The move had been expected for some time with the Five Stripes in freefall
Atlanta United has announced that it has fired head coach Gonzalo Pineda, with assistant Rob Valentino taking over on an interim basis.
The move has been anticipated for some time, as the Five Stripes are in the midst of a run of just one win in 11 matches and five straight home defeats.
Pineda’s final game in charge was a 3-2 home loss to Charlotte FC on Sunday, dropping Atlanta to 13th in the 15-team Eastern Conference.
“We are grateful to Gonzalo for his commitment and dedication to the club over the last four seasons. He has been an exemplary ambassador for the organization, and we want to thank him for his contributions to the club,” Atlanta United CEO and president Garth Lagerwey said in a club statement.
“We made this decision in an effort to move the team in a new direction. As we continue to evaluate all aspects of our sporting operation, Rob will have our full support to turn our season around in the second half.”
Pineda took over as head coach in August 2021 after previously serving as an assistant with the Seattle Sounders. The 41-year-old led Atlanta to the postseason twice, in 2021 and 2023, but the club exited in the first round on both occasions.
Overall, Pineda led the club to a record of 34W-29D-34L in league play.
MLS teams have been here before, but no one has ever been as expansive or impressive as this Crew side
In Saturday’s Concacaf Champions Cup final, the Columbus Crew are looking to break new ground for MLS.
A victory over Pachuca would not, in and of itself, be a first. MLS has been tormented by this tournament over the years, but the league has not quite been Sisyphus pushing his boulder up a hill in Tartarus.
The Seattle Sounders were widely lauded for claiming a place as Concacaf’s top club in 2022. That triumph ended a decades-long spell that saw MLS clubs suffer a few heartbreakingly narrow losses in the final, and rather more morale-sapping blowout defeats at various Liga MX stadiums. That Sounders team wasn’t a first, either, though Champions Cup wins by D.C. United (1998) and the LA Galaxy (2000) are often unfairly waved away as ancient oddities.
What Columbus is attempting to do is different, from two important angles.
First, there’s the practical side. D.C. and the Galaxy had to come through three games from start to finish, most of which were played at home in one-week events. Concacaf’s premier club competition is a far more daunting task these days.
The Sounders, through no fault of their own, had a path that involved Honduran side Motagua and fellow MLS club New York City FC. Seattle did knock off two Liga MX sides in Club León and Pumas, but that league’s true giants never got in the way.
Contrast that with the Crew, who after disposing of the Houston Dynamo in the round of 16 have only faced Mexican opposition. The last two rounds have involved seeing off Tigres — a team that, perhaps more than any other, has been an MLS killer over the years — and Monterrey, the region’s most expensively-assembled squad.
So yes, the Crew have taken the hard road to this final. However, just how Wilfried Nancy’s team has accomplished that is even more notable.
MLS teams have generally crept through the Champions Cup (or, for most of its recent existence, the Champions League) hoping to snatch narrow victories on the basis of defensive organization, the avoidance of errors, and a little luck. It’s been about grit, intensity, and opportunism, but MLS teams — whether they won it all like Seattle, or got humbled like so many other examples — have avoided the burden of being the protagonist in this tournament.
Taking risks? In Mexico? It’s simply not done.
And yet the Crew stuck to their guns while staring down stared down André-Pierre Gignac, coming back from a goal down in both legs to force penalties. Tigres fans, stunned though they were, applauded Columbus off the pitch at El Volcán.
(Photo by Azael Rodriguez/Getty Images)
Columbus then returned to Nuevo Leon to take on Monterrey, again welcoming pressure and maneuvering through it. A first-leg win at home seemed to point to a conservative approach in Mexico, and Columbus instead played its unique, high-risk style. Monterrey chased ghosts for most of that second leg, then watched on in disbelief as the Crew turned all that effort against their hosts.
In MLS, these things just do not happen. It’s not just conventional wisdom that says to park the bus when playing in Mexico; it’s hard-won knowledge, a response stemming from justifiable fear.
Years of heavy losses showed that between the charged atmosphere and the different caliber of player available to Liga MX clubs, MLS teams had a very limited range of options to select from to advance in Concacaf knockout play.
The script goes something like this: Somehow win at home by multiple goals, then go to Mexico and hang on for dear life. If your goalkeeper plays out of his skull, and the referee isn’t completely cowed, and you get some good fortune on top of that, then — maybe, and only once in a while — you survive.
