Centerback Giancarlo “Pipo” Gonzalez was expected to garner a great deal of interest from European clubs looking to shore up their back lines after his stellar play in Brazil spurred Costa Rica to the quarterfinals, where they held the Netherlands scoreless over 120 minutes of play before bowing out in penalty kicks. That speculation turned into reality a few hours before the Columbus Crew were slated to face the Houston Dynamo Saturday night. Italian Serie A club Palermo made a huge offer, which Columbus accepted, ending Pipo’s short but effective run with the team; he joined as a Discovery Signing to start the 2014 season.
Rumors were rampant when it came to possible destinations and his overall value on the transfer market. The initial indications were that England was the most likely place he could end up. In mid-July, a report from HereIsTheCity.com pointed to Premier League side Sunderland on the cusp of making a £5 million bid for Pipo. A few weeks later, Fulham made two successive bids as part of an effort to get the team back into England’s top flight for 2015 after getting relegated to the League Championship last season, both of which were rejected by MLS. Now comes the winning Palermo bid which is reportedly the largest transfer fee the league has ever received for a defender in its history.
I wrote previously that the Crew should consider how much teams from across the pond were willing to offer for Pipo and reinvest whatever proceeds they receive from the transaction to address the dearth of scoring that had beset the team at the time. The back line was never the weak link with this team, as was discussed in that piece. Even with Pipo and fellow Costa Rican defender Waylon Francis away from the team on World Cup duty, a seven-game stretch where both were absent, Columbus shut out three teams and two of those were scoreless draws. In an Eastern Conference playoff race that will almost certainly come down to the wire, four missed points due to lack of finishing could come back to haunt you.
In recent weeks, however, the Black and Gold have suddenly found some semblance of a mojo in the attacking third. After going all of June and half of July with only five goals on the score sheet in six regular season games, the Crew began to realize the signature of change when league cellar-dweller Montreal came to town. Including that and the five successive contests afterwards, the Crew have nearly tripled their scoring from the previous six games with 14 goals. Having gone 0-2-4 in the six games where offensive firepower was a glaring issue, Columbus have translated their newly found scoring acumen into positive results in the league table, going 4-1-1 since.
Needless to say, the Crew are currently the hottest team in the East, with a conference-leading 13 points since July 19. Only FC Dallas (16), Real Salt Lake (14), and the Los Angeles Galaxy (13) have gotten as much or more out of their schedule in that time and it should be noted that both Los Angeles and RSL have played one more game than Columbus. Saturday’s 3-0 demolition of Houston, coupled with Chicago’s 2-2 draw with home standing Toronto, could be aptly described as “just what the doctor ordered” when it comes to the big picture from a playoff positioning standpoint. Not only have the Crew established some distance between themselves and the lower rung of the conference’s playoff contenders, they’ve pulled even with Toronto on points, even though TFC has the possibility of gaining six points from the two games they have in hand.
Head coach/sporting director Gregg Berhalter’s emphasis in the immediate aftermath of the Pipo transfer news being made public was in promulgating his continued vision for the club which will only be furthered via the funds obtained from this transaction with Palermo. Investment in player development, particularly through the Crew academy system, has been his overarching goal from day one. Keep in mind that Pipo was not a regular starter for his former club, Norwegian side Valerenga. In less than a year’s time, he evolved into a back line stalwart for Columbus and led his national team to unprecedented levels of success, which parlayed into a multi-million dollar move to the Serie A.
As this team continues its run toward the 2014 MLS postseason, the long-term outlook for the franchise from an “under-the-hood” perspective has taken a huge step forward. Though missing out on the possible allocation acquisition of US men’s national team midfielder Mix Diskerud in recent weeks, the Crew’s build-from-within approach seems destined to take off. The Columbus way, as outlined by Berhalter, will ultimately be defined by making the club an organization not necessarily associated with monster designated player coups, but rather one that internally enhances a player’s skills and subsequent value. With investor/operator Anthony Precourt in the beginning of his second year and the club just recently hiring a new president of business operations in Andy Loughnane, there are plenty of new faces ready to execute this master plan going forward.
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