D.C. United fires coach Hernan Losada after disappointing start to season

Hernan Losada is out as D.C. United’s coach in the middle of his second season with the team. 

D.C. United fired Losada on Wednesday after a slow start to the season. Assistant coach Chad Ashton will step in for Losada on an interim basis. The Athletic’s Pablo Maurer was first to report the news. 

A 3-0 win on Tuesday night over Flower City Union in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup — a victory that snapped the team’s four-game losing skid — wasn’t enough to save Losada’s job after his team’s brutal loss to Austin FC last weekend.

On Saturday, D.C. led 2-0 over Austin late in the match but lost 3-2 after allowing three goals in the final 10 minutes. That defeat followed losses to Atlanta United FC (1-0), Toronto FC (2-1), Chicago Fire FC (2-0) and FC Cincinnati (1-0). 

With six games played this season, D.C. United is in last place in Major League Soccer’s Eastern Conference. 

The bad start to the season is not what many expected in Losada’s second year. Last season, the 39-year-old Argentinian led D.C. United to a middling 14-15-5 record, barely missing the postseason, but the club showed some signs of potential despite a myriad of injuries. 

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The Athletic also reported that Losada’s relationship with general manager Lucy Rushton, as well as some of the team’s players, has soured — a factor that could’ve played a role in his firing. 

Ashton, who has been a member of the organization’s coaching staff since 2007, will now step in as interim coach for the second time in the past three seasons. In 2020, Ashton filled in after Ben Olsen was fired.