Counterattack: Winless Team Can Become A Wonder

There are a few clubs in Major League Soccer who have yet to record a win - and surprisingly for many, the regular-season champs of both conferences last year are on that list.

Apr 16, 2009 3:18:18 AM

More On : Columbus Crew, Houston Dynamo

This week's Counterattack topic is tackled by Goal.com associate editor Zac Lee Rigg and regular contributor Talha Zaheer. The two face off over which underachieving MLS club is due for a turn-around.

Question: Which MLS club that hasn't won a game yet is best suited to recover and finish the season strongly?

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Talha Zaheer: The Columbus Crew will bounce back from their stuttering start as they are best equipped to mount a season-long challenge. They have both quality and experience on their side. With last year's MVP Guillermo Barros Schellotto getting back into form and getting regular playing time in tandem with Alejandro Moreno, the Crew will prove more than a match for most. The new coach is still unsure about his best lineup and is surely going to stop tinkering once he discovers his best starting eleven. Crew have all the ingredients to go on a long, successful run.

Zac Lee Rigg: The Crew are a good shout, for sure, but aren't a certainty. Robert Warzycha has merely tried to recapture the winning formula of the departed Sigi Schmid, but doesn't have the tactical nous to pull it off for a whole season.

The team that will, for sure, be back up among the top two in its division by the time the playoffs come around is the Houston Dynamo. The coaching staff, headed by the brilliant Dominic Kinneer, knows how to deal with slow starts, as they seem to dabble in one every year. The team will continue to gain momentum, and peak just in time for the playoffs to begin. It's essentially inevitable at this point.

Zaheer: While Kinneer is certainly an astute coach with vast experience, he no longer has the services of the enigmatic Dwayne De Rosario to call upon. His are massive boots to fill and it will take a herculean effort from Brian Ching to overhaul his own exploits from last season and make up for the De Ro factor.

While Kinneer may be a better and more experienced coach than Warzycha, his squad is not of the same caliber as the Crew. Last season's tactics may well have been worked out by other teams. Whether by design or luck, Warzycha will surely find a winning formula, his squad has far too much quality. The Columbus Crew are a team of champions; it will take a minor miracle for them to miss the playoffs.

Rigg: Houston has missed its attacking fulcrum in Dwayne De Rosario. But I have much more faith in Kinneer and Stu Holden to figure the attack out than I do a novice coach.

Columbus are also missing a key ingredient to last year's championship team: Brad Evans. The midfielder is showing at Seattle that he knows how to boss MLS teams around, and makes his team's attack click from deep. The inclusion of Emmanuel Ekpo, a winger unsuited for a deep role, into that vacant central midfield position tells me Warzycha is floundering around without much knowledge of what he's actually doing.

Houston, however, will continue to bank on the chemistry of a side that has been together for years to grind out results until such a time as a spark can be added. Ade Akinbiyi just may be that spark.

Zaheer: Akinbiyi is most definitely an exciting player with pace to burn, yet I'm not so sure he has the guile and trickery to unlock defenses like De Ro used to.

Warzycha may be a novice coach, but he has been mentored by the best in Sigi Schmid. His experiment with Epko may be inspired by watching Giggs at Manchester United, but it has proved to be a failure. That does not mean he can't replace Evans. He is still experimenting with the side and the re-signing of Kevin Burns shows that not only has the problem been identified, but Warzycha is intent on fixing it quickly.

Houston, on the other hand, are struggling away from home.

Rigg: Every team in MLS struggles away from home. Since the teams are so relatively equal, usually it's the advantage of playing in comfortable surroundings that tips a game.

And, let's face it, since neither team have a win yet, both teams are struggling both home and away. It's now a matter of who can turn it around, and Kinneer does this every single season.

Warzycha never has. I don't think Kevin Burns is his answer. I think he's just lucky Chad Marshall and Guillermo Barros Schelotto returned, or he would have more than one hole that he's not equipped to fill.

Zaheer: Schelotto is the key for Columbus, both on and off the field. He can lure proven players from Argentina to help the cause, if things get too dire. Already, every team is out to perform against Columbus, as is the nature of the game: you want to topple the best, the reigning champions.

The season is long, and while Warzycha may never have pulled a club out of a hole, there's no time like the present. He certainly has the tools to string some good results together.

Kinnear, on the other hand, may have oft proven successful, but he has always been able to rely on a player with spark, without that spark, he may well falter this year. After all, all good things must come to an end.

Rigg: You may recall that last year Houston lacked offensive spark for the first half of the season.

What did Kinneer do? He pulled in Nate Jaqua from Austria and Kei Kamara from San Jose midseason, rushed up the table, and finished first in the West.

De Rosario's absence will be felt, no doubt about it, but Stuart Holden won't be much of a drop in quality, especially once he starts clicking, and the tried-and-true Brian Mullan and Brad Davis on the flanks will give Ching + 1 more than ample scoring opportunities.

Columbus very well may have a decent season, but Houston are almost assured it.

Counterattack runs every Thursday on Goal.com

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