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| It is hard to explain what this meant at the time. Seriously. |
The post ends with a scale I came up with to measure the long-term success of every team in Major League Soccer. It does some things well (e.g., count trophies/achievements), other things less well (capture recent trends). It's called the Joint Points Scale and you can find a link that explains what it does. I was really stoned when I came up with the scale and wrote the post. Caveat lector. With that...
Thumbnail History
Don’t let the(/the greatest) flyover state thing fool you: the Columbus Crew (which I type as “Columbus Screw” 75% of the time), have long had a knack for signing exotic players. They’ve signed their share of guys who fit the working-class image of their original crest (faceless, but the crossed arms suggest the cat-calls) – e.g., Brian McBride stands out there, but they also got great mileage out of Josh Williams, Chad Marshall, Jonathan Mensah and, perhaps to a lesser extent, Artur and, briefly, Aidan Morris – but they put their stamp on league history through guys like Guillermo Barros-Schelotto, Lucas Zelarayan and, most recently, Cucho Hernandez. Toiling under the shadow of the early greats, DC United, the Los Angeles Galaxy and, to a lesser extent, the Chicago Fire and Sporting Kansas City, the Crew spent most of their first decade bumping against other teams’ achievements. They yanked a Supporters’ Shield out of their asses in 2004, but they also missed the playoffs five times between 2000 and 2007 and felt the sting of the Wooden Spoon in 2006. A mere two seasons later, though, Columbus became the smoothest, smartest team in MLS. Coached by Sigi Schmid, guided by Schelotto and back-stopped by a (hey!) working-class defense and midfield built around Marshall, Brian Carroll, and Brad Evans – incidentally, all players who would go on to anchor the all-time great expansion team (Seattle; it’s Seattle) – the Crew picked up the double in 2008, plus another Supporters’ Shield in 2009. They’d cracked a unique approach to the designated player code: finding great talents that few people States-side had heard of. And it paid off smartly until it abruptly did not – or at least until they re-learned the old trick. Between 2012 and 2022, Columbus missed the playoffs as many times as they made them and, despite being the home to the first (and, fair point, super-basic) soccer-specific stadium in MLS history, Columbus barely survived a bid to relocate the team after the 2018 season. The fans pulled together to fight that off in a way that still inspires and, a couple seasons later, Columbus reclaimed their crown as the best team between the coasts in Major League Soccer. They won two more MLS Cups – one in 2020 (aka, The Weird Season; look at the freakin' attendance) and again in 2023, both games at a saucy stroll – and they might have had one more trophy had they not screwed themselves over in MLS Cup 2015 (see: Clark, Steve and Valeri, Diego). For all their failures, and they’ve had a few, Columbus does have a bless’d eye for spotting talent. Checking their all-time roster and scrolling down is a genuinely worthwhile exercise, if just to see all the names that (arguably, in some cases) became more famous on other teams around the league. Per the Joy Points Scale*, Columbus remains one of the most successful teams in MLS history and all of the various powers-that-be that have guided them through damn near three decades’ worth of history deserve credit for accomplishing everything that they did in a…let’s go with unexpected market.
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| "Divorced parents kids" plays some golden hits. |
2025, Briefly
Perhaps because they’d just wrapped two of your better seasons – to be clear, I’m talking MLS all-timer territory – Columbus’ 2025 played out like one of the self-flagellating Oscar-bait psycho-dramas that no one actually watches. From afar, it looked like Wilfried Nancy begging for a divorce while home and family went to shit all around him. They gave fans some happy memories – a good home record (9-6-5), a decent season for Diego Rossi (16 goals, four assists), Max Arfsten’s stirring reprise of his 2024, some damn good players (hold this thought); all that and more of the classy shit the Nancy conditioned their fans to expect (until recently) – but too much of their plays looked like half-finished thoughts, they slipped a ways down the standings from the past two seasons, they still haven’t unlocked Daniel Gazdag, leaving too much for Rossi too much to do, and who kicks them out of the playoffs but FC Cincinnati? They’ll always have the second game in that series, true, but it felt like a lot of going through the motions and grasping after that certain, special something (Cucho Hernandez?) that really made things work. Almost certainly somewhat related, Columbus tied one-third of last season’s games. Tempting as it is to put all that on the offense, they actually did more than a literally average defense (51 goals allowed) to take them to the edge of something meaningful in the playoffs. I don’t want to oversell the narrative – falling short of high expectations and falling apart are two different things – frustration felt like the hallmark of Columbus’ 2025. I think they waited until the end of the season to announce Nancy’s departure to Scotland’s Celtic (from which he subsequently departed), you know, for the players.
