Outside of adding midfielder Alexey Miranchuk on a Designated Player deal, Atlanta United’s secondary transfer window came and went without any major moves for the club.
That said, it came down to finding the “right fit” for the roster, Carlos Bocanegra noted during his post-window media availability on Friday.
“Ultimately, we want to be stewards of the club and do what we think is right for the team. And so, when a player is not the right fit, we have to pause or not make that decision to move forward,” he said.
Bocanegra didn’t state specifically what he meant by that — stressing that it had nothing to do with a financial situation. Atlanta was reportedly in discussions with Roma striker and Uzbek international Eldor Shomurodov but a signing never materialized, while a reported bid for Ajax winger Steven Bergwijn was rebuffed.
Bocanegra did express confidence in the roster as it currently stood, especially with the addition of Miranchuk, who Bocanegra said has received his visa and is expected to be available for selection against the LA Galaxy on August 24. Pedro Amador, who made his debut with the club on July 26 against D.C. United in Leagues Cup, hasn’t been in the team long.
That’s even as Atlanta failed to escape the group stage of the midseason tournament for the second straight year, playing D.C. to a wild 3-3 draw before succumbing in penalties, then dropping a penalty shootout against Santos Laguna after a goalless stalemate.
“II think with the continuity being solid with our group, being able to add Alexey, and Pedro getting more minutes under him, and having our team fit and hopefully staying healthy for the run, we do feel good about our group,” Bocanegra said.
Despite the closing of the transfer window, teams are free to add free agents both inside and outside of MLS before the roster freeze on September 13. Atlanta on Thursday acquired an international slot from Austin FC, and even if a signing is not imminent, they at least have flexibility to make one.
“There is still a possibility that a player comes in for us,” Bocanegra said.
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We are back, baby!
What coaches are even still options for us? Like real options, not coaches from USL or whatever. I know Vieira, any other options that seem like they might actually help fix the team?
I heard they went across the street to Vine City station and interviewed guys with foreign last names.
Yeah, was wondering same thing. Niko Kovac and Diego Cocca would be more of the same but at least better tacticians than Pineda. If van Bommel deal falls through with Milan, he may be the best fit with our current roster (especially if we can get his two sons as part of the deal /some sarcasm).
Mixture of frustration and disappointment with relief. It is a difficult feeling when you lack belief in the club’s roster to do much for the foreseeable future, but I also feel like we dodged a bullet by delaying any further signings until a coach is on board. We need our next coach to have players brought in that fit his image, or else we are setting the stage for the next 5 years of mediocre to poor results because we lack cohesion. Let’s hope the FO sees this opportunity and shifts focus to hiring the next coach.
What if!!!
They are holding the money, not making anymore moves, and saying all of this because Boca is on his way out? And Garth wants the new VP to have his play on the DP spots and acquisition of new players?
Maybe?
I’m just trying to understand this whole thing.
Does anyone see a light? It’s getting mighty dark in here.
Boca translation…. ” I don’t understand why these whiny fans want to win so many games. I mean they have already given us their money based on promises, why do we have to deliver? Check has cleared the bank. Screw those needy little Founding Members!”
I also love the way he is already making excuses for the Winter transfer window. Per Doug in the AJC. “If not used soon to sign a free agent or buy down Gregersen’s contract, the team can carry most of that money into the winter transfer window, which will open after the season. Bocanegra described the winter window typically as a challenge”
Every transfer window is a challenge for Boca.
We have to be adding one more player because it makes no sense to trade for an international slot that is only available for this season for 2025 GAM
Waiting for someone to say “here we go”. Some deal must be verbally agreed to already, surely something is gonna happen
i would hope so, or I think this should be grounds for firing Boca for poor dealing. Almost always they announce acquiring an international slot right before announcing a signing
MLS site implied it might be used for a free agent. I believe Memphis and Martial are still available. Granted we could be going full meme team and bringing in Miranchuk’s twin brother.
I think all those free agents require an ITC, so Atlanta or any MLS team would not be able to sign them since the transfer window is closed. If a free agent requires an ITC, they can only sign during the transfer window. At least that is what I remember
Still doable. The European summer transfer window is open longer than the MLS summer window. The EPL window closes at 6pm GMT on August 30th. If the player is from a federation that still has an open window (most of Europe) and is a free transfer by MLS rules, they can be acquired in the next 10 or so days.
Correction. The European windows close at 11pm BST, which is 6pm EST. Net-net, Atlanta has until Aug 30 at 6:00 pm local time to add European free agents such as Martial and Memphis.
well that’s good to know.
At least we’ll probably add to our growing GAM pool with another missed postseason. That will be a ton of money, prime roster spots, and roster flexibility for the new manager.
How much GAM would we actually get for that?
Not sure exactly. In 2019 it was $200k but everything GAM has increased since then.
This is what the official roster rules say:
Couldn’t find the right fit, but a far as we know, we only made offers to two guys after Alexy. So he’s saying there were only two players available in the world that were the right fit who were worthy of an offer?
They haven’t done a ton to earned it, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt on that one. We’ve only heard of two offers. That doesn’t necessarily mean that other inquiries and initial overtures weren’t made for other players. The winter window and coach signing are critical for Lagerwey at this point. It’s got to be a string of bit hits from now until next season opens.
The worst part about all this is we’re 15 points from a play-in spot, 18 may be enough for a guaranteed place, especially if we take points off Montreal, Orlando, and Nashville. With 9 games left, that’s doable, but this feels like giving up on the current season.
I don’t know about you, but with our current team and the remaining schedule, I don’t see 5 winnable games. I’m not sure I see 3.
Well 3 games are against teams below us in the table. Charlotte and Orlando are both flawed teams, and, if the defense holds, we can steal points off of the Jersey cows.
