One of the league's early surprises thus far this season has been the Columbus Crew. Not many pundits (myself included) gave the Crew much of a chance to compete in the Eastern Conference and while the season is still very young the Crew looks like a club that will compete for a playoff spot at least and possibly even more.
The Crew's latest win was Sigi Schmid's 100th MLS coaching victory which is really a significant accomplishment. Only Bob Bradley has more MLS coaching wins in league history - that's pretty elite company.
I always felt that Sigi got a bit of a raw deal here with the Galaxy, that he was fired prematurely. I still feel the Galaxy would have made it to MLS Cup 2004 had he remained in charge, but that late-season coaching change was too much for that team to overcome. Still, some would argue that he should have been sacked after the '03 season, which I can't really counter.
Ultimately, though, Sigi landed on his feet and finally has the Crew headed in the right direction. He's gotten quite a bit of criticism for his playoff-less time in Columbus but this team has the makings of a pretty good side and Sigi deserves credit for the job he's doing.
Thanks for the mention of the Crew. It's nice to see them finally show signs of life after last year's extremely disappointing season. I think Sigi deserves credit more than anything else for the fact that he has the team actually putting in the effort for 90 minutes each game, which is a real change from last season.
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