Atlanta United’s long-reported pursuit of Matías Galarza is finally complete.
On Monday, the club announced that it has signed the River Plate midfielder and Paraguayan international on a loan deal through June. The contract includes a reported $3 million purchase option that will be triggered if Galarza plays in half of Atlanta’s matches.
Galarza signed for the Olimpia academy as a teenager before being loaned to Brazilian side Vasco de Gama. He then signed a permanent deal with Vasco in 2021 and remained with the club through 2025, with loans to fellow Brazilian side Cortiba and Argentine outfit Talleres. He eventually signed for Talleres before moving to River Plate, where he has made 14 appearances.
“Matías is a talented young player who will add energy and intensity to our midfield,” Chris Henderson said. “At 24 years old, he’s played in multiple big games in South America at both the club and international level, recently helping Paraguay qualify for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. We’re excited to welcome him to Atlanta.”
From a national team standpoint, Galarza will be looking to stay on the radar of Gustavo Alfaro in search of a spot with Miguel Almiron on Paraguay’s World Cup roster in the summer. After sparingly featuring in the La Albirroja setup earlier in his career, Galarza eventually emerged as a more frequent option during CONMEBOL qualifying.
Monday ends a multiple-week chase for the signature of the 24-year-old, who reportedly traveled to the United States last week to complete the deal. Germán García Grova initially reported on Atlanta’s interest on Feb. 12, but three days later, its initial offer was deemed “insufficient.” But the sides continued to be in discussion before several reports from South America signified that it was a done deal.
Now that Galarza is in the fold, this presumably will be it for incoming transfers for Atlanta during this window, which closes on March 26. There’s still a number of deficiencies in the attack that need to be dealt with, but just how and when that happens remains to be seen.
Let us know what you think of the Galarza signing in the comments.
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GK – Hoyos
RB- Jacob
CB- Berrocal
CB- Minaj
LB- Baez
6- Galarza
8- Alzate
10- Miranchuk
LW – Saba
RW- Almiron
F- Latte Lath
Meanwhile in Denmark, Slisz has 3 shots, 9 interceptions, and 11 fouls in 4 games. Brondby have allowed 1 goal.
I would be interested on how players like Silva, Slisz, Rossetto, Araujo are doing on other teams. Did we miss on our evaluations or are we making players worse.?
Slisz has started 4 matches (360 min) since arriving with Brondby, but he was good while he was here. He’s the only one on that list I wasn’t happy to see go.
Araujo has been with Flamengo (Brazil) since he left. It looks like he’s a super sub/part time starter. He’s got decent G+A/90 numbers and his team won the league last season. His talent was apparent while he was here, but he seemed more interested in displaying his dribbling skill than fitting into the team.
Rossetto has also been in Brazil with Fortaleza. No goals, no assists and it looks like he went from a borderline first choice guy the first season to a sub/part time starter last year (only 900+ minutes).
Silva went to SLC the finish last season, recording zero goals for them. He’s with Hapoel Tel Aviv, and appears to be more of a sub. He’s got just 1 assist and 0 goals (but 3 YC and 1RC) in 474 minutes.
Not to say our other positions don’t also need help, but I really hope this fixes a lot of things. I’d say our number one issue right now is that we aren’t able to spring our offense onto really open plays to have good chances. Part of that is our CM isn’t making any line breaking passes.
The other part of that is that the ones who have been attempting those line breaking passes (Miggy) have been inaccurate as hell or on the bench (Miranchuk), and the ones making the runs haven’t been fast enough to do something useful (Miggy, Saba, LL). In theory those 3 have been fast, not sure if they still have it.
When will one of AU’s signings pan out? Another question, with the performance of recent signings in mind; why does Jonathan Spector still have a job?
Another CM, on loan, who’s required to play at least half the games in order to consider the purchase option…either they’ll be shifting some CM’s to other positions, or we’ll be getting rid of 1-2 people. All while our RW position is light and the current attack is a bit lethargic. I know things are in motion, but it’s hard to see the forest through the trees at this moment.
not to mention the no CB, RB, and LB depth.
We have loads of FB depth, it remains to be seen if we have a good starting quality FB, though. CB is dicey. Tomas Jacob has the ability to play CB, CDM, and RB. I just hope the FO remembers he can only do one at a time.
I will only consider Jacob a RB, once he puts in a full match as a RB. Also, having Hernandez and Edwards as the only other RB is very sad to see as “depth”. And Jacob being capable of covering 3 different position doesn’t mean he should be the best piece at each position since he can only play one position at a time and can’t cover both RB and CB at the same time.
Well, Matías should be ready to go straight out of the gate so I would expect he gets minutes in the home opener. It will be interesting to see what Tata trots out there. I fear we won’t see a shake up to the starting 11 but I’d like to see him rethink his player ratings and see what happens.
If we don’t shake up the staring 11 for the home opener, we’re just doomed to make the same mistakes over and over. That’s what Ronny did, and we all see how that panned out. Tata should be smarter than this.
The truly scary thing is, with the possible exception of Miranchuk who supposedly isn’t 90 minutes fit, the starting 11 Tata deployed the first two games presumably performed best in practice. If so, I don’t have high hopes for a shakeup producing better results. :-/
The forest has been moved to 2027. This season is just a marketing experiment.
How are they to market this mess?
To be fair, I think build up has been our biggest problem. The forwards haven’t been given much opportunities to show just how bad they are. Given that, CM is arguably our position of greatest need, despite the large number of options we have there.
That’s not to say the other positions don’t need help, but I seriously hope having better midfield control will improve the team the most.
On the few opportunities they have had, they’ve shined in the feckless category. That said, I agree that build up has been bad. Teams press us super high because they know it.
Did anyone else notice the difference between us pressing and SJ pressing. AU pressing gives the defender a solid 15 yards after receiving the ball before before our forwards apply any pressure. Our defenders seemed to have a SJ player in their hip pockets immediately upon receiving the ball.
Oh yeah, even drunk from an afternoon of day drinking at Lanta Gras, it was glaring how much more pressure SJ was putting on us than the other way around. I don’t even think it’s so much about actual pace of players (though that helps), they just played faster. They reacted and coordinated pressing and attacking actions much quicker than us. Hell, I don’t think we got the ball across midfield with an actual attack until about 18-20 minutes into the game. All we could do was hoof and hope.
I am probably putting too much stock in Galarza, but he could really help shore up our midfield. And perhaps that moves Jacob to RB, and provide us a boost in the attack on the right flank.
Oh yeah, that’s why I said “to show how bad they are”. They’ve been absolutely horrible with the few chances they’ve been given, but it’s technically possible we see better when they’re given more, better quality chances. I’m not holding my breath, but it’s technically possible.