{"id":48500,"date":"2026-07-21T16:19:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T22:19:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gambyl.com\/?p=48500"},"modified":"2026-07-21T16:19:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T22:19:26","slug":"mls-teams-that-lost-momentum-during-the-pause","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gambyl.com\/en\/mls\/mls-teams-that-lost-momentum-during-the-pause\/","title":{"rendered":"MLS Teams that Lost Momentum During the Pause"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The World Cup was supposed to be a gift for MLS. Seven weeks of breathing room, a chance for rosters to recover, for coaches to reset, and for struggling sides to find answers before the season entered its decisive stretch. For some clubs, the break arrived at the right moment. For others, it only put their problems on pause, and the problems were still there when the whistle blew again on July 16.

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Philadelphia Union: From MLS Shield Winners to the Basement <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

No team entered the World Cup break in worse shape relative to expectations than the Philadelphia Union.

Twelve months ago, they won the MLS Supporters’ Shield for the second time in club history. Bradley Carnell was named the 2025 Sigi Schmid MLS Coach of the Year. Philadelphia looked like a program that had found something sustainable. Then 2026 happened.

One win in fifteen games. One. A team built to challenge for trophies found itself anchored to the bottom of the table, and the momentum from one of the best seasons in their history evaporated so completely that it became hard to explain. Carnell was fired during the break, with Jon Scheer arriving as the new Director of Football. The Union head into the second half of the season under new leadership, with a massive gap to close and very little margin for error.

When the drop is this steep, this fast, the roster questions tend to outlast any single coaching change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Austin FC: A Positive 2025 Means Nothing Now <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Austin FC arrived in 2026 carrying genuine optimism. A sixth-place finish in 2025, a playoff appearance, a young squad with upward momentum. By the time the World Cup break arrived, that optimism had curdled into a crisis.

Fourteenth in the Western Conference. Fourteen points. Nico Est\u00e9vez was dismissed just before the tournament began, and Jim Curtin, twice a Sigi Schmid Coach of the Year winner and the architect of Philadelphia’s best years, was announced as his replacement, though Curtin will not officially take over until 2027.

That timeline tells the story. Austin FC is coaching out the rest of a season with an interim setup while their actual future manager watches from a distance. It is a difficult position to build anything. The Verde and Black will spend the second half of the season fighting to avoid embarrassment, with one eye already on what comes next year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Portland Timbers: Eight Losses and a Coaching Exit <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Portland’s trajectory heading into the break was almost identical to Austin’s. Four wins, eight losses, two draws. Thirteenth place. Phil Neville was removed after two and a half seasons, despite back-to-back playoff appearances in 2024 and 2025.

The one positive the Timbers can take is the immediate response. Timbers2 coach Jack Cassidy stepped up as interim and delivered a 5-1 demolition of Seattle in the Cascadia Cup on July 16; Portland’s largest win over the Sounders since the MLS era began. Kevin Kelsy scored twice, Cole Bassett and Kamal Miller added their names to the scoresheet, and Alexander Aravena completed the rout in added time.

Whether that result means anything or whether it was a product of a Seattle side equally unsettled heading into the restart remains to be seen. Portland has been here before under Neville, rough stretches followed by brief sparks that never caught. The next four to six weeks will tell us which version of this team showed up to stay. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

LA Galaxy and LAFC: Two Rivals, Neither Firing at Home <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

El Tr\u00e1fico arrived on Friday night carrying less weight than usual, not because the rivalry matters less, but because neither side has been convincing enough this season to bring genuine menace to it.

The Galaxy have managed just two wins at home all year. A team built for the spectacle of Dignity Health Sports Park has been flat on it. The reasons are multiple: inconsistency in the final third, a defense that concedes too easily against disciplined opposition, but the result is the same. A home record that does not reflect what this club is supposed to be.

LAFC are not much different. Two wins in seven road games. The attacking firepower that made them one of the Western Conference’s most feared sides in recent seasons has been sporadic at best. The individual quality is still there, but the collective intensity that defines LAFC at their best has come and gone without settling anywhere for long enough to matter.

Both clubs enter the second half of the season needing the World Cup pause to function as a genuine reset, not just a calendar gap, but a change of mindset. The talent on both rosters is too good for results this underwhelming. The league’s return of Robert Lewandowski at Chicago and Antoine Griezmann at Orlando adds even more pressure to perform, with the Western Conference about to get much more competitive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Second Half of the MLS Begins <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The seven-week break gave every struggling club time to think. What it could not do was fix the underlying problems that put them in these positions. For the Union, for Austin FC, for Portland, and for both Los Angeles clubs, the honest work starts now.

Some of them will find answers. The league’s history is full of second-half revivals. But the teams that use the pause as an excuse rather than a turning point will not be around long enough to matter when October arrives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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The World Cup was supposed to be a gift for MLS. Seven weeks of breathing room, a chance for rosters to recover, for coaches to reset, and for struggling sides to find answers before the season entered its decisive stretch. For some clubs, the break arrived at the right moment. For others, it only put […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":29134,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":"","_wpscp_schedule_draft_date":"","_wpscp_schedule_republish_date":"","_wpscppro_advance_schedule":false,"_wpscppro_advance_schedule_date":"","_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":false,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"","_twitter_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type":"","_pinterest_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"","_medium_share_type":"","_threads_share_type":"","_google_business_share_type":"","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":false,"datetime":null,"platforms":[],"status":"template_only","dateOption":"today","timeOption":"now","customDays":"","customHours":"","customDate":"","customTime":"","schedulingType":"absolute"},"_wpsp_active_default_template":true},"categories":[96],"tags":[171],"class_list":["post-48500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mls","tag-soccer"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t