For Justin Meran, Columbus is a home away from home. The Shelby Township, Michigan native was taken by the Columbus Crew No. 15 overall in the 2011 MLS SuperDraft and made 221 appearances for the club over two stints.
On Saturday, Meram returns to Columbus for the first time since 2019 when he appeared in a U.S. Open Cup match for Atlanta United against the Black & Gold. This time, Meram comes to town with his current team, Real Salt Lake, for Major League Soccer action.
A lot has changed for Meram since he last live in Columbus and played for the Crew in 2019. He is married to his wife Maxine, who he met in Detroit in 2018. The two have two children with another on the way.
Once a young kid making his way in MLS, Meram is now a husband and a father, experiencing life in a different way than his years in Columbus in his new home of Salt Lake City.
“Just enjoying life with my kids, my son and watching them kick the ball,” Meram told Massive Report this week. “Life’s just no more going out on High Street and in the Short North. It’s more playing soccer with my little ones and just enjoying life with the family. That’s what happens when you grow up and have multiple kids.”
On the field, Meram’s game has not changed much from his Black & Gold days. Last season, he played in 33 games, making 27 starts for the Claret and Cobalt, scoring three goals and adding seven assists. He still makes his way up and down the left wing, not afraid to take on an opposing defender. When in attack, Meram still prefers to cut to his right foot whenever possible, looking to bend his “meat hook” shot into the far corner or find a teammate in the penalty box.
Meran, now 34 years old, is a 13-year veteran in MLS and has become a leader for Salt Lake. Last season with Damir Kreilach and Bobby Wood both missing time due to injuries, Meram had to step into more of a leadership role, playing the most minutes (2,289) he had since 2017 with the Crew and helping to guide RSL to a seventh place finish in the Western Conference and an MLS Cup playoff appearance.
Credit for Meram’s leadership skills goes back to his earliest days with the Black & Gold. He referenced Chad Marshall, Danny O’Rourke and Will Hesmer, all veterans for the Crew during Meram’s early days with the club, as players who he looked at as leaders and whom he molds his leadership skills after.
That leadership has been tested some already this season. Real hasn’t gotten off to a good start to 2023 with just one win through the first four matches. Salt Lake has scored just three goals while allowing nine and it hasn’t been easy for Pablo Mastroeni’s side.
“We’re not used to losing at home,” Meram said. “It’s been a little difficult. It’s been the worst start since I’ve been here. I think some of it’s weather. We haven’t been able to train outside once this year. It came down a couple of inches again today. So it’s been difficult. We can’t even train at the stadium field, and it was a new field this year. So I’m not making excuses but obviously difficult circumstances training on turf every day and a lot of injuries these past few weeks.”
Meram, of course, has experienced team struggles before. During his first three seasons in the league, the Black & Gold made the MLS Cup playoffs just once, his rookie year. He was part of a team in transition, having to move on from several players that were key in bringing a first MLS Cup trophy back to Columbus in 2008.
There were off-the-field struggles as well for Meram early on with the Crew as well. The early 2010s saw a different MLS than players and coaches know today. While the idea of Designated Players had been introduced a few years prior to Meram getting drafted, young players just hoped to get by.
“I remember back in 2011, 2012, me and Eric Gehrig rooming together and we had these semi-guaranteed contracts,” Meram reflected. “If we could make it June or July 1, whatever it was, we’d always celebrate that day when we made it past the (contract guarantee) deadline.”
While it may not have seemed positive at the moment, these early days in MLS with the Black & Gold are ones Meram looks back on fondly. It’s when he made some of his closest friends in the league, people like now-team-owner Dr. Pete Edwards and former teammate Josh Williams that Meram still talks to and plans to see upon his return to Columbus.
When Gregg Berhalter took over as the Crew’s sporting director and head coach before the 2014 season, both Meram and the Black & Gold’s trajectory changed. As the team began to rise from consecutive playoff-less seasons, Meram grew as a player, blossoming into a star in MLS, and he credits Berhalter and assistant coaches Josh Wolff and Pat Onstad for helping him in that change.
