That never stopped anyone before...

Keith Costigan had an interesting thought in his power rankings this week.
He, like many (including me), isn't entirely convinced that Columbus is for real. But his argument is the following: "The Crew still lack a striker who can score 15 to 20 goals and that may ultimately be their downfall in the quest for MLS Cup."

Hmmm. I thought back about some of the most dominant performances by strikers in MLS (I'm thinking Stern John, Mamadou Diallo, Luciano Emilio and JPA last year). How many MLS Cups did those guys win? Do you really need a 15 goal scorer to win MLS Cup?

It turns out you'd be better off not having a 15 goal scorer on the team: 8 of 12 MLS Cup winners didn't. And of the 24 MLS Cup finalists, 14 teams didn't have a 15 goal scorer.

So, no, Keith, having a 15-20 goal scorer isn't a pre-requisite for winning MLS Cup. And given that Columbus is third in the league with 14 goals scored, I'm not sure the forward tandem of Robbie Rogers and Alejandro Moreno is a problem. In fact, given that Alejandro Moreno was a starter on an MLS Cup winning team, despite never scoring more than 8 goals in his career, I'd say he definitely isn't the problem.