Speaking from the 35th annual American Century Championship from Edgewood Golf Course in Lake Tahoe, NV, Apple TV lead analyst and former USMNT player Taylor Twellman chatted with journalists about Atlanta United’s player and manager vacancies, U.S. Soccer’s recent firing of Gregg Berhalter, Copa America, and MLS as a whole.
“I’d take my time,” Twellman recommended when Scarves and Spikes asked about a potential Atlanta United manager hire. “This is the first time in his professional career that Garth Lagerwey gets to hire his manager. In the previous situations, he’s had those, but he’s never hired his first coach. I know Garth is going to want this and get after it, but I think what he really wants to do is take his time and try to do something that really puts Atlanta and the fanbase and the program on good footing.”
The decision as to whether Atlanta’s front office should find their manager before or after diving deep into filling the two open Designated Player spots – and spending the approximately $50 million the club has received from recent transfers – has been the ultimate chicken and egg scenario amongst the fanbase and pundits recently. Garth has stated multiple times that the club won’t rush the coaching search, instead opting to take time and give interim coach Rob Valentino a chance to right the ship. The question then arises: can the staff find DP’s right now that will fit any system that any future manager, whether it’s Valentino or not, will implement?
Ultimately, though, the club needs – as do the fans – some form of consistency, stability, and a better on-field product.
“I know the fanbase doesn’t want to hear this, but while you may not be in a great spot in the MLS Eastern Conference and you may not be the same juggernaut that you were from ’17, ’18, ’19 – those arguments are all valid – but business is good in Atlanta. You just sold how many players? Three players? I would throw in Barco, as well, and it turns into $50-plus million. That is real business on the world market. That puts Major League Soccer at a different level now when European teams and the world market is looking to find players.”
Atlanta United currently sits in the purgatory that is offset transfer windows, something which Carlos Bocanegra lamented in his press conference before the ill-fated U.S. Open Cup match against Indy Eleven. He noted that this is the time of the year when other teams are looking for players and will pluck them from MLS in the middle of the season, a facet of the industry that MLS then returns in the winter. In Atlanta’s case, though, they simply can’t bring reinforcements until the window opens on July 18th. Couple that with the fact Atlanta is sitting on the edge of a playoff spot going into Leagues Cup, and all of these decisions become that much more important for both the short-term and long-term success of the club.
“But hand me $50 million and I’ll find you a goalscorer,” Twellman laughed.
He also gave sound advice to Atlanta’s outbound homegrown Caleb Wiley, as he navigates his way to the Olympics and an “imminent” transfer to Chelsea/loan to Strasbourg.
“I love the project of him. I’ve said it right away when I saw him play, there has to be a world scout that looks at it and says ‘That is a profile that really can succeed at the highest level.’ I think he’s going to be given the opportunity…as of right now that [Strasbourg coach] is Patrick Vieira, who has a real high mindset and ideology of young MLS players. Go in with your chest up and your head high, but also be open-minded on really pushing yourself and how to evolve when you hit a little bit of adversity early on.”
Before jumping into European club football, though, Wiley will tread into the Olympic tournament in Paris in a couple of weeks, as one of only 18 players selected for the event.
“It’s great the men are finally back in this tournament,” Taylor praised. “It’s the first time since 2008 and I still think – and some people will disagree with me – I really believe the Olympic tournament is a valuable development tool for the United States Men. I get it, it’s under-23, but our under-23’s aren’t competing at the highest of levels at times like the rest of the world is. What if you’re successful? Now all of a sudden you’ve played in the Olympic tournament, this group of players now reads this success of winning, they can then move on…I just think it’s a great opportunity and it’s about time they’re back in it.”
As for the USMNT’s recent firing of Gregg Berhalter, Taylor Twellman praised the former coach’s job in resurrecting the program but held him accountable for the Copa America results.
“I’ll stay on the record, the United States men for the next 18-20 months, they need to really think bold and really need to think big for this World Cup coming here in their backyard in 2026.”
Has Garth called Marcelo Gallardo yet?
I think I read on reddit that Garth said in some interview Atlanta has hired a firm to assist in search for the next head coach. So some people are inferring that we actually haven’t actually started the search yet. Which would be very odd.
I hope MLS adjusts their transfer window to better align with the early summer window. It puts teams at a competitive disadvantage, especially with other international competitions drawing away players. Next year will be the CONCACAF Gold Cup and 2026 will be the World Cup, so the league would be wise to adapt accordingly.
Im willing to be patient for Garth.
Im not willing to be patient for Boca.
2019 was 5 years ago. If the club wants patience, it needs to axe Boca to buy some time.
If Boca is worth keeping, he can at least get the team to be more competitive without a coach. If we have fallen so far to where that is not even a realistic possibility, then Boca must go.
Interesting and fresh take! Fire Boca. Well, that just changes everything.
I’m not a Boca fan – I mean, pretty weird to be a front office fan – but he did just sell $50,000,000 with of players. If it’s my team, I’d probably be pretty pleased with that
Hey, we may suck, but as long as Arthur Blank continues to suck the teat of Atlanta sports fans, who cares! Good job front office!
