The Crew kick off on Saturday in Dicks Sporting Goods Park outside of Denver. It's the same field where their 2011 season sputtered to a goal-less end. Last season's Crew team fell 1-0 to the Colorado Rapids in the playoffs and rarely did they look threatening. Questions surrounded the offense over the offseason, Saturday is an early test to see if the team did enough to change that.
The Veteran Addition
The Crew had a go-to goal scorer in the departed Andres Mendoza, but they only scored 43 goals last year; good for 11th in the league. The team only tallied 31 assists, second-worst of the 18 teams in MLS. A healthy Emilio Renteria will be the new top target and shoulder some of the goal-scoring burden, but Chilean Milovan Mirosevic is expected to be the missing link in the offense.
Mirosevic joined the Crew in January from Universidad Católica of the Chilean league. He had led the league in goals with 19 in 2010 as a midfielder. He has a goal scoring pedigree and he's a certain starter, but it wasn't certain where he would play.
He's lined up at several different positions in the preseason. He's played forward, he's been a central midfielder paired with the more defensive minded Tony Tchani, but it appears that head coach Robert Warzycha is initially going to play him right behind the single striker, Renteria, and in front of two defensive midfielders, Tchani and Kirk Urso.
This role minimizes his defensive responsibilities and allows him the freedom to take the reins of the offense. Urso and Tchani will be tasked with screening the defense and creating turnovers. Both will be looking to get the ball to Mirosevic, who will then run the offense.
This formation does look a little familiar to Crew fans as it's how the 2008 team often set up with the great Argentine maestro Guillermo Barros Schelotto running the offense. Team officials have downplayed comparisons between the two. Even Mirosevic says that they play a different type of game, but for the first time since Schelotto's departure, the offense has a focal point.
Youth Movement
The Crew have a luxury in right winger Eddie Gaven, who may be only 25 but he's a 10 year veteran in MLS. A steady performer entering his seventh year with the team, pencil him on the team sheet and he'll put in a good 90 minutes. Questions remain on who will replace Robbie Rogers on the other wing. The team has several inexperienced, but talented options to fill that hole, beginning with Dilly Duka.
Duka, 22, is in his third year with the team, but comes into the season as the starter on the left side. He ended the 2011 season with goals in back-to-back games. He has also played with the Generation Adidas traveling squad and been active with the U.S. National Team Under-23 squad as they prepare to qualify for the Olympics this summer. His team and his country are expecting big things from him this year.
Duka is a versitile player who plays well with the ball at his feet. He came on strong as last season progressed and the team and league observers are expecting a breakout season for him. The only problem, is that the better that he plays, the less often he will play in a Crew jersey.
Duka already is likely to be picked for the Oylimpic qualifing team assembling for a training camp and a qualifying tournament running from March 22 through April 2. If the U.S. does qualify, he's also likely to miss even more time in late July and Augest.
Ethan Finlay, 22, was the Crew's first-round draft pick, but the rookie already turned heads in camp. He took advantage of a rash of injuries to fill in while Duka missed time for national team duty. He was an active and dangerous player on the left side and one of the bright spots for the club during the recent Carolina Challenge Cup.
With Duka due to miss several games early in the season, Finlay is likely to find himself back in the first XI. It will be a big test for a rookie that was just last fall playing soccer for Creighton University.
The Missing Piece
Mirosevic and the promise of Duka and Finlay give the Crew a very good offensive foundation, the team still appears to be short on offense. Mendoza provided certain goal scoring, but wasn't worth the off field issues he caused. While the team targeted three offensive players to take a Designated Player slot they were unable to strike a deal.
Without added firepower that a Designated Player is expected to bring, the team's offseason retooling looks incomplete. The Crew are left to rely on an injury prone forward in Renteria and a lot of unproven commodities. It's not a strike force that causes the opposition to stay up nights plotting how to stop them.
Warzycha and the staff repeatedly said they weren't going to spend the money on a player just to bring someone in; it had to be the right fit. They haven't found that fit and apparently will start the season with a big piece of the puzzle still missing.
Doing Just Enough to Win
The 2012 Crew certainly bears the hallmark of Warzycha-built teams. They will certainly be a hard-working group. The offense scrapes by inconsistently, doing just enough to scratch out a draw here and a win there. The defense does the heavy lifting, trying to close out teams.
It's not the flashy offense of Barcelona or even Sporting Kansas City; it may not be entertaining at times, but it has been successful in earning the team three straight playoff appearances under Warzycha. If the delicate formula stops working and results start turning into losses, the pressure on the team could mount quickly.
