by Ridge Mahoney @ridgemax, Mar 22, 2016

It’s a given that against a championship team every opponent aims to raise its game, yet the same is also true so far in 2016 for last year’s losing MLS Cup finalist.

As one of five teams winless so far this season, Crew SC is running into roadblocks effectively deployed to blunt the wing play of Justin Meram and Ethan Finlay, the playmaking penetration of Federico Higuain, and the robust finishing of Kei Kamara. After incurring defeats in its first two games, the Crew finally got into the points column, albeit by tying Chicago, 0-0, on the road Friday.

Head coach Gregg Berhalter and his players will take it.

"If you watch what Portland did, the defending MLS champions, they did the same thing,” said Berhalter. “Philadelphia did the same thing. It’s a decent blueprint. It makes it much tougher on us. We have to be much more precise. We are lacking that precision right now.

“It’s a way to try to keep us off the scoreboard, and it was effective. I think a lot of credit goes to the coach and the team.”

Said captain and centerback Michael Parkurst, “We need to be better when teams pack it in against us because a lot of teams do that. It’s something that we are working on and being more patient with. But we’ll take the result today.”

Meram’s recovery from offseason sports-hernia surgery had limited his playing time in preseason and kept him on the substitutes bench for the 2-1 losses at Portland (2-1) and at home against Philadelphia. In his first start of the season at Chicago, he played a tentative yet not ineffective 73 minutes, taking three shots and getting one on frame. He also won four tackles and picked up the game’s first caution in the 38th minute.

“You could tell he was a little uncertain,” said Berhalter of Meram, who set personal highs last year of 28 starts and five assists in addition to scoring six goals. “I told him as he is coming off the field that what I’m most happy and proud of is his work. He gave everything he had. It wasn’t perfect. You can see he’s a little rusty. He’s getting back into form. His effort was exceptional. I’m happy about that.

Columbus outshot the Fire, 12-4, but forced only one really good save from one of its former Homegrown signings, keeper Matt Lampson, who stretched mightily to tip a rising blast by Finlay wide of the post. The game was Finlay’s 100th for the club and afterwards he left to join the U.S. training camp for its next two 2018 World Cup qualifiers against Guatemala.

“This was his best game so far this year and he’s getting into form,” said Berhalter. ‘That’s going to be important for us because he is so valuable for us. And what he gives us is a work rate; he gives us great timing of runs right in front of goal and very good execution.

“So we are proud of Ethan, we’re proud of everything he’s accomplished so far in his young MLS career, and I’m excited to see what he continues to do.”

The Crew doesn’t play during the FIFA break so all Berhalter has to worry about is players returning healthy. Along with Finlay, the callups are Harrison Afful (Ghana), Rodrigo Saravia (Guatemala), Tony Tchani (Cameroon) and Will Trapp (U.S. U-23s). Columbus is on the road for its first two games after the break: at Dallas April 2 and Montreal April 9.

Reaching the MLS Cup final last year represented a natural progression by Columbus, which qualified for the 2014 postseason and was steamrollered, 7-3, on aggregate during New England’s run to the final game. Though 10 players departed after the 2015 championship game, only defender Emmanuel Pogatetz started as many as 16 games, and he wasn’t a regular in the second half of the season.

Berhalter and his staff added league veterans Corey Ashe and Conor Casey to add depth but for the most part has stood by the players who earned Columbus just the second MLS Cup final appearance in the team’s 20-year history. Imports Ola Kamara (out with a thigh strain) and Emil Larsen (three minutes) have not had an impact.

One point in three games is a slow start but Columbus didn’t blast out the blocks last year either and nearly took the title. Kamara, Higuain, Finlay, Tchani and Parkhurst are all among the league’s top players in their positions.

“If you look at last year where we were, we have three points after three games,” said Berhalter. “We had five points after five. So you put it all into perspective, I think we’re fine. It’s a long season.

“It’s finally starting to sink in how teams want to play against us, and how hard each win and each point is going to be. And that’s our reality. And that’s fine and we’ll deal with it and we’ll move on.”