Long-Term Tendencies v Recent Trends
Odd outliers aside – e.g., seasons where they missed the playoffs (the bad end) and the double-winning season of 2008, plus freakish attacking stats over their past two seasons (the good end) – Columbus generally sticks at or around average of goals scored and allowed. Heck, they had a four-season stretch from 2010-2013 where they hit MLS’s middling sweet-spot – i.e., they either scored or allowed the average number of goals - six out of eight times. Even so, a clear pattern sticks out over time: when Columbus fails to make the playoffs, the problem reliably follows from trouble with scoring. Bad defenses have throttled their dreams here and there – e.g., 2000 and 2016 – but Columbus has a history of fielding good and strong defenses, and to the tune of going over the average for goals allowed just five times during their time in MLS (fwiw, the went well over on four of those unlucky occasions); moreover, Columbus hasn’t fielded a bad defense – i.e., one that allowed goals over the league average – since 2016. The defenses that backed the 2023 and (more so) the 2024 carried that calling card forward, but it was offense that made Columbus great for those two seasons. Falling to at or around average looks bad in that context. It looks less bad when one remembers they missed the playoffs entirely in 2021 and 2022. Good as they are, Columbus also has bad seasons on a surprising kind of regular.
Players I Still Like/Additions So Far
Darlington Nagbe, the man with the exquisitely specific skill set and a gift for the occasional glorious goal, a player who drove me crazy as a Portland Timbers fan, but who might have changed the way I think about soccer more than anyone I can think of, officially retired at the end of 2025. Even if they only add him to the “curiosities wing,” the man belongs in the Hall of Fame. That’s to say I’ll miss him as much as any Columbus fan, just with a little less urgency. I still like plenty of players on this team – Sean Zawadzki, Rossi, Arfsten, Patrick Schulte; hell, I’ve been thoroughly Steven Moreira-pilled and I even rate Jacen Russell-Rowe as a useful, bustling backup forward – but replacing Nagbe won’t come easy. Fortunately, the major losses end there, which turns attention to the other side of the ledger. I see they called in a Ghanaian midfielder named Sekou Tidiany Bangoura, but he can’t be much older than Zach Zengue, a midfielder added through the SuperDraft and it’s couple homegrowns thrown in from there (click here, scroll down). Columbus is blessed to have a good core to build around, but one has to think they have some shopping ahead if they want to keep up with the rest of the East.
Historical Success (/Hysterical Failure)
Total Joy Points: 59
How They Earned Them (& *How This Is Calculated, for Reference)
Supporters’ Shield: 2004, 2008, 2009
MLS Cup: 2008, 2020, 2023
MLS Cup Runner-Up: 2015
MLS Semifinals: 1997, 1999, 2017
MLS Playoffs: 1996, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2009, 2010. 2014, 2018
Wooden Spoon: 2006
CONCACAF Champions’ League Quarterfinal: 2010, 2011, 2021
CONCACAF Champions’ League Runner-Up: 2024
Leagues Cup Winner: 2024
U.S. Open Cup Winner: 2002
U.S. Open Cup Runner-Up: 1998, 2010
Perhaps because they’d just wrapped two of your better seasons – to be clear, I’m talking MLS all-timer territory – Columbus’ 2025 played out like one of the self-flagellating Oscar-bait psycho-dramas that no one actually watches. From afar, it looked like Wilfried Nancy begging for a divorce while home and family went to shit all around him. They gave fans some happy memories – a good home record (9-6-5), a decent season for Diego Rossi (16 goals, four assists), Max Arfsten’s stirring reprise of his 2024, some damn good players (hold this thought); all that and more of the classy shit the Nancy conditioned their fans to expect (until recently) – but too much of their plays looked like half-finished thoughts, they slipped a ways down the standings from the past two seasons, they still haven’t unlocked Daniel Gazdag, leaving too much for Rossi too much to do, and who kicks them out of the playoffs but FC Cincinnati? They’ll always have the second game in that series, true, but it felt like a lot of going through the motions and grasping after that certain, special something (Cucho Hernandez?) that really made things work. Almost certainly somewhat related, Columbus tied one-third of last season’s games. Tempting as it is to put all that on the offense, they actually did more than a literally average defense (51 goals allowed) to take them to the edge of something meaningful in the playoffs. I don’t want to oversell the narrative – falling short of high expectations and falling apart are two different things – frustration felt like the hallmark of Columbus’ 2025. I think they waited until the end of the season to announce Nancy’s departure to Scotland’s Celtic (from which he subsequently departed), you know, for the players.