Columbus has not simply survived in this Champions Cup, nor have they been carried by a transcendent superstar. They were every bit as good as Tigres in the quarterfinal, and deserved their victories in both legs over Monterrey. Cucho Hernández, between team discipline and injury, hasn’t been the hero. Diego Rossi is the Crew’s leading scorer in this competition, while goalkeeper Patrick Schulte was the star of a penalty-kick triumph over Tigres.
In terms of approach, this Crew team functions outside of MLS norms, particularly given the league’s history of playing follow-the-leader when it comes to tactics. Going all the way back to the league’s formative years, the rhythm involves one team succeeding with a given approach — going all-in on a playmaker like Marco Etcheverry, or the counter-attacking nightmare that was the Galaxy side built around Landon Donovan and Robbie Keane — and the others falling in line.
Columbus has its success, and has been showered with praise for its stylish play, but what it doesn’t yet have is a copycat. The Crew’s willingness to welcome pressure comes in a league full of high-pressing teams. Possession-oriented teams in MLS are fairly traditional, or are looking towards the positional play espoused by Manchester City under Pep Guardiola. No one else wants to give the Crew’s approach a shot.
Mandatory Credit: Adam Cairns-USA TODAY Sports
And yet, in so many ways Columbus is MLS. This club has hit all the familiar notes since coming online for the league’s first season: a weird logo, a historic (if rustic) home venue, and an existential threat. You’re not an MLS original without those experiences.
Columbus pulls its club legends from the same two groups (CONMEBOL attackers arriving towards the end of their prime years, or hard-working U.S. men’s national team standouts) that most of MLS has gone to over the years.
The current version is, in some ways, not an exception at all. Cucho required major Designated Player spending, but most teams have a player that cost more than $5 million to bring in from abroad at this point.
Schulte came to the club via the SuperDraft, while the club’s academy system — bolstered by its successful MLS Next Pro squad — has produced players like Aidan Morris and Sean Zawadski. Astute trades have landed a foundational player in Darlington Nagbe as well as defensive starters like Rudy Camacho and Malte Amundsen.
In other words, Columbus hasn’t reinvented the wheel, nor are they pushing the outer limits of the rulebook like Inter Miami. The Crew are just better at being a normal MLS team than anyone else has been in recent years.
MLS has always hoped to see its teams not just win at this level, but to win “the right way,” whatever that means during a given period’s trends. The league’s structure doesn’t include the punishment of relegation, and the frankly unhealthy levels of pressure seen in some places don’t exist here. A player that misses a stoppage-time penalty kick on Saturday can go grocery shopping on Sunday without fear of being accosted.
And yet, over the years so few teams have actually taken this opening to be distinctive, to do something no one else in the league has really done. One of the league’s great heartbreaks in Concacaf play came when a Real Salt Lake team built with an unusual commitment to keeping the ball fell to Monterrey in the 2011 final.
That side stood out not just because MLS had failed to send a team to a Concacaf final in the preceding decade, but because RSL played “the right way.” Their defeat was mourned because they didn’t get the reward for coloring outside of MLS’s lines.
Columbus, by just about any definition, plays “the right way.” In a sea of high-pressing teams who play the percentages, work extremely hard, and get physical, the Crew are an island. Columbus sees a team that wants to deploy a high line of contention, and is glad. The Crew encourage teams: come closer, pressure the ball, chase it!
Somehow the major recurring image of a Crew game under Nancy is Crew defender Steven Moreira standing still, the ball at his feet…and it’s exhilarating to watch. It calls to mind the primal, empathetic fight-or-flight response evoked by a matador, just without the nihilistic violence of a bullfight.
Monterrey doesn’t plan on sending seven players within 30 yards of the Crew goal in this sequence. It’s not what they want at all. And yet, they keep being convinced to risk just a little bit more: one more five-yard sprint, one more player stepping high. You can almost hear them buzzing with anticipation of winning the ball in the attacking third.
And yet, like the unwitting supporting players in a slasher flick, every player making that individual choice to step high and leave a safe position is jogging to their doom.
Los Rayados start the above sequence with one player holding space up high. By the time the Crew break the press, fully seven blue-and-white-striped shirts are 80 or more yards away from their own goal, watching as Columbus breaks the other way.
