COLUMBUS – Draft beer in hand, clad in a black Columbus Crew T-shirt like usual, Frankie Hejduk beamed down at the Lower.com Field pitch and the spectacle unfolding on it like a proud father.
“We deserve this, man,” the longtime Crew winger turned brand ambassador told MLSsoccer.com as the final minutes of the 2024 MLS All-Star Game presented by Target ticked away below.
Maybe LDC isn’t the house Frankie built, but it’s not far off. He’s been part of the club for more than 20 years, helping them win a handful of trophies and becoming a beloved member of the community around it.
Hejduk has seen or starred in just about every chapter of this organization’s existence, from its ‘small market’ infancy to 2008 MLS Cup glory to the shock and trauma of the 2017-18 relocation saga, the Save The Crew movement and the renaissance that followed under new ownership. He knows as much as anyone about the peaks and valleys that the Crew and their hard-bitten supporters have trodden to reach a milestone like Tuesday night’s exhibition between the best of the MLS and LIGA MX.
“This team, six, seven years ago was almost about to be nonexistent, and now we're here, and we have a new stadium, we have 25,000 fans here, packed house, people are enjoying it. We have the Mexican league here, we got our best players playing against them – this is all we ever wanted,” he said as he stood next to his former UCLA and US men’s national team colleague Eddie Lewis, whose Toca Football system featured in the MLS All-Star Skills Challenge presented by AT&T the night before.
“As an ex-player, I used to play at Historic Crew Stadium, and we used to always say, ‘we need better facilities, we need better this, better that,’ and we got it here. And these players deserve it. The fans deserve it, and this community deserves it, just because of what we went through for so long. … I think we put on a good show.”
"Proud moment"
Crew general manager Issa Tall’s seen plenty of this arc, too. Amid the hustle and bustle of a high-profile matchnight, he found himself trying to savor the scene.
“It is special for sure. At one point you're just trying to freeze and enjoy, because you look back at five years ago, where we were, and hosting such an event, having the entire league here, having their eyes on us and putting that spectacle for everyone,” he said in a hallway underneath LDC’s west stand. “It’s a proud moment for sure.
“The hard part is to get people here in Columbus, to really experience what we have here. And once they do, I think, hopefully, it becomes almost unanimous that it's a great place to be for soccer.”
It’s a lovely quirk of history that only one other reigning MLS Cup champion has hosted All-Star (the LA Galaxy in 2003). And for all the celebrity and hype in and around this midsummer showcase, the leading character all week has been Columbus itself.
A broader, brighter international spotlight shone on the home faithful clad in Crew gold and black, the traditions they proudly maintain, the tribal allegiance they loudly displayed to their team’s All-Stars with raucous cheers for the likes of Cucho Hernández, Diego Rossi and Darlington Nagbe, even when they did something as pedestrian as jog along in warm-ups.
“Heyyyyyyy, heyyy Cucho,” the Columbus masses sang throughout the first half as their Colombian striker prowled the north end of the pitch in front of the Nordecke section. “I want to knoooooowwwww if you can score a goal.”
He would answer them in the affirmative 17 minutes in, answering onetime Portland Timbers transfer target Germán Berterame’s early opener for LIGA MX with a clinical finish from Rossi’s inviting low cross, then shaking the net giddily with a broad grin as the Nordecke roared their approval.
“The culture of the football here in the city is huge,” D.C. United’s Christian Benteke, who replaced Cucho at halftime, later told MLSsoccer.com. “You can see the love, the passion that the fans had for their players, but for all of us. I think the organization, everything around it's been top.”
"Representation of Columbus"
All-Star provides another milestone, another chance to reflect, give thanks and maybe even brag a bit about what’s been built in Ohio’s capital city.
Not just its glittering theater of a stadium, and the conversion of the Crew’s former home – forever a historical landmark as the United States’ first soccer-specific arena in the modern era – into part shrine, part proving ground with HDC and the attached OhioHealth Performance Center. But the deep, well-worn love, that adversity and the responding resilience that has bonded the club and its people.
“It's been a reward of the courage of the owners, to save the club, and all the family and the ownership group,” said Crew and All-Stars head coach Wilfried Nancy. “Listen, this is a representation of what is Columbus, in terms of the passion for the soccer, and also yes, we see the facility and the stadium and so on, but also the details, you know? To have really good fans and also to understand what they wanted to build and what sort of vision and also to try to leave a legacy.
“I'm really proud to be here, because you know, people sometimes like to talk, but they don't act. And here, we act. And this is really nice to see that.”
They have a beautiful story to tell in Columbus. And it’s not just a feel-good tale. It’s a model club at work, producing beautiful, successful soccer before loyal fans.
“We're winning championships, dude!” exclaimed Hejduk. “So that's what we're doing. This is what we're producing. Let's show it to the world.”
