beat you.’ It's always easier said than done. So again, that was our goal going into the night. And there were stretches of the game, I thought, where we did okay on Cucho, which is really hard to do, and we did okay on Rossi, but then in the key moments, the top players make the difference.”

The Crew posted 3.9 expected goals in this semifinal, more than triple that of Philly, who were more tenacious and resilient than the stats and scoreline would suggest. And while there are many components to Columbus’ success, Rossi, with the new wrinkles he’s adding to his already well-established quality, has come to exemplify the galvanizing effect of Nancy and his possession-centric game model.

“For me, Diego is an example of the day-to-day work, the ability to do the job, the humility to do the dirty job, and also he is coachable,” said the coach. “What I like about him, he is able to do many things. So I challenge him with his head; he scored. Now I'm going to challenge him with something else now. But listen, it's a really good example in terms of work ethic and also as a leadership, a quiet leadership. This is something that I like also with Diego.”

"Stay on the task"

It sometimes seems as if Nancy has never seen a teachable moment he doesn’t like. Whether his players are knitting together gorgeously fluid collective passing sequences or committing jaw-dropping howlers, he manages to turn it into a confidence-boosting lesson or a cold reality check, and occasionally even both at once.

Yet again, the Ohio side gave away a cheap goal, fumbling away possession in their penalty box with a series of ill-advised attempts to play out of pressure rather than manage the risks posed by the Union’s rugged pressing. And yet again, they soaked up the punch, composed themselves and reasserted their chokehold on the match’s tempo.

“It was a bit confusing, what we tried to do when we conceded the goal,” said Nancy. “But again, they didn't panic. And they find a way to score another goal and another goal. So for me, this is the learning part. I told them at halftime: I would never tell them to stop playing, because how many times that we play, that we come out from this kind of situation, and we almost score a goal or we are really good?

“Sometimes we can clear the ball, and clear the ball doesn't mean that we're going to put the ball anywhere. We can play a little bit more forward. But again, we came out on this situation many times. But what I like is no panic, and stay on the task, and go again and go again and go again.”

A dynastic run

This persistent pursuit of perfection has taken Columbus to three cup finals in nine months, crafting a powerful culture along the way.

“This is something that we try to put when I took the team: to have a vision, but also to think big and to achieve small things, to write a legacy,” he explained postgame. “It was confusing in the beginning, because it was about mindset. It was about the way we want to play, it was about the day-to-day work, but the small steps that we've been putting all the time, and we’re still doing it.

“This is why I think that we, for the moment, we are a winning team. But it's not about the results. This is about a winning team; for me, this is the mentality that we have. So hopefully it’s going to keep going, but really proud of what we’re doing here.”

Charles Boehm - @cboehm