MLS teams have long talked a big game in terms of aspiring to a style of play, but when push has come to shove, most choose safety over dogma. There have been a few “this is who we are” true believers over the years, but none have been able to execute at this high a level. Again: this is the Crew doing this to Monterrey, a club serving as pioneers in Concacaf in terms of expenditure on players.
Aidan Morris, in a quote published by MLSsoccer.com, summed up the Crew, but also gave away how very unlike its MLS peers this team really is.
“[Nancy] says it’s an infinite game, so he’s always pushing us to try new things [and] experiment,” said the young USMNT prospect. The idea of a coach approaching Concacaf play and talking about infinite possibilities — of opening the tactical door to more, rather than less — is unprecedented.
This Columbus side will live long in the memory regardless of what happens on Saturday; their accomplishments, as Crew fans will surely tell you, are already massive.
However, a win at Estadio Hidalgo will mark not just the biggest moment in the club’s 29-year history. It would be a high-water mark for what is possible for MLS as a league, as well as an extraordinarily clear example of what can be done in this restrictive league with the right players, coach, and framework.
A win on Saturday doesn’t just cement this Crew team as one of MLS’s great sides. This is the chance to shift the entire trajectory of a league, to show every other club what lies beyond the horizon.
A key player for the Reggae Boyz may end up watching Copa América from afar
Jamaica will likely have to play this summer’s Copa América without captain Andre Blake.
The Philadelphia Union announced Wednesday that the goalkeeper will miss the next four-to-six weeks after surgery to repair a small meniscus tear.
“It was a minor surgery where there were a couple of little loose flaps in there and they cleaned up his meniscus, which had a little minor, minor tear,” said Union head coach Jim Curtin.
Blake’s recovery timeline will make it very difficult for the goalkeeper to join up with the Reggae Boyz at the 2024 Copa América, which starts in just over three weeks.
A four-week recovery for the 33-year-old would prevent him from playing any part in Jamaica’s group-stage opener against Mexico on June 22. If his return-to-play process carries into the long end of his recovery timeline, Blake wouldn’t be able to play unless Jamaica went to at least the semifinals (July 9-10).
However, in quotes published by the Philadelphia Inquirer, Curtin said that he couldn’t make any declarations about Blake’s status for the tournament.
“It’ll be touch-and-go for him [at Copa América],” said Curtin. “He’s not formally out — it’ll be a week-by-week thing. I’m not here to rule Andre out of anything. Four-to-six [weeks] is just a guideline.”
Even if Blake were to return quickly, there will be questions about just how sharp he can be. The veteran has not appeared for the Union since April 30, and Blake has appeared in just eight of Philadelphia’s 19 games during the 2024 season.
Columbus got a major boost Wednesday, as Cucho returned to training just in time to face Pachuca
The Columbus Crew should have a major piece of the puzzle back for Saturday’s Concacaf Champions Cup final.
After three games on the sidelines, Cucho Hernández is set to return for the Crew, who face Pachuca at Estadio Hidalgo.
“The idea is that he going to be available, so he wants to have a good game, and we want that also,” Columbus head coach Wilfried Nancy told reporters during a press conference on Wednesday. “We’re all happy that he’s back, and hopefully he will be able to have a good performance.”
Cucho, the Crew’s leading scorer last season, had missed MLS wins over CF Montréal, the Chicago Fire, and Orlando City with a back injury, but participated in Wednesday’s training session with no apparent issues.
Nancy noted that while the Colombia forward hadn’t been able to train or play in those recent games, he was able to do the altitude training the Crew has undergone to better prepare for this clash with Pachuca. Estadio Hidalgo sits 7,979 feet above sea level, making this one-off final all the more difficult.
The Columbus manager did express a note of caution in discussing Cucho’s status, saying that his side must “find the balance, because when we are so excited to play the game, sometimes you can overplay.” Nancy did not make any declaration over whether Cucho was fit to start a match that could go 120 minutes, or whether he would be kept on the bench at first.
Since joining the Crew in the summer of 2021, Cucho has been arguably the most consistent attacking player in all of MLS. In 67 total appearances, the 25-year-old has 39 goals and 13 assists, functioning as both Columbus’ deadliest goalscorer as well as one of the team’s best chance creators.
In his absence, Nancy has turned to a mix of players including target man Christian Ramirez, attacking midfielder Alexandru Mățan, and winger Marino Hinestroza.
