Columbus Crew fire head coach Henrik Rydstrom after poor start to 2026 MLS season

The Crew opted to fire the manager mostly because of a poor start on the pitch, general manager Issa Tall confirmed to The Athletic. But results were not the only things going wrong:

"You have to look at it from three sides," Tall said. "One is obviously results. We have three wins in 14 games. Two is the way we want to play. It’s been better now than earlier in the season, but it’s still not there. An example is last night. Lastly, culturally, it did not click. We believe a change was much needed."

Rydstrom, in fairness, was handed a near-impossible job with one of MLS's original franchises. Wilfried Nancy oversaw a period of immense success for the Crew before departing for Celtic at the end of last season. And although the Frenchman's time in Scotland was admittedly brief, the Crew were always going to have difficulty replacing one of the most impactful managers in recent league history.

However, Tall claimed that a return for their former boss is not necessarily on the cards and that they plan on sticking with Courtois.

"Look, we want to give Laurent a shot, and he deserves it," Tall said. "Last I remember, Wilfried has European aspirations. We want to stick to Laurent and give him the best tools to succeed."

It does not seem, however, that the Crew will have many chances to make major changes to their roster. Big-money designated player Wessam Abou-Ali suffered a torn ACL earlier this year, while Daniel Gazdag and Diego Rossi are already on the books. For the most part, then, Courtois will have to work with what he has.

Still, for all of the Crew's struggles, there remains a long way to go in the MLS season. Columbus has just one more game before the MLS takes an extended break for the World Cup. They are four points below the playoff line with nearly 20 games remaining.