Atlanta United fans likely saw the writing on the wall with Ronny Deila’s tenure months ago, and even the most devout holdouts have to admit five MLS wins over the course of the entire season would spell doom for just about any coaching staff. Only a day after the 2025 Decision Day, the Five Stripes announced they’ve let Ronny Deila go, setting the stage for an incredibly busy offseason as we head into one of the most important years in Atlanta United’s young history.
Deila arrived a few weeks before the beginning of the 2025 season, supplementing a massive hype train kickstarted by Atlanta’s 2024 playoff Cinderella run and before the re-signing of club legend Miguel Almiron. His ideas and thought processes on how he wanted the team to play and compete sounded wonderful, and throughout the preseason we saw some progress with his initiatives. The season opener 3-2 win against Montreal wasn’t convincing…but it was a win. The Five Stripes wouldn’t win again for over a month, though, and that was only thanks to a miraculous comeback over NYCFC. From that point on, things really went downhill.
Unfortunately, other competitions like Leagues Cup didn’t provide much respite for the weary fans as the season dragged on, with Atlanta getting grouped in that competition for the third year in a row. The final glimmer of hope arrived with an incredibly busy summer transfer window, but while small aspects of Atlanta’s game improved, others remained stagnant and – most importantly – the results didn’t change. Ronny Deila wraps up his time with Atlanta United with an MLS record of 5-13-16, narrowly avoiding the biggest damning prize of all – the Wooden Spoon.
From Atlanta United:
A global search for a new permanent head coach will begin immediately. “It was evident that our standard of play was not met this season, and together with our senior leadership team, we have decided that it was in Atlanta United’s best interest to move the team in a different direction. Ultimately, we owe our fans a much better on-field product and it is our unwavering commitment to provide that to this community as soon as possible,” Atlanta United CEO and President Garth Lagerwey said. “We want to thank Ronny for his time and commitment to the organization and wish him well in his future endeavors.”
The 2026 FIFA World Cup arrives to the city of Atlanta next summer, with changes to the norm being seen as early as late winter of 2026 when grass gets installed inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Kevin Egan said it best on one of our recent podcasts when he bluntly exclaimed that Atlanta United can’t afford to be poor in a year where 3 billion pairs of eyes will be hyper-focused on the city. Arthur Blank is perhaps more aware of this than anyone, as the Benz was a massive part of his goal of bringing the World Cup to Georgia. Changes needed to happen sooner than later, and this is likely just the beginning of what’ll be a wild offseason for the Five Stripes.
We never want to see anyone lose a job and we truly wish Ronny Deila the absolute best going forward, but it was definitely time for both parties to go their separate ways.
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I’m a little surprised, but not disappointed by the decision.
[…] Atlanta United fires Ronny Deila after worst season in club history […]
At least we didn’t stick with him for 3 years of continuous bad performances. So that’s an improvement from our FO.
My eyes are laser focused on Chris and Garth for who and when they bring in the next coach. I still think the decision should have happened weeks ago, and this is slow and ill timed if we want to have any advantage on next year.
My hope is that they have been working to bring someone in already and an exciting announcement will happen very very soon. My concern is that the search just started and a new manager won’t be brought in until December or January – which will indicate a similar mistake Garth did last year and the potential of another bad season is on the horizon.
I don’t see the benefit of firing him mid-season and introducing yet another stretch of interim nonsense.
Oh and I’m sure there will be haters but…..RE-UNITE THE FUSION! ESPECIALLY if it ends up being tata!
^^ this! Super-sub El Rey for his last couple seasons would rebuild some bridges for STH, generate some easy hype for ’26, and crank the volume in the stands. Most of the guys on the team have never played in a packed Benz. That would change their mentality significantly. Then build around that hype in a WC year bringing in excited/exciting players!
I have watched enough sports movies to know this has a high probability of success.
Lets go HARD after Jurgen! He already works in MLS now
Klopp or Klinsman? Hahaha jk.
Klopp!
If they could pull that off, might be the only thing that can get me excited about having hope for 2026 right now.
Stop. Be real.
