DC United are worse than awful; they’re hopeless

For years, the crisp air and changing colors of October brought forth a host of wonderful memories for DC United fans – visions of Eddie Pope heading home the winner in Major League Soccer’s first-ever championship game, or Marco Etcheverry, Jaime Moreno and others tearing through defenders, helping establish MLS’s first true dynasty.

Nowadays, United fans have a different tradition: hearing the team’s ownership apologize for yet another depressing season and offer promises of a brighter future. With Wednesday night’s 2-1 loss to Toronto, United will now miss out on the playoffs for the seventh consecutive season – in a league that lets at least 50% of teams into the playoffs each year, with 60% of teams or more making it in five of those seven years. If United fail to make it again next year, they’ll tie an all-time MLS record.

Related: History comes home as St Louis City top Columbus Crew to win US Open Cup

United have cycled through coaches, players and staff at a dizzying rate in recent years; their most recent attempt to right the ship involved hiring René Weiler, a Swiss journeyman who has guided 10 clubs in a 20-year coaching career. United’s choice to lead its sporting department felt even more bizarre: they hired Dr Erkut Sogut, a German-born lawyer and sports agent who had never worked in a front office before, with Wikipedia saying he is “most notable for being the agent of football star Mesut Özil”. Sogut – who has also penned a number of books about the “high-octane” world of “football and the powerful agents who control it” – has yet to turn things around, even a little bit.

United, who are seemingly too inept to perform the basic function of their business (fielding a competitive soccer team) are nevertheless asking the DC government for hundreds of millions of dollars to renovate Audi Field, their eight-year-old home.

United are among the least ambitious teams in MLS but they are far from the league’s only basket case. Below them at the bottom of the overall table are others straggling along for their own varied reasons: CF Montréal, Sporting KC and Atlanta United.

DC’s disastrous 2026 can’t hold a candle this year to KC, whose misery started early, has continued apace and has frequently bordered on the comical. The club was bounced out of the US Open Cup at the first hurdle by the USL side Colorado Springs Switchbacks in a 3-0 loss that could have been worse. On Wednesday night, the team lost 3-1 to Minnesota United to bring their goals conceded tally to an astonishing 80 on the season, setting the league record with two games to go.

KC were never going to do well this year. They opened preseason with just 17 players under contract and former Chicago Fire and BSC Young Boys head coach Raphaël Wicky has thus far seemed like an unsteady fit to say the least. It’s the kind of dynamic that’s led the team to a place where their minutes leader is Calvin Harris, a forward who had mostly been an option off the bench in past MLS spots. Second on the minutes list is 24-year-old Wyatt Meyer, who went from riding the bench and bouncing down to MLS Next Pro for Nashville in 2025 to anchoring 2026’s historically bad defense.

Related: A three-year-old soccer prodigy went viral. The adults have already let him down

There’s some room for optimism in Kansas City, at least, as there is at any team with a billionaire owner (that is Peter Mallouk, who gained controlling owner status earlier this year). The same can be said for Atlanta United, who are on the verge of missing the playoffs for the second consecutive year for the first time in franchise history. It feels almost comical to worry about Atlanta, who have never been short on ambition under Arthur Blank. That club spent millions to sign Miguel Almirón, Aleksei Miranchuk and Emmanuel Latte Lath and promptly watched as each of them grossly underperformed. Latte Lath, a $22m transfer from Middlesbrough, was arguably the biggest designated player bust in MLS history before Atlanta mercifully loaned him out to Union Berlin in August.

Montreal haven’t won a match in a month and their fans rained pyrotechnics on the field and damaged stadium concourses after the team’s loss to the Canadian Premier League side Forge FC in the Canadian Championship last weekend. Montreal, who have occasionally been competitive and somehow remain somewhat relevant in their market, are also one of MLS’s longest-running shitshows, with owner Joey Saputo cycling through head coaches at a dizzying pace. Rumors of a sale – or possible relocation – have persisted for years.

The vibrancy of Montreal as a soccer city, and the team’s history of over three decades there, means faint hope remains that the team can turn things around. That’s true even as the club bans fans from its stands in response to the aforementioned protests.

The tiny slivers of hope present in all of these sides cannot be found at this point for DC United, with supporters who have stuck by their club for nearly as long as those of Montreal. At this point, barring them from the stands at Audi Field could be viewed as an act of love.

This is an extract from Soccer Desk, a newsletter from the Guardian US. Subscribe for free here.