Thiago Almada “felt something in his calf” during warmups ahead of Atlanta United’s 1-0 loss to FC Cincinnati, head coach Gonzalo Pineda said after the match.
“He felt that it was super, super tight, and that he couldn’t even sprint,” Pineda said, adding that the team would need to do “further tests” to get a prognosis.
Meanwhile, Giorgos Giakoumakis was forced to exit on a concussion substitution in the 89th minute after a collision with Miles Robinson. But the striker appeared to be laboring a bit due to an apparent hamstring injury, with Pineda stating that he didn’t know the immediate diagnosis as further tests would be needed.
“He bravely stayed in the game trying to get us something,” he added.
While the club hasn’t announced — and we won’t know until Thursday or Friday — it probably isn’t out of the realm of possibility that either player will be available for Saturday’s match against Nashville SC. That would mean that Nick Firmino could play in place of Almada, while either Daniel Rios or Jamal Thiare would lead the line.
Kickoff from GEODIS Park in Nashville is set for 1:45 ET on Saturday.
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So, just watched the replay. Guys, that goal was all on Guz. Any decent goalie sees just one attacker inside the 6 box and cuts that looping soft cross off. I may be old but any ball inside the small box is a goalies ball to lose. Slicz was already covering the goal line. Total fuckup
MLSPA just released the salaries. 3 quick notes.
1) Nobody on Atlanta’s roster shocked me with their pay. Nothing looked crazy. Definitely no “We’re paying Jurgen Damm WHAT?” surprises.
2) Miles Robinson is making $1.578 million with Cincinnati, which is actually about $100,000 higher than last year’s reported salary in Atlanta. So he didn’t actually take a pay cut when he left us.
3) No Atlanta player is in the top 20 in salary in the league.
Numbers can be found here:
https://mlsplayers.org/resources/salary-guide
The numbers are fairly reasonable, especially when we look at who will likely be coming off of the books at the end of the year.
We don’t know how much of Etienne’s salary we will be paying in 2025 but being able to allocate at least some of the $700k elsewhere is a big help.
Expiring contracts in 2024:
Expiring in 2025
Opening up funds/xAM from Sosa, Ibarra, and potentially Abram could help us afford some depth and upgrades. Also reloading 2-3 U-22 slots helps us a lot because we only have $200k cap hits for each one.
If Cohen and Hibbert are our GK squad next year (plus a 3rd veteran backup) that is a significantly cheaper group with funds available for elsewhere in the defense (fullback depth or Wiley successor) since Cohen would be the only one of those two players to count against the cap.
Williams looks like the deal of the century if he can get back to form once he is healthy again. He was outplaying the value of his $447k contract by a lot. Wiley is also an important player in this scheme because of the amount of minutes and value he adds for no cap hit as a Homegrown Player.
If we can have more success with our summer signings this year after shedding some of the less efficient uses of funds from the roster, we could have reasons for optimism.
I think I saw somewhere that our team payroll is $16.6M, compared to a league median of $16.2. The lowest payrolls are in the $12-13.5M range. So we basically have a middle of the road roster.
Whats arguably more interesting is that last year our payroll was $19M. The lowest payrolls were in the $9-10.5M range.
Back in 2018, I think our payroll was $11.3M based on a quick google search. The lowest payrolls were in the $6-7.5M range.
There’s a lot to unpack there. Obviously, we are underperforming our roster. At the same time, the lowest payroll clubs are now spending more than we did in our championship season.
My personal spin on all of this is that if we want to be good, we need a new coach. But if we want to be great, we need a lot more than a new coach. Messi alone is making more than our entire roster.
Atlanta is currently 11th in total salaries by team, based on the released numbers. The 2 teams in MLS I have always sworn would simply rather never win MLS Cup than pay more to do so are NYRB and Philadelphia. Philadelphia are the 6th lowest payroll, so same old same old. But the shocker is that NYRB have the 9th highest payroll and are actually outspending us. Never thought I’d see that happen. Seattle and LAFC cutting their spending is also kind of surprising to me.
