Careening Columbus Crew kicked in the crotch
Maybe it's too much.
Since Nov,. 8, 2025, when the Columbus Crew were eliminated from the playoffs with a 2-1 loss to the FCs in Cincinnati, 10 players off that roster have left via transfer, trade or loan. The head coach, Wilfried Nancy, left and took three of his assistants with him.
During this calendar year, 18 new players have come in, be they transfers, Crew 2 players, Homegrowns or free agents. Nine new players were imported during the most recent transfer window (July 13-Sept. 2). Others were exported.
The Crew have had two new head coaches. While there was some carryover, the assistants have shuffled (twice in 10 months). There were also changes deeper down the depth chart of the soccer operations department.
General manager Issa Tall has conducted an overhaul of staggering proportions. The remake has yet to yield the hoped-for results.
The Crew are 1-6-1 in MLS play since Aug. 1. They're in 13th place in the Eastern Conference, seven points behind the team holding the last play-in spot, with four teams to jump. Their league record is 6-14-5. They're below .500 at home (5-6-2), and they're tied for the worst road record (1-8-3) in the league.
Some fans – like my good friend, former colleague and soccer aficionado Tom Condor Reed – have seen enough.
Hard to believe #Crew96 won’t clean house at season’s end — barring a Cup win. This was always going to be a transitional season, but all the changes have not made them better. They need a new GM and coach. It’s a bad team.
— Tom Reed (@tomba1919.bsky.social) September 12, 2026 at 9:44 PM
Note: Condor's skeet was issued in the immediate aftermath of the Crew's 1-0 loss to NYRB Saturday night. The Bulls scored in the 89th minute to win.
The big question here is bifurcated.
Do you give Tall the benefit of the doubt – good god, man, he has gutted and rebuilt the whole thing in nine months!? Do you trust that the Crew have enough, and that they just need a bit more time to assimilate under Laurent Courtois?
Or, do you think along the lines of Condor, and think that the Crew should jettison the GM and coach at the end of the season?
To me, results will dictate.
The Crew have nine more regular-season games. If they begin to improve and look like something that resembles formidable by Nov. 7 (when they visit GGG and Chicago on Decision Day), then firing the GM and the coach ahead of a nutty, February-to-April "sprint season" isn't automatic.
Is it crazy to point out they've yet to be eliminated from the playoffs? Yeah, it's a little crazy, but it is no less true.
Let's see if Courtois can whip this nag down the stretch. That's the way I feel.
Here is his most recent take (below). Near the end, he is asked whether he believes in a dictum that comes from an old NFL coach: "You are what your record says you are."
Bring on the U.S. Open Cup. Please. Maybe.
On May 1, US Soccer announced the results of its final draw for the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup tournament. On that day, the quarterfinal matchups were set, and the bracket and hosting scenarios for the remainder of the tournament were outlined.
At this point, it is looking like May 1 was the greatest day of the season for the Crew, because they got lucky. What the final draw showed was that the Crew would be the home team for its U.S.O.C. games for as long as they stayed alive, right on through to the final.
The semis on Wednesday night: Orlando City visits Columbus (7 p.m. kick) and St. Louis City is at Colorado (9:30 p.m.).
The winner of the Orlando-Columbus game will host the final on October 21.
Barring a miraculous stretch run, this is all that is left for the Crew to aspire to this season – this game against Orlando, and a chance to move on to a championship final. As tumultuous and tortuous as 2026 has been, the Black & Gold remain alive for a piece of hardware.
The Crew won the Open Cup once, in 2002, and it was the first trophy for the franchise.
By comparison, their competition appears unbeatable.
Orlando City
MLS record: 10-11-4 with 44 goals for and 56 against. Sixth place in Eastern Conference.
Offensive powerhouse. Defensive sieve ... but improving? The Lions are 4-0-1 in their last five with two shutouts. Or clean sheets, if you like.
Antoine Griezmann – called a "global soccer icon and World Cup winner," and rightfully so, by the club's PR department – signed in March and joined the team in July. La Liga's Atletico waived a transfer fee out of respect for Griezmann's long and productive tenure in Madrid. Griezmann, 35, remains elite. He has eight goals and three assists in 10 appearances with Orlando.
Orlando brought back Daryl Dike on another free transfer during the summer window. Dike, 26, was often injured during his four-year tenure with EPL West Brom. So far with Orlando, Dike has two goals and zero surgical procedures in nine games.
Colorado Rapids
MLS Record: 11-12-2 with 39 goals for and 38 against. Seventh place in the Western Conference.
Colorado visited Columbus on Saturday, Sept. 5, and took a 3-0 thumping from the Crew. Duly note: Colorado did not have its full complement.
The Rapids were busy during the transfer window. They caused an international stir when they sold defender Lucas Herrington, 18, to Hull City for the hefty price of $23 million. They sold forward Rafael Navarro to St. Louis City for $12 million. They made bank. They also spent.
The Rapids' incoming transfers include English winger Morgan Whittaker, who came in from Middlesbrough on a $10.7-million fee; Ghanaian winger Ibrahim Sadiq, who comes from the Dutch club AZ on a $1.2-million fee; and U22 forward Sayed Abu Farkhi, who comes from Maccabi Tel Aviv on a $6-million fee.
All three are still working through their visa paperwork. The point here is they'll be available for selection by the time the USOC final rolls around in October. By then, it's conceivable that the Rapids could be in the top tier of Western teams.
Courtois called Colorado "a beautiful team that will do big things this year."
St. Louis CITY
MLS record: 11-6-8 with 42 goals for and 35 against.
10-6-8 heading into the weekend with 38 goals for and 33 against. Fifth place in the Western Conference.
St. Louis CITY SC has both a capitalized CITY and an SC in its name, but given that the city is the Capital of Soccer in America, they will soon be adding FCRealSportingBCG to their official name.
How good is StLCSC? They're on a 15-game (10-0-5) heater. Nine days ago, they posted what you might call a signature victory – 3-1 over the Sounders in Seattle, where soccer was invented – and followed it up by grinding through a 2-2 midweek draw in Portland, where Caleb Porter was invented, and then beat hapless Minnesota at home on Saturday.
This is a very good team, theoretically bolstered with big-ticket attackers Carlo Holse (a $6-million transfer from a Turkish team) and Navarro ($12 million!). Were they better when Eduard Löwen (traded to San Jose) and Marcel Hartel (transferred to Germany's Hannover96) were pushing them forward? We shall see.
The StLCSC coach is Yoann Damet, a former Crew assistant. Damet was floated as a possible successor to Nancy, but he got away, damet. Patience was required when he took over – the StLCSCs were 1-6-3 through 10 games. They haven't lost since.
They've got Alex Matan on their roster.
They came online in MLS in 2023, and they can smell their first trophy.
For the capital.
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