TORONTO – Still fully dressed in his gold Columbus Crew SC shirt, shorts and socks more than half an hour after the final whistle had ended his season, defender Josh Williams looked like he was ready to take the field again.
Given the manner of Wednesday’s 1-0 defeat at Toronto FC that ended Columbus’s bid to return to MLS Cup for the second time in three years, few could blame him, with only Jozy Altidore’s 60th-minute strike the difference between elation and heartbreak for Crew SC.
Considering the razor thin margin between his team and the record-setting Toronto side, it’s no surprise that Williams doesn’t see the need for Columbus to make major changes this offseason.
“I would take this team again,” he said. “We line up again, we've got it all to play for again and I want everyone I just played with on the field. ... This is my team, these are my boys. [Toronto] are the Supporters’ Shield [winners], the greatest team ever in MLS history and we just pushed them to the limit so we're not far off. Any other day maybe we're in the final.”
After finishing the 2017 regular season with 18 more points than in their disappointing 2016 campaign, Columbus embarked on a magical playoff run, knocking out favored Atlanta and New York City before taking Toronto to the brink. They did it all while dealing with the fallout of the club’s possible 2019 move to Austin, an experience that brought together the Crew SC locker room.
“You can't buy stuff like this, you can't teach stuff like this, you can't learn this on a training pitch,” Williams said. “You've got to be battling out there, you've got to experience the environment, you've got to be 1-0 down and trying to push, you've got to defend a lead in New York, those are all things that are building blocks and I think those are things to build on.”
The hero of the Knockout Round win over Atlanta, goalkeeper Zack Steffen, said that as Columbus’ management team look back over the season that just ended, they might decide they need to add some little pieces to help the team over the hump next year.
However, for the players, the work starts almost right away, and he added it’s important that they come into the season with a hot start, so they don’t again have to rely on a 10-game unbeaten streak to end the regular season to reach the playoffs.
“I want to get back here. I'm going to take a few weeks off, but then I'm going to get back on the horse. I want to get better, I want to be in the final next year, we all do,” Steffen said. “I know it's going to be a quick offseason and it's good. So we'll be working hard off the field and we'll be ready for next year.”
Captain Wil Trapp said the disappointment that the players felt at BMO Field – many of them lingered on the field to watch Michael Bradley raise the Eastern Conference Championship trophy – will also add fuel to their offseason fire.
“There's lots of positives to take away but there's a lot of things we can improve on. I think it's good that we're disappointed, it shows how much belief we had…,” the midfielder said. “It's by no means an ending point for us, it's a lot of new guys this year and I think it's only going to improve.”
And head coach Gregg Berhalter, who has now led the Crew to the playoffs in three of his four seasons in Columbus, pulled no punches when asked what his team can do to go one better next year.
“We get better, isn't that the name of the game?” he said. “Every time you want to get better, every season you want to get better and our job now is to get better and build a better team for next season.”
