Have you or a loved one been subjected to the utter disappointment that has been Atlanta United’s 2025 season after memeable assurances that “We are back, baby?”
Yeah, me too. This season has been so far under par that it could probably win the Masters. What, bad time for a golf joke? Fore-get it then.
Given that the Five Stripe faithful have been waiting five years for the club to once again become competitive in MLS, patience is understandably wearing thin. They say it’s the hope that kills you, but I think there’s reason to believe that important changes can be made soon.
A summer of possibility
We are just under six weeks away from the opening of the MLS secondary transfer window, where CSO Chris Henderson and Co. will have a chance to make some moves to hopefully steer this team in the right direction going into the home stretch of the season.
Although the Five Stripes won’t be adding any blockbuster designated players in this window due to having all three slots filled, there is still some room to bolster the roster. Assuming no other outbound trades/transfers are made, Atlanta United has three open senior roster slots to play with this summer.
Having traded winger Xande Silva to St. Louis CITY in April, the club can sign a player using the “Special Discovery Player” tag. That basically means that the club can spread the player’s transfer fee over the term of their contract (including option years) as opposed to having the fee hit their salary budget charge all in the year they signed. This is useful for keeping certain players’ budget charge low enough per year that they avoid becoming a designated player, for example.
The Silva trade also opened an international slot, so the club won’t have to trade for one if it signs an international player.
After fully moved on from Franco Ibarra and Santiago Sosa over the winter, Atlanta United still has their U22 slots open going into the summer. The U22 initiative is another useful roster mechanism for signing promising young talent for a fraction of their usual budget charge. However, it is unclear exactly how these slots fit into the club’s plans. Both Garth Lagerwey and Henderson have acknowledged the usefulness of these slots, but warned that they come with risk, given that it is basically betting on potential.
Three players won’t make this team an instant MLS Cup contender by any means, but they could help at least make this team a skosh more watchable for the remainder of the season. This will also be the first opportunity to lay the groundwork for what will very likely be a busy winter for the club.
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Winter is coming
One of the things that Garth Lagerwey has been working on since his arrival in late 2022 is offloading inefficient contracts. This offseason, a whopping 15 players will be at the end of their contracts, and it will ultimately fall on Chris Henderson to decide who stays as part of the current project under Ronny Deila and who doesn’t.
Contracts expiring at the end of 2025:
- Brad Guzan
- Ronald Hernandez (Option 2026)
- Derrick Williams (Option 2026)
- Brooks Lennon (Option 2026)
- Jamal Thiare (Option 2026)
- Efrain Morales (Option 2026)
- Josh Cohen (Option 2026)
- Will Reilly (Option 2026)
- Cayman Togashi (Option 2026)
- Jay Fortune (Option 2026)
- Jayden Hibbert (Options 2026, 2027, 2028)
- Mateusz Klich
- Luis Abram (Option 2026)
- Matt Edwards (Options 2026, 2027)
- Edwin Mosquera (Option 2026)
Right off the bat, several players are likely to stay with the team. Homegrowns Jay Fortune and Matt Edwards have become routine starters this season, so they will probably have their options picked up. Efrain Morales and Will Reilly haven’t gotten many minutes this season, but they have impressed in the few opportunities they’ve received, so they’ll probably stay. At 20 years old, Jayden Hibbert seems to be the future of the club’s goalkeeping corps, so he probably won’t be going anywhere. Finally, Jamal Thiare has proven to be a serviceable backup striker in 2025 with three goals in his last five games. I think he and Cayman Togashi, who has three goals and five assists in six appearances for Atlanta United 2, stick around for their option year.
Then there are some that I think are unlikely to be here come 2026. Luis Abram is on a big TAM contract and taking up a precious international slot. What he provides does not justify that investment in my opinion. Mateusz Klich is almost a guaranteed exit due to his lack of option years and the fact that his full salary (which D.C. United is still paying a hefty chunk of) would make him a designated player. Edwin Mosquera is likely also on the way out, given that he is on a U22 deal and has frankly been very underwhelming in his almost three years at the club, with just six goals and five assists in 63 games.
As for the rest, I think you have a lot of question marks. Brad Guzan is out of option years, so do you sign him to another contract on the cusp of turning 41? I don’t think so. Josh Cohen only played a few games with the first team last season, but he doesn’t seem like a very convincing goalkeeper in MLS, so I expect his option will be declined. Brooks Lennon doesn’t really fit this team anymore and is a TAM player, so I don’t think his option will be picked up. Finally, Derrick Williams and Ronald Hernandez just seem to be defensive liabilities at this point, and Atlanta would probably be better off bringing in better starters while allowing its younger defenders, such as Noah Cobb, Morales and Edwards, to fill in the gaps as depth.
If the end-of-season roster moves go the way I’m predicting, that opens up eight senior roster slots, including a U22 slot and two international slots, while also getting rid of two TAM players. This creates ample room on the roster to make much-needed upgrades down the spine of the team, especially on the backline, which has now allowed the third-most goals in MLS this season (34).
