After this weekend, the picture of MLS’s Eastern Conference could be much clearer.
On the same evening, the conference’s four heavyweights face off at the same time when the New York Red Bulls visit the New England Revolution and Columbus Crew SC travel to D.C. United.
And while Crew SC players largely follow Head Coach Gregg Berhalter’s philosophy of a one-game-at-a-time approach, Captain Michael Parkhurst admits that there’s plenty at stake in the Nation’s Capital.
“It’s a big game,” he said. “All the Eastern Conference games are big games and six-point games. It’s going to be tight down the stretch, so all the points early in the season are just as important as the ones later in the season.
“We’d like to start pushing ourselves away from the bottom or separating ourselves a little bit, but all these points are important.”
Crew SC trail D.C. and New England by three points and New York by two in the East, and are in their best form of the young season coming off of two straight wins.
Given the circumstances, does Berhalter feel like he’ll learn where his team stands after the weekend?
“I don’t think so,” he said. “It’s another game, obviously against an Eastern Conference opponent, and we want to see where we are. We know this is the defending Eastern Conference champions, in terms of regular season, and it’s a good measuring stick for us.”
While the bigger picture is certainly on Parkhurst’s mind, his focus is firmly on the opponent, a D.C. side that has continued to grind out wins.
But Parkhurst made it clear that Crew SC isn’t shying from the challenge, and said they expect a win.
“It’s a team we definitely expect a tough game from,” he said. “We know it will be competitive; it always is. But it’s also a team that we think we can go in there and take three points from, and that will be our goal. We’re not going in there to try and get one point or anything. We’re going to attack and hopefully get three points.”
After a surprisingly dominant 2014 season, many expected D.C. United to fall back to earth. But Berhalter knows not to take them likely.
“I’m sure they love that; I’m sure they use that as motivation and they like proving people wrong,” he said. “They’ve got a veteran group that likes to prove the masses wrong. I think, for them, it’s motivation. I don’t see it that way. They know exactly what they need to do when they need to do it to be successful.”
And fortunately for Columbus, they’re visiting D.C. on form and righting the ship after dealing with an odd early season schedule and responding with two straight dominant home wins.
With momentum behind them, Parkhurst thinks it’s time for the club to make a run.
“We’re in a good rhythm right now, we’re confident, we’re scoring goals, so we definitely want to take that confidence with us,” he said. “We hope we can continue that and build on that. In this league, if you get in a rhythm, the ball bounces your way and you can go on streaks. We had our fair share of streaks last year, so if we put together a good winning streak we can jump up the leaderboard in the East.”
