One of the most notable items from Doug Roberson’s interview with Atlanta United president and CEO Garth Lagerwey came right at the beginning: Ronny Deila’s job as head coach is safe.
And that is a sentence I absolutely didn’t think I’d be writing at any point in 2025. But here we are.
Atlanta United, by all accounts, is a bad team. Sure, there were signs of improvements against the Philadelphia Union (not getting played off the pitch is a big win. Baby steps!), but — surprise! — they ultimately got burned by one play.
And when things are going the way they are, the margins are razor-thin.
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Let’s be clear. Deila, as the head coach, has to take ownership of where the team is right now. If nothing else, he’s been candid in vowing to turn Atlanta’s fortunes before the season completely gets away from them. But, as the coach, he has to find a consistent system that brings the best out of these players. He hasn’t done that.
Does firing him 14 matches into the season make sense, though? I’m not sure it does. Yes, Gabriel Heinze lasted just 13 matches in 2021 but his was a completely different circumstance. If nothing else, it takes some of the pressure off of Deila: some, not all, because the hole the team is in is pretty deep. But having his boss’s backing in the midst of the circumstances doesn’t hurt. That said, there’s a very long road trip coming up in a few weeks. Walk away from that stretch without any significant progress being made and those conversations about job security for 2026 will start to take a different turn.
Which brings us to the front office. Doug’s interview with Lagerwey mentioned “bad data” and “bad scouting”. Why is this still happening in 2025?
Alexey Miranchuk is simply a failed signing. Mateusz Klich, essentially a DP at a value price, can’t stay fit. Miguel Almiron, for all the hype and good vibes around his return, doesn’t look like he fits and (let’s be honest) isn’t the Miguel Almiron we saw in 2017 and 2018. Latte Lath? The jury’s still out, but at $22 million, I don’t think it’s unfair to expect more than 5 goals, though most of that is down to a lack of service.
What about the others? Does the team need to buck their prime-aged players plan? I’m not saying yes, but if that’s what it takes, Lagerwey needs to swallow his pride and change course.
But that’s a completely different topic that I’m sure has been brought up somewhere on Reddit and will be brought up again. The point is that I agree with Lagerwey giving Ronny Deila a vote of confidence. What Deila does with it, though, remains to be seen.
This clearly didn’t age well. Deila is showing his incompetence every match now to the point of being predictable. I said it before the match last night, but I expected us to be tied or up by 1 before halftime, and then I expected Deila to make defensive changes to mix up the backline and give up 2 or 3 goals. I don’t see anything about him that’s better than any manager we’ve had (outside of not torturing the players). 4 wins on the season, well out of the playoff race, and now a potential winless run in the Leagues Cup. Surely, we’ve reached the last straw, bought more straws, and reached the last one in that bunch as well.
[…] and Chris Henderson have put their full support behind Deila, giving him a vote of confidence. I wrote in May that I agreed with the decision. I don’t know if those overall discussions have changed over […]
Gregersen
Lennon
Muyumba
Unavailable due to injury.
My guess is Deila will play is a 5-3-2 again
Lath – Almiron
Fortune – Miranchuk – Klich
Almador – Abram – Williams – Cobb – Edwards
Guzan
(Or Edwards CB and Hernandez RWB)
Gregerson has been incredibly fragile.
All I want is hope, and this interview may have killed it. Garth blames declining fan interest on CoVID, and hopes the WC will add up to 100K new fans. All is well, 17s!
https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2025/03/20/atlanta-united-presidentceo-garth-lagerwey-talks-teams-momentum-26-world-cup/
This organization is a listless ship! The manager is terrible some of the players we bring in are awful. This teams needs a complete over haul. Of course Garth gives a vote of confidence he was the one to hire the manager. This teams is garbage.
Personally I have no faith in the organization anymore. I was underwhelmed with the Garth hire, and so far he has not replicated his past success. Maybe he needs more time, but I think my patience has run out.
I tend to agree. Garth has been in role for 2.5 years I think. That should be plenty of time to show progress, which he has not done. Our record is the same or worse since he took over. I didn’t listen to that interview but all of his root cause issues come back to one person’s accountability, himself. I honestly am surprised he’s still in role, but AB has a lot of patience.
Unfortunately I don’t have an alternative, other than go after a huge name coach and let them do their thing (players, tactics, etc.).
I do believe Garth was originally hired to handle more business side of things than soccer operation, but because of all the turmoil in our soccer operation, I think Arthur Blank asked him to step in to “fix” the issues. Hopefully Henderson being the lead person in the FO help fix our scouting and analytics.
blah blah blah… new boss, same as the old boss. Where do they keep finding these people?! I don’t need to hear anymore from some front office schmuck because the results will always speak for themselves. Why is it some franchises figure out the recipe and others just fail season after season with the same worn out excuses? Another season of the same questions: Why does THIS iteration suck? Front office is just obtuse at this point and know they’ll keep selling tickets regardless of how bad the team is.
This 20 minute tactics YouTube is technically about Man United and their struggles with their new coach/system. But it feels really relevant to whatever is going wrong in Atlanta as well.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dYd2TkW_b-g
Is the interview behind a pay wall?
Yes. On the AJC
I find this sentence from Doug very interesting. “Scouting” could apply to player identification or to opposition research for match tactics, or maybe both. In the context of this sentence, is the cocktail of data, scouting, tactics, and luck specific to what is happening in match preparation and execution, or is this a conversation about broader institutional failures? That distinction is extremely important because it is the difference between blame falling on Ronny’s assistant coach, who is responsible for opposition scouting (Valentino’s assistant was Liam Curan), and the data analytics team, or is this a condemnation of Jonathan Spector and Arjun Balaraman (Head of Analytics)?
