{"id":2356,"date":"2016-11-21T17:24:16","date_gmt":"2016-11-21T22:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsoccer.com\/?p=2356"},"modified":"2016-11-21T17:24:16","modified_gmt":"2016-11-21T22:24:16","slug":"crew-sc-exercises-options-wil-trapp-meram-higuain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/2016\/11\/21\/crew-sc-exercises-options-wil-trapp-meram-higuain\/","title":{"rendered":"Columbus Crew SC Exercises Options on Wil Trapp, Justin Meram and Federico Higuain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Wil Trapp<\/strong>, <a href=\"http:\/\/columbuscrewsc.com\/players\/justin-meram\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Justin Meram<\/strong><\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/columbuscrewsc.com\/players\/federico-higuain\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Federico Higuain<\/strong><\/a> will continue to play a prominent on-field role for <a href=\"http:\/\/columbuscrewsc.com\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Columbus Crew SC<\/strong><\/a> in 2017.<\/p>\n<p>The club announced on Monday afternoon that it has exercised contract options on the three players for next season. This marks the third significant off-season roster move after re-signing forward <a href=\"http:\/\/columbuscrewsc.com\/players\/adam-jahn\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Adam Jahn<\/strong><\/a> October 25th as well as midfielder <a href=\"http:\/\/columbuscrewsc.com\/players\/hector-jimenez\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Hector Jimenez<\/strong><\/a> and goalkeeper <a href=\"http:\/\/columbuscrewsc.com\/players\/brad-stuver\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Brad Stuver<\/strong><\/a> November 16th.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">NEWS: <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/CrewSC?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#CrewSC<\/a> exercises options on Federico Higuain, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JustinMeram?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@JustinMeram<\/a> &amp; @wil_trapp.<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udcdd <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/7UqV1I72K9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/7UqV1I72K9<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/PhyxgElTPc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/PhyxgElTPc<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; The Crew (@ColumbusCrew) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ColumbusCrew\/status\/800813040597946368?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">November 21, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Columbus Crew SC Exercises Options on Wil Trapp, Justin Meram and Federico Higuain<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Trapp, Meram and Higuain have been mainstays of the Crew SC roster for quite some time now. They&#8217;ve combined for 370 matches played and have scored a combined 64 goals and 70 assists for the club. When all three have been in the starting XI, Columbus has a 19-10-12 record.<\/p>\n<p>Head coach and sporting director <strong>Gregg Berhalter<\/strong> discussed the importance of locking these talented players up moving forward.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are glad to have Federico, Justin and Wil back for 2017 as they have been important pieces of our club in their time here,\u201d the Crew SC boss said. \u201cEach of them continues to play a key role in our system and we look forward to their continued contributions on and off the field next season.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Trapp continues to be among the more dynamic and promising holding midfielders in <a href=\"http:\/\/mlssoccer.com\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>MLS<\/strong><\/a>. His 88.06 percent passing accuracy was second best in the league. And despite missing some time due to a concussion, he finished with 1,718 successful passes which was also MLS&#8217; second best total. In 2016, he became the first Homegrown player in Crew SC history to be named to the AT&amp;T MLS All-Star Game roster.<\/p>\n<p>This past season was arguably Meram&#8217;s best for the <em>Black and Gold<\/em>. The club&#8217;s longest tenured player having been drafted in the first round of the 2011 MLS SuperDraft, Meram finished with a career-high 13 assists in 2016 along with five goals. Advanced statistics website <a href=\"http:\/\/whoscored.com\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Whoscored.com<\/strong><\/a> gave him the tenth highest player rating in all of MLS.<\/p>\n<p>In Higuain, the club has a strong leadership presence and one of the top chance creators in the league. Since he arrived in MLS, he&#8217;s completed 373 key passes. That number is second best during that time period, trailing only former <a href=\"http:\/\/realsaltlake.com\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Real Salt Lake<\/strong><\/a> number ten <a href=\"http:\/\/mlssoccer.com\/players\/javier-morales\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Javier Morales<\/strong><\/a>. Higuain was named <strong>MLS Newcomer of the Year<\/strong> in 2012.<\/p>\n<p>Crew SC has already announced a busy preseason schedule. The team will be in\u00a0<strong>Brazil<\/strong> from January 26th to February 8th where they will train\u00a0with renowned club <strong>S\u00e3o Paulo FC<\/strong>. Afterwards, they&#8217;re slated to play in the <strong>Carolina Challenge Cup<\/strong> in <strong>Charleston, SC<\/strong> starting February 18th and ending a week later. There, they&#8217;ll join the <a href=\"http:\/\/soundersfc.com\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Seattle Sounders<\/strong><\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/uslsoccer.com\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>USL<\/strong><\/a> club <a href=\"http:\/\/https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2016\/09\/Top-Shelf-Prospects.jpgtonbattery.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Charleston Battery<\/strong><\/a> and MLS expansion franchise <a href=\"http:\/\/atlutd.com\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Atlanta United FC<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>Photo courtesy of Columbus Crew SC Communications.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Columbus Crew SC announced on Monday that it had exercised the contract options on midfielders Wil Trapp, Justin Meram and Federico Higuain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":742,"featured_media":2360,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,119,3],"tags":[245,606,129,397,57,607],"class_list":["post-2356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crew","category-mls","category-news","tag-columbus-crew-sc","tag-federico-higuain","tag-fifa","tag-justin-meram","tag-mls","tag-wil-trapp"],"modified_by":"John Bava","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/742"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}