“A lot of learning moments with those great coaches under Gregg and Wolfy and Pat,” Meram said. “You learn a lot from those guys and you carry it, whether it’s how to be a professional or the tactics of the game. My game really shifted once they all came and took over the team and I really had three, four unbelievable years once they took over.”
As Meram reflected on his time with Columbus, many memories came to mind. The team’s run to the MLS Cup Final in 2015 stood out and specifically his goal against the New York Red Bulls in the Eastern Conference Final, a goal that set a record as the fastest in postseason history.
“Nine-second goal, New York Red Bulls,” Meram said. “They were like our rivals. That moment is — I sat with my son when we had a bye week and we’re just flipping through YouTube on the TV and I was like, ‘Let’s go back and look at some Columbus stuff.’ And just seeing that goal was awesome.”
Of course, no Crew player or coach will remember that playoff run without thinking back to the MLS Cup Final. The Black & Gold hosted the championship game at Historic Crew Stadium but lost 2-1 to the Portland Timbers.
For Columbus fans, that game will always be tainted by the way the first goal by Portland was scored after the ball went out of bounds but was not called on the field. Count Meram in as someone who feels the pain when thinking back to that game.
“That’s the one that still kills me,” Meram said. “Actually on Apple TV, went back — I don’t know why I did it — went back and watched. They had all the MLS Finals on there. Went back and watched and just seeing — it’s like everyone complains about VAR and I’m just like I wish we had VAR back then. That ball was so out. The whole game would have changed and we could have changed history. But that’s life.
“That was just one thing I’ve always wanted. It doesn’t look like it’s going to happen in this lifetime. You never know. Obviously to win an MLS Cup with the team that drafted me, the team that raised a Michigan man and really helped groom and live this fruitful career that I’ve had.”
There are many more memories for Meram when he thinks back to his time in Columbus, too many for him to list. This city took him as a young man freshly out of college and helped him grow into the person who was ready to get married and have children by the time he left. There were mistakes made and lessons learned, good times and bad.
Like the player, the Columbus Meram returns to on Saturday has changed. So too has the team.
After the Save The Crew movement and the change in ownership to keep the Black & Gold in Columbus, an era in which Meram played through, the stadium Meram played those 221 games is now where Crew 2 – part of the MLS NEXT Pro reserve league that didn’t exist in Meram’s time – plays with a state-of-the-art training facility connected to it. Meram and his Crew teammates drove 20 minutes south of Columbus to practice on a small space of two fields, a locker room and a meeting room in the village of Obetz, Ohio.
Meram’s return marks the first time he will walk into Lower.com Field. It will be a shock when compared to Historic Crew Stadium, after the Crew’s new owners built the $314 million stadium, one of the nicest in MLS, in downtown Columbus.
“Obviously a new stadium. I’m excited to see it,” Meram said. “Probably want to smack all the younger kids because they don’t have to train at Obetz. I get to see what we went through and what they’ve got now. But I wouldn’t change it for the world. I made great memories with great teammates. We didn’t have the most luxurious stuff. But we made it work and we found a way to be family and that’s what Columbus is about and what it’s always been about.”
Meram admits that Saturday is likely to be a bit emotional. Earlier this month marked four years since the winger last put on a Crew jersey. He has changed, the city has changed, the team has changed.
What hasn’t changed is the love and appreciation Meram has, and will always have, for the city of Columbus and the Crew. It’s a city that helped raise him and a team that allowed him to live out his dream as a professional soccer player.
That’s something Meram will never forget.
“I owe so much to the city,” he said. “When I tell you nobody really knows what Columbus is to me. There’s a Columbus art thing that someone made for me that’s in my son’s room. And seeing me in that black and gold is always gonna be special.”
MASSIVE REPORT 