MLS may treasure a Champions Cup victory, but per Diego Rossi Columbus just wants to win it for themselves
The Columbus Crew will face plenty of pressure to win Saturday’s Concacaf Champions Cup final against Pachuca, but per forward Diego Rossi, it’s all internal.
Facing the biggest game in club history, the Crew will head to Estadio Hidalgo hearing plenty of talk about how MLS’s aspirations are as much on the line as the club’s own hopes.
It is, after all, a rare opportunity for an MLS club to claim Concacaf’s biggest club prize, and the league has long placed a major emphasis on regional supremacy as the next step towards global prominence. In MLS’s 28 previous seasons, only nine of its clubs have gotten to this stage, and only three of those sides proceeded to win the final.
However, if you ask Rossi — who leads the Crew with three goals in the tournament — the Crew are only focused on bringing glory to Columbus.
“We don’t have another kind of pressure, or [at least] I don’t feel like this,” Rossi said in a Tuesday press conference. “I want to win every game and this is what I’m working for.
“We want to win like we already did there, in Mexico, but we just have our pressure, that we want to win. So yeah, I have maybe that pressure to win, but not from another [source].”
Rossi added that the MLS Cup champions — who are currently on a 5W-1D-1L run that includes wins in both legs of the club’s Concacaf Champions Cup semifinal over Monterrey — are “in a good way.”
“I think a good moment for the team,” explained the 26-year-old. “Obviously it’s a different competition, but I think the team is good, [and] working hard. For me, it’s the most important thing to go and have a great game there in the final.
“It’s a different competition, but you always want to win every game and to do good in every competition. We were focused last week on MLS, and we are focused on another competition [now], so yeah, we are training hard.”
Tall task ahead of Columbus at Estadio Hidalgo
It will still take something special for the Crew to become the fourth MLS club to win the Champions Cup, as the final will be held as a one-off event in Mexico due to Pachuca’s better overall record in this year’s competition.
Los Tuzos have not lost a game in regulation play in over a month, and managed to knock newly-crowned Liga MX champions Club América out to earn the place in this weekend’s final. Pachuca faced América in the Mexican playoffs as well, holding the Mexico City powerhouse to two 1-1 draws and only going out by virtue of being the lower-seeded team.
Additionally, Pachuca has a massive home-field advantage in terms of altitude. Even trips to play the Colorado Rapids will not prepare the Crew for Estadio Hidalgo, which sits 7,979 feet (over 1.5 miles) above sea level.
Guillermo Almada’s side showed just how meaningful that can be when it last hosted MLS competition. Back in March, the Philadelphia Union were on the wrong side of a 6-0 demolition, and no MLS side has ever walked out of the venue with a win.
Rossi brushed that history aside, insisting that the Crew won’t be intimidated.
“It’s just, be focused on the game and try to [make sure] this kind of thing doesn’t affect our game,” said Rossi. “We know that [altitude is] there, but we need to be focus on our ideas and our football.”
Martino didn’t feel like he needed to apologize — but he did so anyway
Inter Miami head coach Gerardo “Tata” Martino didn’t feel like he needed to apologize for his stars’ absence at Vancouver, but he did so anyway.
Lionel Messi, Luis Suárez, and Sergio Busquets all didn’t make the trip to for Inter Miami’s game against the Whitecaps on Saturday, disappointing fans who thought they’d get a glimpse of the star trio.
A record crowd of 51,035 showed up at BC Place, as the Herons still managed a 2-1 road victory through goals from Robert Taylor and Leo Campana.
Prior to the game, the Whitecaps issued an extraordinary statement confirming the star trio’s absence themselves, rather than taking the traditional path of waiting for Inter Miami to announce the decision.
“Unfortunately, we have no control over who plays for our opponent, and it was important for us to communicate to our fans as soon as possible,“ Whitecaps CEO Axel Schuster said in the statement.
Martino said he understood the disappointment of fans — many of whom paid exorbitant ticket prices on the secondary market — but emphasized that his priority was protecting his players.
“Obviously [the win] is very important for us because of the absences we had,” Martino said in his post-game press conference.
“The expectation that people have. I really don’t think I have to apologize, but in some ways we are very sorry for not being able to travel with our stars. There is a question, we have or have come without our great players. Leo, Luis, Busi, Diego Gómez and still we have competed very well.”
