SDH Opposition Research: Columbus Crew PBP Voice Chris Doran on SDH AM

John, I love talking to you. Thanks so much for having me and happy Friday to you.

Happy Friday. Oh, what was your official subtitle for the segment that you had?

Oh, no, I'm not saying that. Oh, no, no, no. That was the email and between you and I only.

Fair enough. Okay. So then let the Friday be good and or great, depending on your

schedule. There we go. All right. So, uh, uh, yeah, full disclosure. Uh, I think when I was growing up,

I think I went to 13 different denominations. My mom really? Yeah. My mom was trying to figure out,

okay, so where do we hear the voices the best? And let me see if I can remember them real quick.

Okay. So, um, Roman Catholic, Anglican, uh, Episcopalian,

Malapest, independent Methodist, Church of Christ, Church of God and Christ,

Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, uh, Baptist, Southern Baptist, and that gets us to 11.

I'll just stop. Wow. Yeah. So she literally, she was just like, it's like, okay, where can we go?

And she's just like, oh, it's Sunday, therefore we go here. Yeah.

Right. It literally was scatter shot. But, uh, we'll, yeah, go for it. What?

That's, um, I, you know, I, I applaud people who are exploring. I was raised Catholic. And so in

the email, I referenced what is common on, uh, Holy Week and the stations of the cross

is a part of the Holy Week's celebration for Catholics. And, um, I, I tied in crosses with, uh,

with our wingers. Yes. Yes. And the stations of the cross with Max Arfton would be delightful,

only because we'd like to see more crosses and more finishes like we saw against Toronto two

weeks ago. Yes. There we go. So, and, and, uh, I wish I had my boy Paul Harvey hanging up here

just to say, well, hang on. Let me see if I can find Paul really quickly because you know how things

are on morning shows. We always have those drops, you know, yes. Have one drop in particular. Oh,

here we go. There it is. I found it. So we got to go here, obviously. No, you know, the rest

of the story. That's a pretty Paul Harvey. So, you know, you and I, uh, and I don't know how old you

are, but I'm 11 billion years old, sir. Okay. We were around in radio early on when Paul Harvey

was it. I mean, people scheduled their entire days around Paul Harvey. Do you know that he came to

Indianapolis one weekend to talk to the, uh, the, the farmers of America, future farmers of America.

And, uh, we're in affiliate down in Bloomington and I asked ABC if I could meet Paul Harvey and do a

quick interview with him. Okay. Um, and it could never be worked out, but they finally told me his

private plane was landing in a hangar at Indianapolis International Airport. I get in the station bit.

Paul, are you private plane? Yes. I get in the station van. I drive to the Indianapolis airport.

I timed it out perfectly. Got directions to the hangar. This was pre 9 11. So I was, I had access

to a lot of things. And, and, you know, the car was pulling away. His limo drove past my van with

the ABC logo on it. They stopped about 100 yards down the road. They motioned me to come forward.

He stepped out of the limo to the 10 minute interview with me. That's the gods honest truth. And I will

have always respected him. Of course, he's passed away. Yeah. But what a class act.

All right. See now that, see, these are the kind of stories that we have here with this kind of

stuff. Uh, man, I did not know that. That is massively cool. Uh, so, yeah, literally from like 12,

30 to 1 o'clock on your new stock stations. It was his big thing, Monday through Friday. And so, uh,

yeah. So now I'm having flashbacks and I'll have that stuck in my brain all weekend long. Uh, okay.

The reason we brought you in is we always like to do opposition research. And, uh, we always like

to talk crew A, but opposition research fits this go around. When it comes to only scoring one goal

in a month, what is now, I guess this is this might be causing a cause and effect question. It's

might be looking at four goals in your first two matches and then getting figured out and all of

the other things that are attached to it. So how do we go from four goals total and back to back

games to one goal in a month to lead into today? How does this happen, sir?

Um, well, I think the focus was first of all defense. And so, Hendrick Roots dream the new head coach

for the Columbus crew took the guys and said, look, we can't allow the counter to unfold the way it

has unfolded against us in those first two games against Portland and sporting Kansas City because

we were found, you know, in spots where we then had to, you know, get that third goal to either

draw even or pull ahead. Um, typically when you score two goals in a game, you have a better chance

of winning. We weren't able to seal the deal in the first two games. So the focus really was on

defense. Was it a complete sacrifice to what the attack was supposed to be about? No. But in that

stretch, we also added Andres Gomez to the midfield. And that is a dynamic player who demands time

with his teammates so that everyone understands what we're trying to accomplish. And I think that

is what the story is for the last three games. The one disappointing piece to a John is that

the two guys who scored in the first two games of the season did not have shots on target

in the last three games of the season. Okay. And so we're finding ourselves now,

I don't know what the phrase is, you're given a little and you're taking a lot on the other side.

