Limping Columbus Carries MLS Flag

Major League Soccer's inability to strike a deal with its players' union (mediated negotiations continue this week in Washington) might have a small silver lining - nobody's paying attention to the fact that there's an actual game tonight.

Why is that a good thing? Because that game is a CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinal between Columbus and Mexican power Toluca (8PM ET, Fox Soccer Channel). It's a match the short-handed Crew are unlikely to win, meaning MLS's most embarrassing statistic - one that is far more damning to its credibility than a bit of labor strife - is about to get worse.

There remain so many positive indications that the league's plan to grow slowly and steadily is working. Landon Donovan's success at Everton, and the league's firmly-established position in the national team player development pipeline spring to mind immediately. Not to mention a growing profile fueled by successful expansion and new stadiums. Meanwhile, domestic criticism normally centers on impossible and irrelevant comparisons to a skewed vision of Europe. It usually comes from people whose notion of the global game begins and ends with England's big four and who think they're experts because they get the Eurosport catalog.

Could an MLS team compete in England or Spain? People ask these questions as if they matter. It's a fantasy. Clubs in those leagues are barely playing the same sport. The real question, the one the haters ignore and the one MLS sweeps under the rug, is "Why can't MLS win in CONCACAF?"

The U.S. national team has established itself firmly as the king of the region. It expects to win every game against every continental opponent save those played at Estadio Azteca and Estadio Ricardo Saprissa, and it usually does. But on the club level, the record is abysmal. For some reason, when those same Mexicans, Costa Ricans (and Hondurans, Panamanians, etc.) trade their national colors for those of their club, they prove far more troublesome. MLS's record against these teams in official competition is an embarrassment, and severely limits any claim the league or its supporters may make regarding global legitimacy.

MLS does not keep official statistics regarding its international performance. FanHouse does, however, and it's not pretty.

MLS clubs have a 71-70-41 record against foreign clubs in official competition. The mark in CONCACAF Champions Cup/League play is 48-47-32. Considering MLS's ambitions and organization, as well as the size/infrastructure of the opponents, this is almost shocking.

It gets worse when you exclude early CONCACAF tournaments that were played as single-elimination events in the U.S. Titles won by D.C. United and Los Angeles occurred under those formats. From 2001, when CONCACAF created a balanced competition that forced teams to play on the road, MLS clubs are 36-42-24. Remember, for every game against a Mexican side, there's one against a team from Jamaica or El Salvador. Fans in those countries know and love their football, but they cheer in stadiums that look like they're going to fall over. These clubs have no business routinely besting established MLS teams. But they do.

MLS's record against Mexican clubs in all competitions, including the three SuperLiga tournaments played entirely in the U.S., is 25-38-17. MLS is 26-18-17 against Central America.

On the road, those numbers plummet. MLS shares the national team's futility in Mexico, it's official 1-17-2 mark boosted by a Chivas de Guadalajara forfeit in the 2001 Copa Merconorte (the predecessor to the Copa Sudamericana). In Central America, MLS is 4-16-7.

The bottom line is even worse. Since 2001, not a single MLS team has reached the Champions Cup/League finals. The peformance since the competition was expanded two years ago has been awful. In the 2008-09 Champions League, MLS compiled a shocking 2-10-6 record. This year it is a less humiliating 7-9-8, but just one of its five entrants (Toronto FC claimed Canada's spot) advanced to the quarterfinals. The fact that the league gets so many spots in the competition is, frankly, indefensible.

About five years ago, D.C. United veteran Jaime Moreno, a Bolivian, was asked why MLS teams had so much trouble in Latin America. He used the word "naive." He said American players were "too nice." He implied a lack of killer instinct, an absence of the desperation and hunger that drives the Latin player. Well, it appears the learning curve remains steep. There hasn't been much progress.

So that is the dubious history Columbus faces this evening. The Crew went 2-2-2 in last fall's group stage, a decent accomplishment considering they were winning the MLS Supporters Shield at the same time. A historic 1-0 triumph at Saprissa in September was the key to its advancement, and that game was not the only one that suggested MLS might be turning a very small corner. D.C. earned a 1-1 tie at Toluca in October - just the second time an MLS side earned a point on the field in Mexico.

Toluca, the Crew's opponent tonight, is a consistent winner in a Mexican league that has as much parity as any major circuit around the world. The nine-time national champion has started the season a mediocre 2-2-5.

Of course, that puts them well-ahead of Columbus, which hasn't played a competitive game in four months. Already down two strikes thanks to history and fitness, the Crew will have to face the Mexicans without their best offensive and defensive players and their captain. Playmaker Guillermo Barros Schelotto and captain Frankie Hejduk are suspended Tuesday night for yellow card accumulation. Central defender Chad Marshall is out with an injured hamstring.

Should Columbus fall, it will have a perfectly good explanation. It can't be expected to beat a wealthy Mexican team in mid-season form without three of its most important players. And considering the fact that nearly all American soccer eyes are focused on the labor issues, the Crew likely will lose relatively anonymously.

Many of the league's other defeats in international play come with similarly reasonable excuses. Each individual game can be explained. But they add up to a sorry total that leads to only one damaging conclusion - MLS is inferior. Until it can beat the teams in its own backyard, it has little ammunition to use against those who try to demean it. Perhaps the collective bargaining process will create the financial flexibility that might boost teams' chances. Until then, the short-handed Crew will face the onslaught and try to avoid becoming yet another sad statistic.