Columbus Crew players reflect on roller coaster season: 'We have to be stronger mentally'
There's no question about where things went wrong for the Crew in 2022.
It was an up-and-down season, with highlights — including a win in Atlanta at the end of May, a home win against New York City FC in July and a dramatic comeback against the Red Bulls in October — marred by repeated difficulties to close out games, a concerning trend that ultimately kept the Crew out of the playoffs and led to the dismissal of coach Caleb Porter.
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The Crew conceded 17 goals after the 75th minute, finishing the year with a minus-4 goal differential in the final 15 minutes, and dropped 24 points from winning positions throughout the season, the third-most in MLS.
"When push comes to shove in our business, it comes down to results, and when you look at the results the last two years, we didn’t qualify for the playoffs," Crew general manager Tim Bezbatchenko said. "The primary cause of that this year was our inability to close out games."
As the Crew players reflected on the year through their end-of-season press conferences, the question of what they need to do differently in 2023 to solve the problem came up repeatedly. It was a complex issue and hard to pin on a single element of the game, but a common thread in nearly every answer was the team's mentality needing to improve.
"Sometimes, it comes down to the fact that after the first or second time it happened, we as players, as a collective, we didn’t address that enough and didn’t work on that enough here on the (training) grounds to stop that from happening again," defender Miloš Degenek said. "At some point, it was very unlucky. A lot of the goals we did concede were very unlucky. But all in all, I think it’s sometimes the concentration, but also, just the fact that we didn’t always work as one."
Goalkeeper Eloy Room, who has a unique perspective on the problem from his spot in the net, pushed back on the suggestion that the issue was entirely mental, but rather saw it as a combination of both psychology and tactics.
"Me personally, I didn’t feel that way," Room said. "Some games, maybe (it was mental), but I think overall, sometimes we invited the pressure. In some situations we maybe had to play more direct or more safe. A lot of the times, we tried to play nice football from the back. ... That’s one of our qualities, but at some point, you don’t have to take the risk."
In contrast to Room's thoughts, midfielder Lucas Zelarayan offered a succinct explanation.
"I think we have to be stronger mentally," Zelarayan said. "We all know in the last 10 minutes of every game, we lost many points, so trying to be stronger mentally and physically in the last 10 to 15 minutes. ... It’s not only a job from the players. I think it’s a job from everyone, ownership, coaches and players and staff. Trying to bring everyone in the same way and pushing forward."
Despite the differing opinions about the root cause of the team's problems late in games, the Crew players agreed universally that their concentration has to be better in 2023.
The new coach will also likely provide a different perspective and potential solutions, but the players understand that it isn't solely the coach's job to fix it. They need to be better, too.
"Next year, we have to come back and be focused," Degenek said. "We have to do things different. We need to take a different approach. A lot more concentrated and a lot more focused in the things we do, to achieve what we believe is possible and what we believe this team is capable of achieving."
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Crew players 2022 season late goals mental strength