I am being real, if we are who we say/think we are THIS IS THE WAY
GL probably shouldn’t be here either. Tara would be amazing, but man what kind of Coach would want this job. You’d have to believe there is enough talent on this roster with maybe one or two changes to become a contender again. Outside of that I can’t imagine anybody. It’s proven to be a career limiting move for a lot of high profile coaches already.
I’ve said it all season, these players didn’t just forget how to play soccer. There is quite a bit of talent on the field, they just didn’t have the proper direction. I think they have their CB’s figured out (assuming Juan stays, or they can get Noah back). They need to figure out RB and a backup LB, Slisz is still pretty solid, Muyumba needs to go, Alexey needs to be utilized properly (not as a 10) and get a proper LW and backup RW (Saba is still solid). ELL either needs to step up or provide us a refund and we need some solid backup strikers.
Any coach’s #1 job is to get the best possible performances from the players he has on the team and available for selection (i.e., not injured or suspended or away on International duty), and that is Ronny Deila’s #1 failure, in my view.
Mixed emotion here…
On one hand, no qualms with getting rid of Deila as he demonstrated that he simply can’t get what’s needed out of the players.
On the other hand, I think our roster construction is awful and I hope we don’t take the tact of “it was just the coach”. Something must be done to address the fact that our collection of “most expensive signings” have been utter disappointments and didn’t look promising at all.
Further, I’ll say what I said before we hired Ronny. I don’t think our club has the prestige that people on this board fantasize about and with the number of folks we’ve fired lately, I find it near impossible to think we’ll attract a manager who can be a quick fix.
So yes, he should be gone because this season was awful. But no, this is not the “fix”.
Agreed. Hot take….
Get rid of Saba, ELL, Muyumba, Slisz, thierre, Hernandez, gregerson, and either Miggy or Miranchuk (can’t keep ‘em both). All for different reasons, but they should all go. Clean house. Let the new manager in on the scouting for replacements.
Garth should also step down, to go take care of himself. Didn’t Eales step down from Newcastle for a similar diagnosis?
I get the idea of cleaning house, but that’s not how soccer finances work. I agree that Miranckuk and a few others have been really bad, but Slisz, for example, was our best player this season.
Yeah, the finances of course has to be a consideration that my irrational (hot take) state right now isn’t wanting to admit. 🙂 There just isn’t any cohesion in the team and none of them are worth building around. None. I’m in a burn it all down mode.
I know I disagree with most on this board about Slisz. But I think he is a boring, less than average player at his position and only stuck out this season because of how horrible everyone else was.
I won’t try to change anyone’s opinion, but we should be able to easily do better for his salary.
And we might actually slightly disagree on Miranchuk, as I’m probably in the minority there as well in that, even though I won’t be sad to see him leave, I also wouldn’t hate giving him another year. He is the type of player that needs the right system and complimentary players to see his value.
Where I think we ALL absolutely have to agree is that Saba is the absolute first to go this off season.
Fwiw, which isn’t much, we actually started to get some looks at goal last night when Saba came on. Doesn’t mean we can’t do better, but I would choose a couple other players to offload before him.
Miranchuk, man! I see his value for sure, but him and Miggy together is not sustainable. Sorry Chuk, Miggy is my boy! You gotta go!
Wouldn’t be sad to see Gregerson or ELL go. The rest of that list I would like to give a little more time. What I fear the most for next season is not having a strong voiced and committed captain. Guz was huge in that role!
Oh for sure, it’s Alexy OR Miggy… they just couldn’t do it together this year and that’s all we needed to see.
Agree with you about a new captain. We have to consider that in our new hires, none of the current roster will do IMO. And having a captain as a field player might be a huge advantage if picked right. Nothing against Brad, but I’m never a fan of goalie captains. Parky played that role the best IMO, and he was more of a quiet cerebral type while having the hot heads of LGP and JM7 barking at people. I fear they’ll give it to Miggy out of some kinda rank seniority play… and I don’t think it’s the best idea.
Set aside Garth’s medical condition for a second, I look at what has transpired since we brought him on and it’s a load of… crap.
For someone who is supposedly a magic worker, I don’t see any results.
I’d also note that Chris Henderson, who is theoretically in charge of player acquisitions, has a track record of building a great team at Miami by simply being lucky enough to be able to sign the best player who has ever played. I don’t know how I feel about him and who he has signed thus far for us..
