Fight the Power: Come Out Thursday. Do It.

By El Luchador
Thursday's home playoff match against the violent, undeserving thugs of Real Salt Lake is more than just an epic battle of good versus evil. It is an opportunity for thinking soccer fans who bleed Black and Gold to step up and show the mainstream establishment of Columbus that we do not subscribe to their way of life.

Among Columbus sports fans, there is a long-standing tradition, promoted by the Columbus Dispatch and perfected to an art from by Buckeyes: when the going gets rough, shit all over the coach.

The Dispatch's Mike Arace is trying this week to bring this tradition to the Columbus Crew. Don't let him do it.

In a screed published on Tuesday, Arace asks: "What was coach Robert Warzycha thinking?" He goes on, predictably, to answer that whatever Our Coach was thinking, it was wrong, and it's going to prove fatal, yada, yada, yada.

As is typically the case with the hamburger heads at "Ohio's Greatest Hometown Newspaper," Arace went for the low-hanging fruit, questioning Warzycha's decision to bench Guillermo Barros Schelotto in Game One at RSL.

Employing the Donald Rumsfeld Socratic method of asking sarcastic rhetorical questions, Arace writes: "Isn't that going too far? Was he giving his team its best chance to win? How so?"

This is the same type of Monday-morning whining that goes on every week across Ohio, as Buckeye Fans hammer the coach for every perceived misstep. Fueled by the pundits at the Dispatch and on stations like 610 WTVN, Buckeye fans funnel every disappointment and failure of their own personal lives into thoughtless criticism of their coach.

In Crew Soccer Nation, we stand by our coach. We do not subscribe to the fair weather approach of our Buckeye Brethren. We know that football is a fickle lover, that strategies and tactics are not a science but an art, and that history favors the winners.

Come out Thursday and show the world that we support the Crew through good times and bad. Show Warzycha that we understand and support his decision to start Luchadores Lenhart and Renteria up top in Game One. Show the Man that we shall not be moved by sedition. Show your Buckeye friends how real men and women stand up for their team and their coach in times of difficulty.

El Luchador's prediction: Crew 2-0 RSL. Robert Warzycha 1-0 Michael Arace.

Do it. Columbus 'Till I Die!