A Dutch daily newspaper, de Gelderlander, reports that Crew goalkeeper Eloy Room is angling to rejoin his former club, Vitesse of the Dutch Eredivisie, without a transfer fee. Vitesse needs a goalie and hopes to have Room back before training camp begins July 20.
The international transfer window opened July 5 and will close Aug. 2. According to the Dutch newspaper report, Room must “hand in a ton of salary” to get out of his Crew contract, which runs through the end of the year and includes a club option on a one-year extension. The MLS Players Association lists Room’s 2023 guaranteed compensation at $898,000.
Crew president/general manager Tim Bezbatchenko has a running dialogue with Room, an esteemed veteran.
However, Bezbatchenko said, “We have not heard from Vitesse. We’re trying to respect Eloy, as we respect all of our players. … Right now, there is nothing to report. We’ve had no formal conversations with any club overseas.”
Bezbatchenko also touched on the situation surrounding midfielder Aidan Morris, who left the U.S. Men’s National Team for personal reasons July 2. The USMNT advanced to the semifinal round of the Gold Cup with a penalty-kick victory over Canada on Sunday in Cincinnati.
“Aidan is back (in Columbus) and in training,” Bezbatchenko said. “We’re not going to get into ‘personal reasons’ out of respect for Aidan’s privacy. We’ve been in touch with the national team and they’re OK with him coming back with Columbus.”
Room, 34, has been among the best, and most highly paid, goalkeepers in MLS since he crossed the pond and joined the Crew in 2019. This year has been a tough one for him. It began with a visa issue followed by a knee injury. That left the door open for Patrick Schulte, 22, who was last year’s MLS Next Pro goalkeeper of the year with Crew 2.
Room is 1-1-1 in three starts. Schulte is 9-5-5 with four shutouts. Shulte’s ability to play off his line, handle the ball with his feet and launch right-armed cannon shots to midfield have clearly placed him in the favor of coach Wilfried Nancy.
It’s tough to predict where Room’s situation goes from here, what with the Crew in fourth place in the Eastern Conference and in position to aspire, and with the Crew, Vitesse and Room each watching their own bottom lines. If Room wants to go, one hopes he is afforded the chance. The Curacao international has been a credit to Columbus and a favorite of Crew fans.
Room is one of six players who remain from the Crew’s 2020 MLS Cup championship team. The others are Lucas Zelarayan, Josh Williams, Darlington Nagbe, Luis Diaz and Morris. After winning the Cup, coach Caleb Porter’s teams went 23-21-24 in league play over the next two seasons and twice failed to make the playoffs. Porter was fired last fall.
Bezbatchenko got his first chance to hire a coach of his choosing and the early returns are promising. Not everything Nancy has touched turned to gold, but there is a certain gleam to his first 22 games in Columbus, and his xG, if you will, is shiny.
The Crew has one more game, at Portland on Saturday, before the All-Star break. It’s a good time to take stock. Here’s the bottom line: The Crew (10-6-6) lead the league in goals (43), are tied for second in differential (plus-13) and are unbeaten in their past eight (5-0-3).
They’ve had a few Porter flashbacks. They’ve given up game-tying or game-winning goals in the 80th minute or later four times, thrice in second-half stoppage time, this season. They’ve had interludes when their high-pressure offense has hit a wall against well-bunkered defenses.
Mostly, though, they’ve moved forward with little relent.
Bezbatchenko has performed a GM master class. It started with the acquisition of forward Christian Ramirez, who is tied for the team lead in goals with eight. It continued with aggressive hole plugging in the form of veteran defenders Malte Amundsen and Gustavo Vallecilla.
One wonders what Bezbachenko and his scouts have found in Yevhen Cheberko, 25, a much-needed, left-footed center back who moved from a Croatian club to Columbus through the current transfer window. He should be in shape to play on the other side of the All-Star break. After all the cutting and pasting that has been done on the back end, will it settle into a Cheberko-Milos Degenek-Steven Moreira line?
It seems like that’s the idea.
The offensive stars of the team — Cucho Hernandez and Zelarayan — have combined for 13 goals and 17 assists, and it feels like Cucho isn’t even warmed up. The Crew have scored nearly as many goals through 22 games as Porter’s teams did in two full (34-game) seasons (2021 and 2022). The Crew have already scored more goals than they did in the COVID-shortened, 23-game season of 2020, when they won it all.
Nancy has worked wonders with young players who’ve been promoted through the organizational system, such as midfielder Sean Zawadzki, wing back Mo Farsi, Schulte and the rest. He has taken players Porter wanted no part of, such as midfielder Alexandru Matan and wing back Yaw Yeboah, and turned them into important contributors.
There’s a very good vibe about all of this.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: While Eloy Room rumors swirl, Aidan Morris returns to Columbus Crew
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