Toxic Talk: Saving the Crew Edition

You might have seen several non-Columbus Crew fans adding a little yellow to their displays this weekend. Possibly, you saw pictures from a rally with the express intent being to save the Yellow Soccer Team. Most probably, you are at least peripherally aware that Crew owner Anthony Precourt is trying to strong-arm the city of Columbus into public funding for a new stadium, or he’ll move the whole club to Austin, Texas. To the which, many MLS fans and pundits have made some very vocal disapproval, and several have already begun campaigns to block such a move from happening. #SaveTheCrew is a real thing already, and I applaud that. Scuzzy owners trying to get more money they don’t actually need in the form of public funding is a terrible financial decision for a city 99.999% of the time. A founding member of the league shouldn’t be held hostage by it’s owner who so transparently just wants to get out of town. But let me level with you for a second: Precourt’s plan is so awful there shouldn’t even need to be a campaign to end it.

So, you buy a soccer team in Ohio. Who cares if it’s a historically significant team with a stadium the national team uses exclusively for its most important game of the year every four years. It’s Ohio, right? Its biggest economic export AND import of the last 20 years was Lebron James, both times. One of its baseball teams successfully killed off the Warriors 3-1 meme by immediately blowing a 3-1 lead in the World Series, and then the Warriors beat Cleveland in the Finals. The place has the audacity to put watery chili on top of spaghetti and call it anything other than sadness. And the entire city you’re in is far more interested in college football than you, one of just wo professional sports organizations there (the other, the comments assure me, is a hockey team called the “Blue Jackets,” which sounds like one of those baseball mascots that died out around the Industrial Revolution). So yeah, you want to move.

To, wait a second, you want to move to Texas? You want to move to Austin, Texas? Ok, I guess, it’s a pretty trendy city. Are they going to give you that public money you want?

Alright, hard no then. Well, maybe you can still find a better stadium...somewhere? One where the scoreboard won’t catch on fire? And you can get some more people to games?

Ah. So...white people. You’ll market the team to white people. Well, I’m sure that will go well. I can’t think of anything else white people in Texas would rather support than a professional soccer team. And at least you’re getting away from all of those Ohio State fans. Nothing is worse than your pro team getting constantly out-shined by the nearby college. Nope, can’t think of any sports organization in Texas featuring amateurs that would compete with your young millennial crowd.

Not

one

thing.

Hahahahaha. Precourt should be forcibly relieved of his ownership duties out of sheer stupidity. If he moves, I truly hope the team fails, stability in American soccer be damned.

Boiling Points

• How good this Sounders tifo is-

This is better than I’d care to admit.

• An Atlanta United fan providing Sebastian Giovinco with a refreshing beverage -

Geez, they really take that Southern Hospitality thing seriously. This also might have been a congratulatory beer on Toronto FC’s record-breaking season.

Nice.

• A little madness in the Champions League -

Borussia Dortmund and Atletico Madrid failed to take three points off of APOEL and Qarabag, respectively. As a fan of one of those teams I can safely speak for both of those teams when I say it makes me want to dunk my head in bleach.

• Sending out RFK in style -

Rest easy, sweet raccoon-infested prince.

• Huddersfield Town spoil the show -

*Frantically swipes right on David Wagner from the USSF Tinder account*

• This goal to send the Brazil U-17s to the World Cup semis -

The quarterfinals didn’t turn out so hot for the U.S., so let’s watch something else, shall we? Brazil had a matchup with Germany, and don’t think for one second these kids weren’t thinking about 2014 at least a little bit when this goal went in. Sometimes soccer doesn’t suck.