On the Rise

It's official: the Columbus Crew have turned things around. After the team got off to the worst start of any defending Major League Soccer champion, in which it took them eight games to finally record a win, at last it appears they have turned things around and are again playing at championship level.

The turnaround culminated in the 2-1 victory Sunday night over league leading Chivas USA at Crew Stadium. The club came back from a 1-nil first half deficit behind the strength of reigning MVP Guillermo Barros Schelotto's league leading ninth and tenth goals of the season, the game winner coming in the 87th minute of play.

The win extended the Crew's unbeaten streak to nine games at 4-0-5. The win also allowed them to climb to one win, or three points, out of first place in the Eastern Conference. It was the teams third straight win at the friendly confines of Crew Stadium.

The streak has come without Captain Frankie Hejduk who is away with the U.S. national team and starting goalkeeper William Hesmer who is out due to a back injury. "We knew this was the game that was going to stamp our season back, the one that would show everyone our record at the beginning of the season was not who we are." defender Jed Zayner said at the conclusion of Sunday's game.

In other news, the team traded away verstile and talented midfielder/forward Pat Noonan this week to the Colorado Rapids for an undisclosed amount of league allocation money and the Rapid's first round draft pick at the 2010 draft.

Noonan was not seeing much of the field with the Crew as he was stuck behind superstar Guillermo Barros Schelotto, and is likely to see much more playing time with the Rapids. The trade works for both teams. In Noonan, Colorado recieves a talented young forward and for Columbus, they are able to relieve themsleves of Noonan's $175,000 paycheck. This is a good move for the Crew because they were close to surpassing the $2.32 million salary cap.

As per the Columbus Dispatch, "Pat is too good of a player to sit on the bench," Crew coach Robert Warzycha said. "This works on both sides."

Also, Schelotto was named MLS player of the week after recording two goals in the team's win over Chivas USA on Sunday. Schelotto leads the league with ten goals.