We want to see that attacking sequence become more mature. April is the time to do it.

And my understanding is over the last couple of weeks during this break, there has been a bigger

focus on on building the attack in the midfield and into the final third. When you look at the

starting line of last time out against Toronto, it was Shulti and Net, Aminson, Zawatsky, Marrera,

and Herrera you're back for. And this is going just off of the graphic, not going in game into the

second. The whistle blows, then things change and everything. Sure. Uh, midfield listed as, uh,

Arvston Gomez, Dylan and Diego, and then Wes and Tah-Habarun up top. I'm anticipating slash

imagining that in offensive sets, you probably turn the volume dial to the left one click.

And then that means that Diego comes forward out of this alleged four or two as I'm looking at a

picture. So, you know, Rossi comes forward. It's three in the attack, at least down the middle.

Then you have your center backs bombing and all this kind of stuff. Am I off here in looking at

the thing? No, you're not. Uh, Diego had 16 goals last year. Unfortunately, coming from the wing

is probably not going to be a way for him to duplicate that effort this year because he came

right up the middle. He was the catalyst for most of what we generated last season. Um, and

Wes and my boy Lee needs quality service. He's going to make those diagonal runs and get between

the center backs when we play against the back four. And he'll have those tight gaps. Um,

Rossi has got to be the one who puts those center backs on their heels, tracking back to goal

and then find a boi Lee in the space. Um, so I don't know that that lasts too long. Um,

and Andrew Grootstrom said as much this week, he said, look, Diego Rossi needs to be in a place

where he can be successful, where he can find success. And coming from the flank like that is

probably not going to be a long lasting experiment. I think it's just a matter of finding out

where the combinations are going to work best. And him working with Andreas Gomez in the middle

is probably, uh, top of the leaderboard right now when you look at potential success. So Abu Ali

and Rossi were the two guys who didn't have shots on target in the first two in the last three

games. Um, we just got our first cross from the outside from Max Arfsten or Andre's Herrera

and scored a goal. And that was against Toronto. Um, so, um, gosh, I don't know

why I'm saying Abu Ali, Abu Ali did not figure into the SOT stat, uh, because obviously he scored

that goal against Toronto. But the point is that we need more from the flanks. We need more from Max

and we need more from Andre's Herrera. Now Herrera is playing a little deeper this year. Last year,

he had five goals, he'd assist from the outside. He started every game ever since leagues cup. Uh,

he hasn't had any contributions to goal in these first five games.

I feel like you need something from that side. Yeah. And I'm not exactly sure how coach is going

to get it. But the thing is we look at this roster, how talented it is. And we look at the staff

and we say, absolutely, these guys know what they're doing. It's just a matter of it all sinking

together. And I know it's requiring patients from the supporter base, but the time is going to

come. It has to come. But the time is going to come. And I think it's going to be this month.

And you mentioned very similar things here with the patients from the supporter bases needed

and things like that. I may circle back to that in bookmark. It seems like from what you're just,

what you're trying to break things down. It's like Rossi is better when he comes inside.

Wes comes inside. But if you had both of those happening, you end up with bumper cars with two

guys trying to do the same thing and try to benefit from being in the same spot. And that creates

collisions and the things aren't as easy as you'd like for them to be because folks are better

doing things this way. But right now, as you mentioned, Rossi's on the outside. And he literally

is the outside, the guy who's on the outside looking in when he's at a deficit position when it

tries to create. Because once again, if you're coming in here, I see collisions happening. And

it's like bumper cars at six flags in America. Yeah. In fact, there isn't

from my recollection as much combination play with Abu Ali and Rossi when Rossi's coming from

the outside. And maybe that's by design. Maybe that's what they're looking for. Maybe they want

that to come through the middle. But I do think that it will serve the team as we grow the spine

of the squad. We focused on defense. And now focusing on the attack, the middle really has to

be well cared for. And I think there are plenty of opportunities to do that with the talent we have

on the roster. Our buddy, Chris Doran, hanging out with us for Oppo Research. That's the polypsi

guy coming out. Oppo Research. I feel like it's like West Wing or something. Defensively,

this seems like when Reachstrom came in, it was somewhat Wilford Nazi adjacent, you know,

nothing too completely off the rails defensively. When you've been looking at this after those

first two matches, obviously we talked about the sacrifice coming the last month. But the defense

seems to have pretty much hungered together and they're in lockdown mode right now. Yeah. And I

think a large part of that has to do with the way Patrick Shulti's playing. You know, he came out

of 2025 having dealt with the injury late in the playoff stretch of the season last year,

was playing more like he played in 2024. And that was a positive. He entered 2026.