Then why the hell did he play?
Nashville just fired their Head Coach Gary Smith. He’s a great system coach who won’t stay unemployed for long.
How would Atlanta do with Smith’s 4-3-1-2?
Our defense would certainly improve. Our fullbacks would improve with clear positioning, coverage, and directives for going forward. The midfield trio of Fortune/Muyumba, Slisz, and McCarty would be interesting to see develop in a system that is based on linking this group with quick-release attackers including a target forward and dynamic 10/False 9.
In this scenario, I could see several of our prospects like Edwards, Armas, Morales, Gordon, and Gallardo benefitting greatly.
We need to be aiming WAY higher than Gary Smith. He’s basically Pineda 2.0.
Then let’s bring him in as an assistant to work on defense. His system is boring and isn’t working, which already sounds familiar.
While I’m not opposed to Smith coming here if Pineda was to be fired, it HAS to be a temporary thing. Yes, he could probably straighten out a lot of the issues here, but no way would I keep him past 2025. Smith’s message gets stale after a while and he runs out of ways to keep players motivated. It is very weird that Nashville fired him after winning 2-0 last night AND got rid of an assistant too. If Pineda manages the Five Stripes to a win on Saturday, I dare say he might save his job through the end of June at a minimum.
I still think Boca’s number one qualification in a manager is “No pushback on players”. And I don’t think Garth cares enough about anything to challenge that. So I’m not sure Atlanta could be motived enough to get Smith even if they fire Pineda. If Pineda is fired, my money is that Steve Cooke will be promoted from the 2s. He worked for Garth in Seattle, he’s been an MLS manager before (only as an interim one though) and he lacks the resume to be able to pushback on Boca. Good times for sure.
I agree with this. We need someone with the ability to establish a gritty and selfless culture built on players performing well in a clear and disciplined system that gives them structure and freedom to be creative.
Smith was known for establishing a tough and recognizable defense-and-counter style of play with Nashville that could have been balanced in the attack and defense if their front office had the desire and ability to spend the way we do. Having someone like that kick some of these guys in the tail and get this team mentally right through clear and defined team play can do wonders for helping overcome the chronic issues of overthinking or being caught between two minds.
Where do you get this nonsense?
hard pass on smith. i think he is the kind of “settle for” manager that any run-of-the-mill mls club would go after. but atlanta is NOT supposed to be that kind of club.
state of the art facilities (internationally speaking), both match day and training. owner with deeeeeep pockets. unbelieveable fan base. we need to be swinging for the fences every time we have to hire a manager. gary smith would be a solid single…nothing more, imo.
Nashville just fired Gary Smith. And they’re ahead of us in the standings….
And they’ve had much more successful seasons than us the last few years. Must be nice to have a front office with higher standards.
Wait, Pineda started Thiago despite complaints of soreness in the calf before the game? Well, that’s something.
Tight not sore. There’s a difference. But I agree why play someone that can’t sprint. Why not change it up or is there some stupid MLS rule that prevents that happening during warm-ups.
Because he is feeling the pressure and made a short term decision?
pineda has shown a remarkable knack for coaching players down. gg, saba, xande, almada, wiley, lennon…all worse than last season and regressing as this season moves forward. you can even throw miles into the conversation…leaves and improves. i can’t point to one player on this team who has improved under pineda.
teams have figured out how to play us, and we’re watching them do variations on the same theme match after match…with no real adjustments (except occasional starting xi change-outs). my son’s premier select team plays more creative and cohesive football that what i’ve been watching these last several matches.
at this point, it seems like the team know they suck, and fight is just being sucked out of them. three and half years of going around the same mountain. this slog is truly exhausting.
Apropos of nothing except poor personnel choices, but a glaring one imo stemmed from 2019…not having recognized the longer-term potential in Vazquez and failing to protect him from expansion draft because of over confidence in the long-term viability of Martinez, which was a poor assessment even without the luxury of hindsight…was obviously an error at the time from my pov. That would have potentially locked in a high- performing striker with a positive team attitude for long-term at a reasonable price and would have allowed those resources to be leveraged building a reliable midfield. Water under the bridge at this point but….