The three games against teams below us in the table are
Meanwhile:
That was painful, but the truth doesn’t hurt unless it should.
Philly also imploded after that game, only getting 14 points from their next 17 games. Nashville had their new coach bump and have lost their last 6 in MLS; we also still had Pineda. Montreal was a close away game, so still winnable at home. RB leads league in draws so not out of question to steal points. As for Charlotte, it’s “clear and obvious” that was one of the worst officiated games this year. They’re also one of the five teams that have scored 30 or fewer goals this season.
However it shakes out, still feels like the FO is giving up on the season.
Fair enough, though I thought that Nashville was coachless when they played us. I might be wrong, I haven’t checked.
I guess I should clarify, they’re not necessarily guaranteed losses in my head, I’m just not convinced that they’re wins without some good luck that we haven’t had. The fact that we need at least 5 wins, I’m not convinced we’ll get all of that.
I didn’t want to believe it, because I think the parts of the roster we do have are pretty good, but the decision to wait on making a coaching hire kind of says it all.
downgrade at striker
downgrade at left back
downgrade at midfield
and we get to keep the $50m in a high-yield savings account until this winter…or next summer…or whenever
That high-yield savings interest should have gone toward keeping STH renewal costs down. Especially for the Supporters Section. I don’t hold seats there…but taking away renewal incentives for the die-hards is only going to further degrade the fan experience.
Good thing winter is coming
I always expect corpos to give a rose-tinted announced evaluation in public. The reality is always being dealt with behind closed doors.
However, when their actions align more closely to the corporate dream-speak than the reality that we’re a total mess, I have a hard time telling if they know what needs done, or if they genuinely believe we really are in a good place. Especially when it’s someone with a track record as bad as Boca’s.
I’m appreciative of the fact that they realized that whatever player they thought wasn’t a good fit should in fact not be panic-bought (I’m assuming Shomurodov). However, they’re conveniently ignoring that they had a ton of money during the prime European transfer window and didn’t manage to land any player who would’ve been the right fit though.
Good job not making the situation worse, which I guess you could argue is an improvement over past years. You don’t get paid to not put more holes in the sinking ship though, you get paid for fixing it.
yeah…call me cynical but i can’t help but wonder how much of the “not the right fit” was players we were reaching for that said “ehh…i’ll pass”
Right. The response was “Umm…. join that dumpster fire? No thanks!” Well, we will chalk that up to not being a good fit.
Hard to know what the right fit actually IS without a coach.
When they talk about fit for the team, I can’t help but hear the echoes of the GG acquisition. If the Uzbek guy made it clear that he was primarily interested in using Atlanta as a platform for his next contract, I can see where that would lead to them backing out. The primary unexpected hole on the team is at striker, and that’s unexpected because they acquired GGon the assumption he would play out the contract.
i don’t blame gg at all. he saw a dumpster fire and said “that’s not what i signed up for. time to move on.” not all that different than an ncaa football coach recruiting a 5 star kid and promising them the moon, then before the kid reports to campus the coach has taken another job. the kid usually hits the portal, at least today since they have that option.
in the corporate contract world, it would be called a “material change in business”, and we renegotiate the terms.
I neither “blame” GG for his decision, nor do I “not blame him.” It’s not an equation I have any real interest in.
I think it’s an obvious curveball that the front office was not expecting to be dealing with on top of losing Almada (expected and planned for) and Wiley (expected, but probably not quite this soon.)
I have no interest in assigning moral quality or blame to any of the people doing their jobs as best they can. I do not feel like I’m entitled to that. I’m just an interested fan observing and trying to make sense of the roster as it evolves.
Yeah but Atl Utd being a dumpster fire was a curveball GG wasnt expecting.
So is it “good job FO” for passing on a guy who wasnt bought in long term?
Or is it “bad job FO” for putting us in a position where we are no longer seen as a long term destination?
I too am unqualified to make that distinction, but we at least have to acknowledge both sides of the coin.
I really think he just wanted a longer term and maybe more lucrative deal than any extension that AUFC was willing to offer. Giako was making $2.3m this season here. He went to Cruz Azul and is making $3m and is signed through summer 2028. I don’t know if extending him that long for that amount would’ve been a good move for AUFC. He’d missed a decent chunk of time with various injuries. I don’t know that he’s going to age that well into his early and mid-30s given what we saw here. AUFC did well to get the $10m in transfer fee (I think we owed Celtic 10% in sell-on from what I saw in an article last week) and avoid locking him up longer term in a DP slot.
We need DPs to be productive and durable to make title runs. That was maybe the most remarkable thing about 2018, we kept our key guys healthy (more or less). Josef was an iron man that season, starting 39 MLS matches (including playoffs) and logging nearly 3300 minutes in them (84min/match). Gressel, Guz, Larentowicz, Parky, LGP and Miggy all started 32-33 games during the regular season (Nagbe was next at 23).
I don’t doubt that our fall off from last season maybe factored in, but I think Giako was just hunting for a last big contract. I think maybe AUFC dodged a bullet and made a profit in the process. I’m still a bit disappointed they weren’t better prepared to sign a replacement since he was sold so far before the transfer window. We will see what shakes out between now and the start of the 2025 season, I guess…
Boca is either fluffing to save his job or he’s completely delusional. We essentially came out in the negative through this window, replacing Almada with Miranchuk (no offense to him, but likely a downgrade) and Wiley with Amador (no offense to him, but likely a downgrade) and GG with no one. At best, we cruise around the mid to bottom of the table the rest of 2024 and try again in winter.
Yep. The only “trophy” we are contending for is the wooden spoon. That’s not what this team should be.