Inter Miami is back in action on Wednesday when it faces Atlanta United at home. All of the team’s stars are expected to be available.
Disappointed fans will have one option to ease their pain: more soccer!
Fans with tickets to the Vancouver Whitecaps match against Inter Miami on Saturday may be feeling a bit despondent right now.
After many paid exorbitant prices for the match, the Whitecaps announced on Thursday evening that the main attraction, Lionel Messi, wouldn’t be making the trip to British Columbia.
If that weren’t enough, Luis Suárez, and Sergio Busquets will also miss out on the MLS match. None are known to be injured, as it appears the veteran trio are simply being spared the cross-continental journey to play on turf.
In an effort at damage control, the Whitecaps took the unusual step of confirming the trio’s absence themselves, rather than wait for Inter Miami to make the announcement. The Canadian club also offered fans some discounts on food and beverages.
But now those disappointed fans will have one more option to ease their pain: more soccer!
Vancouver FC announced on Thursday that any fan with a ticket to the Whitecaps-Inter Miami match could gain free entry to their derby match against Pacific FC on Saturday.
The Canadian Premier League side made the offer, it said, “in light of the recent news that a certain Argentinan football player is unable to make the match with our sold-out neighbors downtown.”
The CPL game will take place at 3 p.m. at Willoughby Community Park, which would give fans time to make the roughly 45-minute journey to BC Place to catch the 7:30 p.m. kickoff of the MLS match.
The Canadian club said the statement was designed to inform fans as soon as possible
Lionel Messi, Luis Suárez, and Sergio Busquets all won’t make the trip to Vancouver for Inter Miami’s game against the Whitecaps on Saturday.
Instead of Inter Miami confirming the news themselves, the announcement was actually made on Thursday by the Whitecaps.
It was an unusual move, which Vancouver CEO Axel Schuster said was designed to get the message out to fans as soon as possible.
“While we haven’t received an official update on the availability of Lionel Messi, Luis Suárez, and Sergio Busquets for this weekend, we understand they will not make this trip. Unfortunately, we have no control over who plays for our opponent, and it was important for us to communicate to our fans as soon as possible,“ Schuster said in a club statement.
“We always want our best players going up against our opponent’s best players, and facing players of the highest pedigree was especially exciting for our team. We know that there will also be a lot of disappointed fans.
“We remain committed to making this a special experience for everyone. It is still going to be an incredible atmosphere and celebration of soccer for our city. We have amazing fans, we have a good team, and Saturday’s match is a very important home game for us.”
The Whitecaps are expecting a club record MLS-era crowd on Saturday at BC Place, with many of those fans likely paying exorbitant fees for their tickets on the secondary market.
In an effort at damage control, the Whitecaps announced all in-stadium food and beverages for the match will be 50 percent off, while children 18 and under will be provided one free kids meal combo.
That will likely be cold comfort to fans, who seemed to have hit the jackpot when the 2024 schedule was released. Due to an unbalanced schedule, Vancouver is one of just three Western Conference cities that will host Inter Miami.
Messi played in the other two games — at the LA Galaxy on February 25 and at Sporting Kansas City on April 13 — but Vancouver has missed out on seeing the Argentine legend along with Suárez and Busquets.
None of the trio have a known injury. Instead, Miami seems to be sparing the veterans from one of the longest road trips in MLS, with Vancouver and Miami nearly 3,500 miles apart.
Inter Miami also has a short turnaround for a game that is more significant: Wednesday’s home match against conference rival Atlanta United.
The F50 first launched ahead of Euro 2004, and became one of the best-known shoes in the game. Now, 20 years later, Adidas has brought the F50 back.
The F50 “Fast Reborn” was first worn on the pitch by Lionel Messi last weekend. The Inter Miami and Argentina star will be followed in upcoming matches by some of the game’s top players, including Rafael Leão, Son Heung-min, Linda Caicedo, Trinity Rodman, Lamine Yamal and Florian Wirtz.
Sam Handy, SVP of Product and Design at Adidas said: “The F50 is a defining boot for so many across the last two decades, and with nine years on ice, the time is right to reintroduce its game-defining speed.
“With modern-day football so dominated by tactics, statistics, and often rigid tactical structures – sometimes out-and-out speed is the only way of breaking the game.”
