The Columbus Crew are going back to the MLS Cup Playoffs for the fourth straight year — and they did not even have to play on Sunday to get there. Columbus clinched its postseason spot on Sunday, November 1, when the two results it needed elsewhere in the Eastern Conference both landed its way, according to reporting by The Columbus Dispatch and MLSsoccer.com.
The Crew set up the clinch themselves on Saturday, beating D.C. United 3-0 at ScottsMiracle-Gro Field to close their regular-season home schedule, a win we covered in our report on the D.C. United match. On Sunday, The Columbus Dispatch reported, Toronto FC lost in Atlanta and the New York Red Bulls lost in Nashville — where Nashville came back from 2-0 down to win 3-2 on a tiebreaking goal in added time — and those two losses locked Columbus into the field.
MLSoccer.com, the league’s official site, confirmed the picture: with one match left in the regular season, the Crew sit eighth in the Eastern Conference in the Wild Card spots, on 44 points with a 13-15-5 record. The league site also noted that Columbus reached the postseason for the fourth straight year under interim manager Laurent Courtois, who took over after the club parted ways with head coach Henrik Rydström in May.
To appreciate the finish, it helps to remember where this team stood two months ago. The Columbus Dispatch reported that Columbus was last in the Eastern Conference on September 1, with 12 regular-season matches left, and that at that point the 2026 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup looked like the only trophy the Crew would contend for this season. Even a U.S. Open Cup loss to St. Louis SC on penalty kicks on October 21 did not stop the climb, The Dispatch reported.
Since bottoming out in the East, Columbus has gone 8-3-0, won its last five MLS matches and taken seven of its past eight in league play, according to The Columbus Dispatch. That run moved the Crew to eighth place — one spot above the final playoff position — with a week still to spare before the regular-season finale.
The turnaround also followed a difficult midseason overhaul. MLSsoccer.com reported that Columbus transferred U.S. men’s national team wingback Max Arfsten to English Championship side Middlesbrough and forward Diego Rossi to Mexican powerhouse CF Monterrey, then rebuilt its attack around Designated Players Brais Méndez and Santiago Rodríguez. Méndez has five goals and four assists since arriving from Spain’s Real Sociedad, and Rodríguez has three goals and seven assists after moving from Brazil’s Botafogo, MLSsoccer.com reported.
The supporting cast has mattered, too. MLSsoccer.com pointed to defender Steven Moreira, part of Cape Verde’s run to the knockout stages of the 2026 FIFA World Cup and the league’s Defender of the Year in 2024, anchoring the back line alongside Sean Zawadzki, a breakout season from homegrown midfielder Taha Habroune, and steady goalkeeping from Patrick Schulte. The Dispatch credited general manager Issa Tall’s overhaul for the late surge.
The Crew are chasing a fourth MLS Cup title in club history, having won most recently in 2023, and a fifth trip to the final, according to MLSsoccer.com. Our earlier preview, Columbus Crew Can Clinch a Playoff Berth Saturday Against D.C. United, laid out the path that the weekend’s results completed.
Columbus has now reached the playoffs in every season since its 2023 MLS Cup title run, a streak that looked improbable at the start of September. The eighth-place finish also means the Crew’s postseason road, if the standings hold, begins in the single-match Wild Card round rather than the best-of-three first round reserved for the top seven seeds in each conference, according to the playoff format published by MLSsoccer.com.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on
What we know: Columbus is in, eighth in the East on 44 points, with the Wild Card round ahead if the standings hold, and the playoffs open November 18 with the Wild Card matches ahead of MLS Cup on December 18, according to MLSsoccer.com. What we are still waiting on: the Crew’s final seeding and Wild Card opponent, which the last weekend of the regular season will decide.
What happens next: the Crew get a week to recover and train before the regular-season finale on November 7 in Chicago, The Columbus Dispatch reported. A result there can only improve their position — the hard part, a fourth straight trip to the postseason, is already done.
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