Ronny Deila’s comments about Atlanta United’s “softness” have been a recurring theme throughout the 2025 season. He repeated those comments after Atlanta’s 2-0 loss to the New England Revolution dropped them to 1-9-5 away from Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
USMNT great and National Soccer Hall of Famer Marcelo Balboa has plenty of experience in both winning and losing locker rooms. The defender was a 4-time MLS All-Star and played in two World Cups, including the last one held on U.S. soil in 1994.
Appearing on the Scarves and Spikes podcast on Wednesday, Balboa said he “(wasn’t) a fan” of Deila’s comments.
“You never call out your team in the media. Call out your team in the locker room. You call out your players individually in the locker room,” Balboa said. “In the media, you defend them as much as you can because everybody will hear that interview the next day. But in (the locker room) we tell each other the truth.”
Such an approach could have negative ramifications and might have the reverse effect, Balboa noted.
“When you start calling out players, and you start calling out your team for being soft, players seem to shut down,” he said. “It seems like this team is shutting down a little bit because no one wants to be called out.”
There’s a risk that players will lose respect for their coach, too, Balboa added.
“Players quickly will be like, ‘So we lost today, and you had nothing to do with it. It’s all our fault.’ I’ve never been a big fan of calling out the players in the media because you have to have their respect,” Balboa said. “When you start blaming the team and you’re not taking responsibility, there’s not a balance.”
Click here to watch the full episode on YouTube, or click the video below.
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This is what makes me wonder if the bad play is the players way of getting rid of Ronny. He’s calling them out in pressers, in the post-game, and he’s not supporting his team in the way they should be supported. In the locker room, be brutally honest, but as a leader of an organization/team you never call your own team out amongst others, especially the media who will spin it to hell and back.