Having said all of that, things could start to look up for this team in two to three transfer windows (yes, I know, everyone is tired of hearing that – sorry). I can understand many fans feeling jaded after the club has seemingly been in rebuild mode for the past five years, but I trust Chris Henderson to replicate the powerhouses he helped build in Seattle and Miami over the past 17 years. With the roster opening up more over the next six months, I think we can expect to see him work his magic very soon.
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This is all meaningless until Atlanta has a proper coach. Have you seen your Luiz Araujo wirh Flamengo at the Club World Cup? Or Almada winning Libertadores last year with Botafogo? Adding players to this team is useless, as there is no one to lead them. Atlanta needs a real coach, and everything else is just bubbles.
The issue is not the coach. It’s the front office. The FO is signing players that do not fit the style or systems of play. We are a jumbled mess of talented players that don’t fit each others strengths.
Agree we should hire the coach before signing the players, and let the coach have input on who the players we acquire are. We have done the opposite, except for with Tata.
Results have also been mostly opposite between the two approaches.
Have you seen the immediate impact of Carlo Ancelotti in the Brasil National Team? Coaches matter.
So we’re supposed to be excited for Rebuild Year 7? Hard pass.
The problem is if you have a bunch of people on contract that many are considering are either too expensive or not worthy of an extension, you essentially put yourself into rebuild mode and that’s not something I think GL is wanting to do. Maybe pick a few here and there but I can’t see a ton of those names getting dunked.
This roster is the Land of Misfit Toys. Mr. 22mil is a statue. Almiron is best where either Saba or Maranchuk play, so saba gets the shaft having to play wb and forces a 3-man back with CB being a weak position. Midfield hasn’t been even decent since early days. It’s a mess that will take years to correct.
Hope springs eternal for sports fans… vamos Atlanta
Henry, your optimism is adorable and I don’t know how you still have even a shred left.
I am utterly indifferent to this team after 5 seasons of shit soccer. I want to be wrong but I’m not optimistic that I am.
I kinda share in this. Supposedly we need 43 windows to fix this roster but we also supposedly fixed everything that was wrong with the attack – offloaded bad contracts or players that didn’t fit the system and signed the most expensive attacking players we could find and we have managed to goose-egged 8 games… Almost half our games this season so far. We are no closer to having anything figured out than we were a year ago, and honestly, it’s worse. By the time Garth is done, we’ll be lifting our first Wooden Spoon.
“We’re back, BABY!”
I am curious to see what veteran goalies are available next season. I know a lot of people are not high on Cohen, but I think he could still be serviceable next year to see if he has any value and maybe Hibbert can push him for playing time. I also think goalie is a position that you need to play regularly to be good, so maybe Cohen getting regular reps will help him play better.
The list of MLS free agents is pretty good if we are looking for a short-term bridge to Hibbert. Pedro Gallese, Roman Burki, Sean Johnson (option for 2026), Stefan Frei, and Carlos Coronel are available.
Dayne St. Clair (28 years old) is also out of contract, but you would bring him in to be a long-term starter for 3-5 years. If you are willing to slowly develop Hibbert behind St. Clair for that long, he would be a TAM goalkeeper with a comparable pay scale to Zach Steffen, Pedro Gallese, or Andre Blake at around $1 million. St. Clair will be the Canadian NT starter at the World Cup next summer.
If you are looking at backup veterans, Alec Kann, David Bingham, and Alex Bono are available. Cohen is probably fine as a backup, but I don’t see him as our everyday starter.
Right now, I’d say our organizational depth chart (not counting Guz and Cohen) is something like Hibbert, Jonathan Ransom, James Donaldson, Reuben Clarson, Lucas Elias da Silva, and a tight pack of teenage college keepers like Dillon Griner, Kyle Jansen, Nash Skoglund, and Owen Barnett.
Obviously, the best case scenario would be that Hibbert will be an above average goalie that can play every match and have Cohen around as a veteran back up, but getting Gallese for a year or two would not be a bad idea.
If it was the plan all along to wait until after this season when 8+ roster spots would clear, I wish GL had just said that instead of “We’re back, baby!”.
I’m in show me mode now.
Just another 2-3 windows seems to be Garth’s matra. He has been saying that ever since he got here. I think that was six windows ago.
Lot of moves to be made this offseason for sure. Will be interesting to see what Henderson does with all the options and who he signs.
On a side note, just wanted to let you know you used previous instead of precious (I assume) in this sentence
Luis Abram is on a big TAM contract and taking up a previous international slot.
Yes. Just edited it. Thank you.
Of the contracts expiring this year, keep the homegrowns and Thiare, and I suppose Togashi. *Maybe* keep Williams and Hernandez if they’re supposed to be cheap experienced backups on the bench and the practice field. Revamp the rest of the field, and maybe hopefully we can have a 2020 type of turnover, except for the better with someone like Henderson at the reins.
Amador, Saba, and Muyumba all have contracts that either expire or are on options after the 2026 season. That could make them attractive to MLS trades if the value is right.
I do think as expensive as Abram is. I think there is value out there for a left footed CB whether in MLS or overseas, so I think it would be possible to trade or sell Abram if we poke around.