You have a point to some extent, but here’s the problem with your argument. Vazquez wasn’t the guy he is now in his first 2 years in Cincinnati. He played little and didn’t do a lot when he did play. Frankly, in 2020 and 2021, there wasn’t much there. I think Cincinnati got really lucky that he turned things around big time in 2022 because it took him so long to develop, I just don’t know that we could and would have shown that kind of patience. Also, I kind of wonder if the whole infamous “Barco affair” situation played a role in Atlanta making him unprotected as we had a ton of money invested in Barco and he was supposed to be our next Miggy. Maybe the front office felt like just getting them away from each other was in everybody’s best interest.
I didn’t say he was the same player he is now. I am saying the potential was obvious to me. And told everyone at the time it was a major mistake. So maybe I had some great insight others didn’t have…or…more likely…plenty of other people saw the potential as well. Forecasting future performance is central to the player development game…otherwise it’s just paying for past performance, which is usually a recipe for meh.
I have to agree there. I also thought he would be a starting level striker.
And frankly, he didn’t require much development investment…all he really needed was some playing time at a high level. Just that simple in his case as he had all the makings…
Jay fortune was invisible when he played last night. He has Tyler wolf syndrome in that he becomes a ninja when on the pitch – avoiding all detection
I would like to see Fortune/McCarty/Slizs again and go Silva/Thiare/Saba across the top.
Another data point to test my theory that this version of Almada has a net negstive impact on the team.
He’s not helping much and hurting in some cases, as was evidenced by his poor choice in (again) choosing an aimless dribble into the center of the pitch and then having his laziness/sloppiness on the ball result in a costly give away in the center of the pitch with the team in transition. The results have bean clear this year. He’s been average…for what he’s paid, far below average. Hopefully he gets benched for a few games. The results will speak for themselves.
I think the “something” Almada felt is the loss of his potential international career. He flamed out thinking he was a sure-fire superstar and forgot he has to perform for big teams to actually want him.
He probably regrets not pushing the club harder to sell him over the winter and coming back to play for an ineffective and often over-matched manager.
Sounds about right…blame the manager for your mediocre play.
Atlanta over the past winter was simply not going to sell Almada at a gigantic loss. We don’t actually know if any offers at all came in for him. If any did, they were bad. European teams love to cry poverty when they look to buy MLS players, yet the same teams have no problem sending $20 million and far more to teams in Europe and South America for players. Also, it was impossible to predict that Almada would turn into Barco and Moreno this year, so I can’t really blame the team for keeping him.
The idea that he has no future career in Europe is flat out ridiculous though. He only has part of one bad season with Atlanta and the team is also struggling, so it’s easy enough for an interested team to get past his stats this season. The reality may be that Atlanta may have to sell him for a tremendous loss though, but I’m sure a team could be found that would pay $5 million to get him.
Actually not even close to impossible to predict Almada’s trajectory….because others have. Maybe you just meant you didn’t see it.
2023 set a record for club transfer fees…and the top leagues have been spending.
$5 million would put him a bit above avg transfer fee globally. So maybe or maybe a little less. There are a variety of reasons why he’s not receiving strong European interest…and they have much less to do with Atl Utd than they do with the nature of the top leagues and who he is as a player. You’ll see how it plays out over his career.
My personal feeling is he’ll do great in any team that lets him be more of a true attacker than making him run all over the field or having to bring the ball from way deep on own third. He’ll do great in Spain, Italy, maybe Holland ; nor in EPL or Germany. Really sad seeing a great player suffer under Pineda
Exactly!
At this point not sure it matters if they miss the game or not
The problem I see this causing isn’t losses, it’s more excuses for losses.
Well, Nashville won’t even have a full-time coach on Saturday.
pineda will be fine. i’m sure we can still manage 50+ percent possession as usual.
We’re so screwed