But seriously, if we think we can at least sign some guys to make us a little more competitive, then great. Have Boca do that. No reason why we cant push for a 7-8 seed with Valentino.
But if we are going to wait on signing any DPs until the end of the season until after we hire a coach (yes that assumes we also wait until the end of the season), then we will have lost the plot so badly that I cant see how we would want Boca involved with that rebuild.
Full disclosure, i’m getting to the point where I don’t want ANY of them involved in a rebuild. This team gets more and more uninspiring every day. This team is the professional sports version of the Knack (ask your grandparents). They come out of the gates with a huge hit (My Sharona) and a really big hit (Good Girls Don’t). People thought they were the Second Coming of the Beatles. Then it’s just garbage after garbage after garbage*. But they’ll always have My Sharona. We’ll always have 2017-2018. But it’s feeling like we’ve peaked.
* I don’t know if it was really garbage with the Knack. I haven’t listened to it. But will now.
I do know it’s been garbage with Atlanta United.
Their second album went gold in the US and Japan and Platinum in Canada. The third album was a bust but the band was already fracturing before then due to squabbles and burnout and didn’t last much longer. Get the Knack was a fairly solid album.
My Sharona was catchy, but also one of those songs where if you pay attention to the lyrics, it’s pretty cringe.
Correct. I just listened to album. Better than I remembered. But yeah, lyrics of a different time.
Holds for a fair bit of 70-90s rock ethos. Fwiw, not sure it’s even the 3rd or 4th best song on the album.
Thats a better way to put it than what I came up with.
Maybe we’ve had lower rock bottoms. The sensible thing is definitely to be patient. But if being patient means waiting until the offseason for both a manager and more DPs, I just cant accept that. I dont believe we’ve ever waved the white flag mid season like that.
I personally think that having to wave the white flag after 5 years of rebuilding would signal a colossal failure on Boca’s part. The $50 million in transfers is nice, but after the league takes their cut and fan apathy “costs” continue to set in, are we really coming out ahead?
The front office will surely make that argument, but Im just not buying it as a fan.
Boca’s biggest failures (I am assuming he was heavily involved in the past) have been with coaching hires more so than with players. We’ve not had a good fit at head coach since Tata. Glad to hear Garth is taking the reins on a coaching search.
I’m not sure if we should get the coach first or not. If we are truly going after a top-tier coach, we should do that first and let that top-tier coach have a lot of input on player selection. If on the other hand, we know exactly what style we want to play and expect any new coach to stick to that style, go ahead and get the players.
The downside of the latter is I don’t know how good of a coach we will be able to attract if we start out by dictating to him how we are going to play and who is going to be on the roster. Might be worth a little more, or even a lot more pain to get the right coach first.
Who, at the time, thought acquiring Pity Martínez was a bad idea? Ezequiel Barco? Luis Aruajo?
I dont understand the implication you are trying to make. Are you suggesting we should judge the performance of the guy who signs players based on what we thought at the time of signing, and not on the results that followed?
Both. A move can be judged with hindsight to improve, obviously. But trades and transfers have to be understood by what is known at the time. There was zero pushback from any quarter on Martinez.
It doesn’t make sense to look at push back from the general public because the amount of information and experience available between them and the Technical Director should be vast in theory. Why else pay the TD big bucks, when you could just put any random dude?
Plus, the general public will generally evaluate signings based on the performance of the team’s past results and signings, not the actual incoming player. With Barco and Pity, everyone was high off Martinez/Almiron and the 2017-18 results and had faith the front office knew what they were doing. But as the years have progressed, and the results have sucked, now the prevalent attitude is to look at each signing with worry since Boca was involved.
Plus, Boca’s moves always have a tinge of a kid playing Football Manager with unlimited salary. Even I, a noted soccer idiot, can be like let’s sign the top prospective talent from South America or get the South American Player of the Year winner. But that doesn’t necessarily construct a sensible team, especially if the manager hires are also terrible.
“Hey Carlos, youre fired, sorry.”
“How come, you and the fans really liked me after my interview 7 years ago? What does it matter that we havent had a good season since 2019?”
Apparently Tata didn’t want Barco.
Okay. So that’s one vote against. And a voice to be reckoned with. What were his reasons?
From what I remember, the article only said he would have preferred to re-sign Asad. All of this is based on Felipe’s anonymous sources, so take that of what you will.
That makes sense. It makes the decision one where the pragmatism of building a stout full squad lost to the lure of shiny resell assets. I’m not sure that’s a Boca problem so much as an AU 1.0 strategy problem.
I noticed the weasel word statement you made:
So apparently the fact that anonymous sources were used means it can’t be true because they can’t ever be right. Got it.
Are you SSLBraves under a new name?
It is called being honest on the circumstances involved. I trust Felipe as a reporter and am inclined to believe the article. At the same time I acknowledge the sourcing he used and the fact that no other United reporter (Doug or DSS back then), has ever made similar reporting.
Also, if I didn’t believe the article, why the hell would I respond to the original comment with the information of Tata not wanting Barco???
I did 100% from the get go.
To be fair, I didn’t sour on GG and Almada until late last year and especially earlier this season…for different reasons glad both are gone and monetized.