I haven’t been impressed so far either. I don’t think just firing Deila will change much. I know Chris has really only had 1 maybe 2 windows… but I think Garth should step down to deal with his personal life…
How is Lennon not on your list????
Ha. Oversight I guess, I haven’t seen him lately, so maybe out of sight out of mind. I figure he’s out of contract and won’t be extended either.
From what I can gather: Thierre, Hernandez and Lennon all have club option years in 2026. I wouldn’t exercise any of them. Done.
I hope we try to sell ELL and Alexy, because I don’t think a buyout on them is feasible. Might be able to loan out Muyumba and Slisz. Then we can buyout Saba because he produced zero goals this year and maybe buyout Gregerson because of his injury record.
I still don’t get the hate for Lennon…he’s still one of the most solid RB’s in the league (when he’s not hurt). Same for Saba…he didn’t produce this season, no but we have to stop looking at the individual players in a season that was chaotic at best. They never vibed, and it wasn’t their fault…this has solely be on the coach and he failed because Saba/Lennon had a connection before. Thiare and them had a connection. Alexey had a connection. And so on. Saba in our last game showed what he was capable of even if it wasn’t getting the goal…he’s a solid winger who can produce in the right system, but we kept thinking Miggy was our winger and Alexey was our 10. No….no no no. And at no point after Xande left did we have a proper LW.
The only one i’d for sure get rid of is Muyumba. ELL we need to figure out. thiare I think could be replaced with a solid backup striker. Reinforce the CB’s, get a LW/LB setup that works (still think Amador fits, but he needs a LW to connect with). And a solid enough midfield to not have to work the flanks only.
A solid assessment evaluating players’ qualities and pointing up some of the problems contributing to poor team performance in 2025. We can’t lay all the fault at Deila’s door, but he was certainly responsible for a lot of it. I would keep Lennon and Saba, too. Saba is fun to watch and root for when he’s at his best, and he is learning to be more reliable defensively. As for Lennon, I have commented in the past that the vitriol directed Lennon’s way is undeserved. Evaluate his pros and cons as you wish, sure, but the dismissive or outright hateful comments are troubling. As you say, SD2ATL, looking at Lennon’s body of work, he deserves better reviews of his competence and positive contributions to the team. He has worked to improve defensively and was one of the best RBs in the league on the attacking end when the team had a center forward of stature, ability and drive to put the ball in the back of the net (Gio). Thiare unfortunately has seldom made the best use of his opportunities to do the same. Lennon used to take really good corner kicks when he was doing it regularly–before higher-profile players wanted to take on those duties. And Lennon could be good servicing Latte Latte and others, if the team worked more in practice on making dangerous runs to draw out defenders in the box while other attackers took the space created to receive a pass from the wing. Too often the attackers go into the same spaces. Agree totally about showing Muyumba the door, though. He’s unreliable, making poor decisions as well as poor passes/giveaways far too often.
I certainly don’t hate Lennon, but his contract is up, and a new coach should bring in his players as opposed to asking him to make do with our misfit toys.
That’s my current emotional state talking – in a week or two I hope to be more rational 🙂
(Still can’t see myself wanting to keep Saba….)
His contract is up but he’s even stated he wouldn’t mind staying here and the club seems set on wanting to keep him here too. As for Saba, he may not have scored any goals this season but led on assists. He also got relegated to being a sub because Deila didn’t know how to utilize him (putting Miggy there instead). And we all saw when he was on the left that wasn’t his strong side.
We’ll see. If he goes, it’ll be a bummer but it’s clear we need some strength on the wings. If Lennon goes, same, but only if we replace them with high caliber players who do more than just back pass. I still think Brennan is a good option, but he’s done very little in the attack comparatively.
I’ll change the wording a little bit.
I am happy he lost his job. You deserve to be fired when you win five of 34 games.
Financially, I am sure he did fine here.
Good riddance and please take the FO, scouting department, and multiple players with you.
There’s this guy named Tata Martino who’s available…
There were rumors about him being linked to LAFC and that is definitely a more attractive job.
perhaps – except that the love he would get from the fans here cannot be matched by the LAFC fans who simply don’t know him.
I have no doubt that Tata would have gotten much more out of this roster. Seems like we’re built to run and gun—you know, our roots.