Long-Term Tendencies v Recent Trends
Odd outliers aside – e.g., seasons where they missed the playoffs (the bad end) and the double-winning season of 2008, plus freakish attacking stats over their past two seasons (the good end) – Columbus generally sticks at or around average of goals scored and allowed. Heck, they had a four-season stretch from 2010-2013 where they hit MLS’s middling sweet-spot – i.e., they either scored or allowed the average number of goals - six out of eight times. Even so, a clear pattern sticks out over time: when Columbus fails to make the playoffs, the problem reliably follows from trouble with scoring. Bad defenses have throttled their dreams here and there – e.g., 2000 and 2016 – but Columbus has a history of fielding good and strong defenses, and to the tune of going over the average for goals allowed just five times during their time in MLS (fwiw, the went well over on four of those unlucky occasions); moreover, Columbus hasn’t fielded a bad defense – i.e., one that allowed goals over the league average – since 2016. The defenses that backed the 2023 and (more so) the 2024 carried that calling card forward, but it was offense that made Columbus great for those two seasons. Falling to at or around average looks bad in that context. It looks less bad when one remembers they missed the playoffs entirely in 2021 and 2022. Good as they are, Columbus also has bad seasons on a surprising kind of regular.
Players I Still Like/Additions So Far
Darlington Nagbe, the man with the exquisitely specific skill set and a gift for the occasional glorious goal, a player who drove me crazy as a Portland Timbers fan, but who might have changed the way I think about soccer more than anyone I can think of, officially retired at the end of 2025. Even if they only add him to the “curiosities wing,” the man belongs in the Hall of Fame. That’s to say I’ll miss him as much as any Columbus fan, just with a little less urgency. I still like plenty of players on this team – Sean Zawadzki, Rossi, Arfsten, Patrick Schulte; hell, I’ve been thoroughly Steven Moreira-pilled and I even rate Jacen Russell-Rowe as a useful, bustling backup forward – but replacing Nagbe won’t come easy. Fortunately, the major losses end there, which turns attention to the other side of the ledger. I see they called in a Ghanaian midfielder named Sekou Tidiany Bangoura, but he can’t be much older than Zach Zengue, a midfielder added through the SuperDraft and it’s couple homegrowns thrown in from there (click here, scroll down). Columbus is blessed to have a good core to build around, but one has to think they have some shopping ahead if they want to keep up with the rest of the East.
Historical Success (/Hysterical Failure)
Total Joy Points: 59
How They Earned Them (& *How This Is Calculated, for Reference)
Supporters’ Shield: 2004, 2008, 2009
MLS Cup: 2008, 2020, 2023
MLS Cup Runner-Up: 2015
MLS Semifinals: 1997, 1999, 2017
MLS Playoffs: 1996, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2009, 2010. 2014, 2018
Wooden Spoon: 2006
CONCACAF Champions’ League Quarterfinal: 2010, 2011, 2021
CONCACAF Champions’ League Runner-Up: 2024
Leagues Cup Winner: 2024
U.S. Open Cup Winner: 2002
U.S. Open Cup Runner-Up: 1998, 2010
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