Good frame of mind. No, he's got, no, he's got the national team call up that he's hoping for

didn't get, but then got because of Roman Selentano and Cincinnati pulling back on the invitation

to join the national team for these last two friendlies. And Shulti's been very, very good.

The return of Rudy Camacho has been solid. Multi-Aminson is just ultra reliable. And so too is

Stephen Marrera, who's back from international duty this week. So, you know, I think you've got

a pretty solid core. Zawatsky started in the center back role against Toronto. And that was a

coaches decision. And then Rudy came on later. Zawatsky will fit anywhere in the back. I personally

would love to see a true foreback system with Marrera and Aminson on either side of Camacho and Zawatsky

and let the midfield do its creative work in a 433. But, you know, I'm not calling the shots.

I think the talent is there both on the coach's side as well as on the roster. And I think it's

all going to pan out. It, as I said, and I've done it three times now, April's got five regular

season MLS games. John, when we're done with April, we are about a third away from the finish of

the regular season. Crazy. And we're only two months into it. I know that if you're still

fighting at a 13th place in the east, then something drastic is going to happen in the July transfer

window. And so I think a lot of these guys are probably thinking to themselves, you know, let's be

patient. Let's follow through. But let's make sure we get the job done.

Have there been in your view any pleasant surprises from insertions into the lineup

taking over? Because I know that West had to deal with injuries early in that kind of recovery.

Have there been any surprises for you that have popped up here in the last in the first handful

of matches this year? Not really. You know, I'm looking at the same guys we've seen over

the last couple of years. You know, we had a dozen guys in 2025 who were part of that 2023

MLS Cup. So a lot of the guys are familiar. They're in my estimation. And again, it's just a

amateur estimation, but, you know, fulfilling the promise. Shulti's the bright spot simply because

he came out of the offseason is really still building his game and showing that.

I love the addition of Andre's Gomez in the midfield. I think, you know, he was 60 minutes fit

coming into the first game of this that he played in the season, which was the home game

against Chicago has built minutes ever since. I don't know that he's going to be a 90-minute guy.

Maybe he is. But I really want to see things bloom out of him when it comes to the attack.

When and the reason that I ask is because of the new faces that we see, you know,

and they're only getting cups of coffee right now in the first handful of games, you know,

Bungora getting a handful of minutes against Toronto. Arkansas is only getting a handful of

minutes against Toronto. You know, Hugo Picard comes in for Max and gives you 10,

Hobroon, whom we've seen from our time with crew two and knowing what's going on with him.

Now he's getting regular reps. So that was why that question popped into my head because of these

cups of coffee that you're getting from folks off the bench. And I didn't know how they were

contributing even though it's not showing up on the score sheet. Yeah, it's not. And in some cases,

not even showing up in the way of subs. Coach was pretty limiting in his choices off the bench

in a couple of games. And in large part, it was because guys like Wes and Mabua Lee's getting 90

minutes, you know, and really is threatening. We are seeing I think the flashes of what the

coaches expected from Seku Bungora. A Jamal TRA is, you know, he kind of breaks things up. He's

he's good on the ball. He definitely wants to go forward. He hasn't gotten the ball on a lot of

great spots in the time that he's been on the field. But it's nice to see him change change

up the rhythm of a of a game that has been slowed by a tactically sound defensive posture of the

opposition. So I, I like being able to pull a play like that off the bench. Dylan Chambo is back

from injury and he's just so graceful with the ball. You start to run into a few problems when it

comes to whether or not you want to put Dylan in, you want Taha in who plays a little more forward

or you want to put Hugo Picardin who was a regular starter for a long time in his short period

with us last year. But never generated any numbers in terms of goal contributions and that always

surprised me. He's got a couple of shots on the season. They didn't really have much on them.

So he's not that guy, but he's the final past guy and he just hasn't been able to complete the

final past yet. Yep. Jamal TRA definitely is like the Jeff Goldblum character in Jurassic Park. He

is a chaotic, I will grant you that. What concerns Columbus the most about Atlanta coming into this

weekend? I don't know that we're ready to even look at opponents and be honest with ourselves about

what they bring to the table and how we have to compete. We haven't gotten to the state that

we want to be in yet in a, in a flowing game. You know, the fact that you're playing

Atmer City's Ben Stadium, it's always a great crowd and the atmosphere is terrific. The guys

love it. You know, I think supporters would be surprised to hear that even opposing players

love to go to stadiums on the road that have terrific atmospheres. And I think Mercedes Ben

Stadium ranks very high on that list. So I think the guys are looking forward to the challenge.

They've had two weeks to think about that loss up in Toronto. And so getting over that hump

is probably the thing that they desperately want to do. And doing that with the style of play that

they know they can play by creating chances and then finishing those chances is important.

