Justin Meram Called Up for Olympics, Bad News for Crew

Injuries and national team call ups have hurt the Crew badly this year and they are not over yet; Justin Meram was just called up to the Iraqi national team for the 2016 Olympics.

Columbus’ bad run of form over the course of this season has many reasons behind it.  Not least are poor performances by the players and failed experiments by the manager.  Plain old bad luck has also been a large contributing factor though.  Due to a swath of injuries and national team call ups to Crew first teamers, Berhalter was often forced to play people out of position or blood some youth players too early (several players made their competitive debut during this run of bad luck).  About a month ago though things seemed to be getting better as most of the players forced out were returning to their first team duties.  This is Columbus though, who am I kidding?

Yesterday Justin Meram received a call from the Iraqi FA informing him he may be called up to compete in this summer’s Rio Olympics. Nothing is concrete yet though and Meram had this to say on the matter.

"“I got a call this morning, so it looks like I could be back in it. I don’t even know the details, but there’s a possibility. Right now I’m on the outside looking in, but I got a call. So I still want to see…Four years from now, I’ll be 31, so this is basically my best shot in my prime. So if everything stays the way it is, I’ll be heartbroken. … It’s a youth event, but Neymar is going and all these big-time players. You don’t look at it like that. It’s the Olympics.”"

You certainly understand a player wanting to represent their country at the highest level. Especially a nation such as Iraq which hasn’t been involved in a major tournament for over a decade and has seen its fair share of turmoil in that time.  It just happens to be very bad timing for the Crew.  I generally enjoy when my team’s players represent their countries, but the Crew need absolutely everything they’ve got to scrape together a few wins.  After this weekends trip to New England the Crew play 3 home matches in a row.  The Crew have been very impressive at Mapfre stadium over the past year and a half and this could be a real opportunity to get some momentum in the right direction.  Which is why the Crew have not committed to allowing Meram to go to Brazil yet.

Next: Waylon Francis deserves to start for the Crew

I certainly empathize with Berhalter when he says “I’m caught in between.  On one side, I understand where the player is coming from. On the other side, you look at a team like Argentina – no clubs are letting their players go – it just shows you the hierarchy of where the Olympics are in world soccer”.  It is certainly not a decision I’d like to make and it comes at a truly bad time for the Crew.  My gut feeling here is that he won’t go, but anything can happen.  Of course now that I’ve written this he’ll probably go to Brazil and get Zika…