A prediction for the Union’s season opener vs. Columbus

The Crew are a very good team — in fact, a leading candidate to be the most-improved team leaguewide this year.

Union midfielder José Andrés Martínez (left) in action during the Columbus Crew's visit to Subaru Park last April.Read moreCHARLES FOX / Staff Photographer

Published Feb. 25, 2023, 1:22 p.m. ET

If I ran a soccer team, I probably wouldn’t kick off a season with expletive-laden criticism of a rival that last year scored the most goals in the league and set a new record for fewest goals allowed.

But thanks to the anonymous executive who gave those quotes to The Athletic’s latest survey of front offices league wide, the Union now have enough bulletin-board material to heat Subaru Park to Palestra levels when the temperature outside drops to freezing Saturday night.

That will help the Union try to not just beat the Columbus Crew in the season opener (7:30 p.m., Apple TV, free of charge), but do something they’ve done just once before in their history: win a home opener on a season’s opening weekend. This will be the sixth opening-weekend games in Chester in the Union’s 14-year-history. Of the previous five, two were losses, two were ties, and the one win came in 2018.

Columbus is a very good team — in fact, a leading candidate to be the most-improved team leaguewide this year. The Crew already had a very good roster, but previous manager Caleb Porter struggled to make the pieces click since leading the team to the title in 2020. New boss Wilfried Nancy got my Coach of the Year vote last season for leading an unheralded CF Montréal squad to second place in the East. He’s the right kind of leader to get the Crew winning again, and it’s no surprise that Jim Curtin has a lot of respect for him.

I think playing at home will carry the night for the Union, but it won’t be easy.

Prediction: Union 2, Columbus 1.