Last time we were in your stadium, five goals in 35 minutes, thanks to Wesim Abou Ali, Daniel

Ghazdog and Diego Rossi. Well, Ghazdog hasn't played three games. I mean, he hasn't come off the bench

in three games, John. And so there are questions that remain about where his contribution is

going to fall in this season two. And that's I find that that's interesting and

comforting and confident all at the same time that Columbus right now is focusing on itself.

And it's like, we're going to we're going to orchestrate. We're going to figure out what we need

to do. We'll be okay is the vibe that I'm getting. We'll be okay once we sort it out. We're still

sorting it out. We're still growing. And like I said, I think there are parallels here between

these two clubs where we know where we're going. We just need everybody to be patient. And then when

we're all comfortable, then we'll be okay. So this seems like there's there's almost like holding

up a mirror with these two clubs right now. Well, and it could very well be. I'm sure Tata Martino

coming back for Atlanta is thinking to himself. This is not the same group. This is the same

challenge, however. And I know he's added some pieces. And it should be very interesting.

I know our guys are anxious to try the synthetic, I'm sorry, the non synthetic, the natural grass

field at Mercedes Benz. I should point out that Stephen Marrera with Kate Verde will play one of

his World Cup group stage games in Mercedes Benz Stadium. So he's doing some recon this weekend.

He's going to take pictures of the field and send it to his buddies so that everyone gets a review

of what that field is like. And I'm sure it'll be different when we get to June. But it looked good

in the US games over the last week or so. Yeah, they have put up the they put up the pink lights

and they figured out we talked to actually some of the grass doctors that are that are

charge of FIFA. And they're like, yeah, we got to do this for like 11 of the 16th Stadia. We've

got to have the the pink lights and they've got to be up more figuring out, okay, the distance between

the light lighting grid and the ground. We got to figure out how long they've got to be on. We

got all this temperature stuff. It's like, I didn't know there was this much having to do with

indoors and curating grass. It's blowing to me. Yeah, I mean, I don't know when they open the

roof when the sun shines down, but that certainly is not enough sunlight to get that full field to

be growing. The grow lights are run by computer. It is fascinating to see. We have the same thing

it's got's miracle grow field. And I truly admire the the ground screws who handle those

pieces of equipment. All right, before we get into the blatant plug about how folks can listen

on your side of things, not just this weekend, but all the way around. I'm seeing a lot of buzz

about the NWSL and Columbus, Ohio. What's been the vibe attached to that? Well, everyone's excited.

The Haslam Sports Group, the Edwards family and nationwide, which celebrates 100 years

this week and is the the big employer and of course, call their call Columbus their home base

have all pulled together their efforts to get the 18th franchise for the NWSL to land in Columbus.

It's a giant campaign. You can sign the petition at NWSL T-O-C-B-U-S dot com and be a part of the

effort. I think it's fascinating. They'd love to build a new training facility for the NWSL Club

and then have that club play their games at Scott's Miracle Grow Field in the arena district. So

we'd have two teams residing at Scott's Miracle Grow Field. It would be fantastic. I think the growth

of women's soccer as we saw with Denver over the weekend and the way it was received in their first

home game this summit certainly has done everything right in the way of launching their franchise

and we're certain and confident that we can do the same in Columbus. Dig in that. That's very,

very cool. All right, give me the plug if you would please, sir, so how folks can listen to your

dulcet tones and all of the imagination and all the storytelling that happens every single time.

Well, I'll tell you, I know there's a great history between Atlanta and Miami when it comes to

playoff stories the last two years ago. So I just want to call attention to a show that I did

this past week that she can get on iHeartRadio as a podcast inside the crew. Before Lino Messi,

excuse me, arrived in Columbus or arrived in Miami. There were two other Argentines that I think

you need to be aware of. Gonzalo Eguine, of course, came over from Europe. His brother Federico Eguine,

who was a long time crew player still eats the club and assists and penalty kicks converted.

joined him for his final season as a professional soccer player and the two of them played in Miami.

I did an interview with Federico Eguine just this past week because he is the crew two head coach

and he continues to transition not just from playing but growing his coaching acumen so that one day

he can be a first team head coach. But the story he tells and the passion he has for the game.

I think you'd expect from an Argentine but it is phenomenal. Inside the crew is online,

get it at iHeartRadio and find our broadcasts on iHeartRadio 2. I'm on X at

Christoran 18. Love to hear from you anytime. As always and so of course since it is the end of

this particular segment you know I have to do this considering our conversations.

Good day. There you go. There's your Paul Harvey to get out.

Thank you brother. Great to see you and we'll catch up with you soon. It's always fun to have

you back in Lida.