Philadelphia Union will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Columbus Crew were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 12 matches without defeat is a foundation Columbus Crew did not have in the autumn.
Match17 Apr 2027
Another one collected away from home
7 on the bounce on the road for Columbus Crew. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
8.41. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Nəriman Axundzadə was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Owen Acosta kept it short after the 3‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 5 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Words at Columbus Crew training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohamed Farsi is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Columbus Crew, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
The dugout12 Apr 2027
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Owen Acosta chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
5 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Columbus Crew are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Columbus Crew asked and DC United said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mohamed Farsi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
In brief
Player ratingsBrais Méndez was on a different afternoon to everybody else
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Gornik Zabrze had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Josef Martínez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Columbus Crew know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Nobody writes a headline about a tutor. Nobody has to be told, either, what happens to a signing who spends two years being the man nobody can talk to at lunch.
The offer from Gornik Zabrze for Jamal Thiaré was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Hugo Picard and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words at Columbus Crew training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohamed Farsi is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Lautaro Giaccone is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Santiago Rodríguez signs something — a contract at Columbus Crew or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Columbus Crew this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
20 appearances and 2 goals away from here, and a player the manager did not have in August. Loans are sent out hoping for exactly this and most of them do not deliver it.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Columbus Crew training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohamed Farsi is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Nobody at Columbus Crew will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Columbus Crew know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
In brief
SquadAndré Gomes is training like a man with a point to make
Gonzalo Tapia and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at Columbus Crew training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohamed Farsi is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Nobody at Columbus Crew will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Position 2, 17 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Columbus Crew can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Nəriman Axundzadə was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and André Gomes has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mohamed Farsi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Owen Acosta chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Columbus Crew know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
A brace, and Brais Méndez takes the afternoon — 8.52
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Brais Méndez provided it, and the 8.52 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Brais Méndez. 2‑0 against Chicago Fire, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Owen Acosta, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Columbus Crew has been clear about where Nicholas Hagen stands, which is more than many ever get.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
13 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Nobody at Columbus Crew will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Columbus Crew, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Columbus Crew training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohamed Farsi is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
12 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Columbus Crew know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
In brief
Looking aheadLooking ahead: the trip to FC Cincinnati
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Columbus Crew hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Columbus Crew this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 8.19 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Columbus Crew know it.
Still no offer on the table, and André Gomes’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.