MLS - Columbus wins MLS Cup

By Audrey Nolan

Sunday was a great day for the Columbus Crew, that won the MLS Cup 3-1 over the New York Red Bulls, in a year in which The Crew has had the best campaign of their history, and after all the effort, they surely deserve the title. Just three days before, their All-Star Argentine player Guillermo Barros Schelotto, received the league MVP award; just one of the awards that the team has achieved during this season.

Schelotto was as well the star of the final game; he made 3 assists that finalized as goals, making a great contribution to win the title at the Home Depot Center in front of 27.000 spectators who were very pleased to see Columbus becoming the new champions and the first team to win both the Supporters' Shield and the MLS Cup in the same year since the Galaxy in 2002. Moreover, Schelotto is the third player in the MLS history to achieve the two MVP awards: of the league and of the title game.

"He's not the biggest guy, he's not the fastest guy and he's not breaking the heart monitor at training, but he has the ability to ratchet up in big games," said Columbus’ head coach Sigi Schmid about Schelotto. He was also very pleased with the rest of his team and said that "Everybody came to work with a smile on their faces. We worked hard every day. It's a tribute to what they did."

Coach Schmid has been the most stable coach in the MLS during the whole season and this earned him the 2008 MLS Coach of the Year Award. Besides, winning the title was a very important achievement for him since the victory was in the home field of the team that fired him four years ago when they were firsts in the league and after winning under his lead the 2002 MLS Cup on this very same place, the L.A. Galaxy.

The Red Bulls did a very good job though, the first half was their best part of the game where they had plenty of opportunities but couldn’t score. It was Columbus who made the difference, the goals talk when you want to win a game; their first goal came at minute 31st of the first half by Alejandro Moreno with a pass from Schelotto.

New York had enough chances but couldn’t take advantage of them until the 51st minute when John Wolyniecv scored the goal they were fighting for; however, happiness didn’t last long for New York since two minutes later Schelotto’s corner kick resulted in a pass straight to the head of defender Chad Marshall who scored the second goal and later, to assure the victory, Frankie Hejduk scored at minute 83 thanks to one more great pass from Schelotto.

After the game ended New York coach, Juan Carlos Osorio stated that they played very well and had a lot of chances in the first part of the game but Columbus was superior and he hope the best for them.   

Columbus ended a great season with the Eastern Conference overall first place, playoffs first place, MVP of the Year title and the MLS Cup title.

About the Author

Audrey Nolan is a top senior copy writer on MLS Games for the online sportbook: http://www.instantactionsports.com. Feel free to reprint this article in its entirety on your site, make sure to leave all links in place and do not modify any of the content.