This is a critical element for me. We need smart players who are vocal and capable of leading this team during a match. While Brad and Derrick can do that in the defensive group, we don’t have a Dax McCarty who can rally and organize his teammates further up the pitch.
Doug references Garth, Henderson, Tenney, and Perez as the core leadership group tasked with building and shaping the club. I agree that this group should be able to get this right once they have a chance to work together through a shared philosophy of roster building and a shared vision of how to get there. I can see Deila potentially fitting into that mix if he can get the support he needs. I don’t see Carl Robinson or Matt Lawry as issues on his coaching staff since Lawry is vital to bridging the gap for young players coming from the academy and 2s, and Robinson was an important part of our turnaround under Valentino.
This may be an example of where scouting or data failed to recognize that Saba and Miggy are both better on the right than the left and that Miguel would want to play a hybrid 10/RW role.
This quote shows the blueprint’s fatal flaw. If the game has to go through Alexey to set everything up, it relies entirely on connecting two phases of the game through a player who has to be perfect and consistent all the time for the offense to find success. By neutralizing Alexey (who isn’t very mobile), opponents can isolate Latte Lath and force Almiron to compromise the game plan by trying to be the new connector.
We have a month and a half to address the data and scouting elements before making significant moves when the window opens at the end of July. Let’s see if they can do it.
As I understand it, there is a short window running from June 1 to June 10 (at least under FIFA’s rules) as a result of the expanded Club World Cup. If that applies to MLS (and the news articles say that it would), then I would hope that the FO and Deila have identified a defender and a vocal mature defensive midfielder. As for the tactics comment made by Lagerwey, that issue rests with Deila and his staff – unless he is being told that Miranchuk has to play the 10.
That window is only for CWC participants, not all of MLS
so much for reliable news reports / commentaries!!!!!! I guess we have to wait for another 2 months (until 7/24) for the window to see if any improvements will be made.
Yeah, unfortunately, it is just Miami, Seattle, and maybe LAFC.
3 out of 4 of those things are preventable and arguably should not happen, at least not continually. Until they are addressed and improved, we should expect more of the same.
It might be that the analytics did identify that kind of issue…maybe it was overridden or, more likely, maybe was just one data point in a broader decision…and whatever framework was used for making the ultimate decision re: Miggy that leaned more towards the benefit than the con. I don’t know either way. But do think that, in as much as I think analytics are indispensable at this point, those models for quantitatively assess players and teams might be more complex/flimsy in soccer due to the nature of the sport, and guessing the teams that do it best have the right balance of in depth analytics, qualitative and executive perspectives…a lot of instincts involve…
I agree that there needs to be the right balance between the stats/analytical models and the good judgment of a knowledgeable scout watching the player over a series of matches and understanding the player as a person.
I personally think a lot of the sports teams are leaning too heavily in analytics. I am not too familiar with our analytics team, but if you start listening to too many people who have never played the sport, I think it sort of gets away from getting the feel of the game. At that point, you mind as well play FIFA video game.
Know how you can tell an ex-jock (not directed at you personally, schyoo) is losing an argument about sports? It’s when they ask the person winning the argument if they’d ever “put on the pads before.” Buck Belue does that sometimes. It’s kind of sad how that man peaked in 1980, but I digress.
Yeah, analytics isn’t everything, but I never want to hear the flip side of someone saying “if you never played professionally, you just can’t understand.” Sports are not brain surgery, and putting on a professional kit doesn’t automatically increase your INT & WIS scores like it’s some sort of D&D game. Teams that underweight or ignore analytics are hurting their chances for success.
That said, if the data is bad and the analysis is incorrect, no bueno.
I’m not saying I am an expert by any means, but it just seems like our analytics department has had more misses than hits, so it is getting harder to believe all these people talking about analytics to pick players. I would think our team has actual scouts watching prospective players in person and not just watching youtube videos.
Is Garth saying the data were inaccurate? It sounds more like their reading of the data and the decisions they made based on their reading were bad. That seems unlikely to change if the same people remain in charge.
Hindsight is always 20/20. I hope by the end of the season we don’t look back and say: Dalia should’ve been fired in late May.
I think Deila is not the biggest problem with this team. We need some infusion of some sort of defensive player that the coaching staff can work with and fits the coaching ideology
Your “prime age” comment reminds me: what ever happened to our u22 signings that never happened? We’ve seen some good players come in on the u22 program, but I think we have 1 since clearing out that mess from a couple years ago.
Maybe that’s the summer window? But I agree, we need some young players with drive and skill who can be subs, take place in injuries, and so on.
I think the front office may be cautious about the U-22 slots after Erik Lopez, Sosa, and Ibarra. We still have Mosquera, but his time could be running out since he has an option at the end of this season.
U-22 players are a great option if you can get them right and use them to add key depth or as role players. You can also use the designation to retain/award important young players who need a raise. Salt Lake City’s Diego Luna, Houston’s Jack McGlynn, and Philly’s Quinn Sullivan are good examples of that. Montreal used two of their U22 spots to invest in George Campbell and Jalen Neal, who they believe can be developed into USMNT-calibre players and flipped for higher transfer fees later.
Along those lines, Santiago Castañeda from Paderborn would be interesting. 20 year old D-mid born in FL that consistently started for a top Bundesliga 2 squad this past season.
U22s with international development experience and who don’t require international roster slots are enticing options.