Scarves and Spikes sat down today with Chris Henderson, Atlanta United’s Chief Soccer Officer and Sporting Director and former USMNT player, for a wide-ranging conversation about where the club actually is, what’s coming in the transfer window, and how the World Cup taking over Atlanta is changing the way the rest of the soccer world looks at this city. You can watch the whole interview below, but there was a ton of wonderful insight and we wanted to break it all down in written format, too.
The headline, and the thing every Atlanta fan wants to know, is how much help is actually on the way. Henderson didn’t dodge it, in fact, he told us he could see the club making a real number of additions before the window shuts in early September, and he put a figure on it that should, at minimum, give fans some hope.
“I could see anywhere from two to four or five players coming in this summer,” Henderson said. “That wouldn’t be a surprise if we had as many as five. We just have to make sure they’re the right five in the balance of, you know, which categories we have available. Regular roster, under-22 we have one slot, and TAM and how much GAM and TAM we’re going to have available to use on these roster spots. There’s a lot of things that are in motion and a lot of things in the air.”
Five is significant, but before we got to the incoming, Henderson was refreshingly honest about the state of things.
“We’re not where we expect to be”
There was no spin here, I think everyone can appreciate. When asked what the front office can do to get the product on the field better and get fans back into Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Henderson was straight up.
“We’re not where we expect to be and want to be,” he said. “We’ve made some changes with Tata and his staff coming in. We weren’t able to make one or two of the signings last window. And we also didn’t want to rush those signings just to add a player. So I think there’s been a little bit of a deficit there waiting for this transfer window to open.”
When he talked about the young core getting valuable minutes and the pieces the club is trying to fit together under Tata Martino, Henderson framed the whole moment.
“We’re all being patient as we’re suffering here, but at the same time, these pieces are going to play into the total identity that Tata wants to play,” Henderson said.
He wanted everyone to know the standard hasn’t moved, though.
“We want to win now,” he said.
He pointed to Cooper Sanchez as an example of a young player whose growth will pay off both down the line and right now, and also heaped praise on Jay Fortune. As at Mauricio Culebro’s press conference a couple of weeks ago, the word “sustainable” was mentioned quite often.
Fans will likely recall that Henderson’s also been here before. He leaned on his own track record to make the case that a season like this one can turn quickly in MLS.
“I’ve been in similar situations in Seattle the year we won it,” he said. “We were in last place at the midway point and made three changes that were a catalyst to change our future the rest of that season.”
He mentioned that 2016 Seattle run again later, the one that started at the bottom of the table and ended with an MLS Cup, and pointed to a Miami playoff team under Phil Neville that “probably didn’t have any right to make the playoffs” as proof of how fast things can move.
“So these things can be done in MLS,” he said. “We just have to be efficient and smart in our signings and the mechanisms we use.”
How the window actually works
Regaeding MatÃas Galarza and Juan Berrocal, whose loans expired and who have gone back to their parent clubs, Henderson explained why the club didn’t buy either of them.
“Both players, I think in our cap situation and the way we wanted to move forward, it wasn’t going to be possible without one of them being a DP player just with the acquisition costs,” Henderson said. “And we weren’t able to find a solution on either of those. So they go back to their clubs.” On Galarza specifically, he added that the loan “was good for him preparing for the World Cup,” and that he thought the midfielder had a pretty good showing in it.
The trade of Saba Lobjanidze to Real Salt Lake is another piece of this summer’s puzzle, and Henderson laid it out as painful but purposeful.
“You’re losing a player who’s a long-time player, contributed greatly to the club,” he said, “but has a big enough salary and GAM that can come in that can really help you make some changes that are going to help this club sustain in the future.”
Those outgoings, he said, are what free up the room to bring people in.
“We’ve already had those, including Saba, those three outgoings, which free up some cap space and some GAM that will come in,” he added.
As for whether buyouts are on the table to create more space, Henderson made clear that’s the tool of last resort.
“I look at buyouts as a last resort,” he said. “I think you have to exhaust all the transfers, all the trades, any opportunity you have on players before you go and ask your owners to buy out a player.”
He also cautioned that these signings won’t necessarily come all at once, and that one move shapes the next.
“Some of those, one signing kind of lets us know how we are going to build the next signing and how we want to complement each of those players who are added,” he said. “Because some of those players come in with different skill sets. If you add one player, maybe that changes the complementary player next to him that we’re going to add.”
Henderson expects most of the additions to come from abroad, telling us it “will be a majority of players from outside, but there will be some things inside, whether it’s assets or a player.”
Henderson also mentioned that being buried in the standings doesn’t lower the urgency, saying the club is currently “seven points back from the play-in game” and “nine points back from a playoff spot,” which he framed as “either two or three wins and you’re there.” The catch is obviously the schedule, and Atlanta’s return to play is not an easy one.
“We start off the season with four games on the road and we’re at Nashville in that first game,” he said. “So in order for us to get there, we’re going to have to not only win at home, but we’re going to have to find road wins.”
The vision, and the adjustments along the way
Henderson has had to adjust his own plan more than once since arriving, given everything that changed with Garth Lagerwey’s departure and the shift from Ronny Deila’s setup to Tata Martino’s. He was candid that the picture in his head has been redrawn a few times.
“There have been a few adjustments and some tweaks in kind of how I see the build,” he said. “We all want it to go faster than it is happening, but I do know that we are working on the right steps to find a team that can win and be sustainable over a period of time. And once we look back at that it’ll seem like it went pretty fast, but as you’re living through it it doesn’t feel like that.”
He credited new President of Soccer Mauricio Culebro with sharpening that strategic picture.
“(He is) just bringing his experience and what he has done in Mexico, and he’s had success there and he comes in with his contacts, I think it greatly helps the strategic view of what we want to do.”
And he was effusive about ownership’s willingness to back the plan, calling it one of the best ownership groups in the league and the way they collaborate together.
We also pushed on something that’s genuinely upset fans, the sense that young homegrowns like EfraÃn Morales and Noah Cobb were getting on with the first team right up until the day they were moved. Henderson praised academy director Javier Perez and the work coming through the pipeline, and he acknowledged the hard math of it.
“Our job as a club is to figure out the best solutions for one, these players to be able to promote through and have a pathway to get into the first team,” he said. “Sometimes though these young players that are coming through may be blocked by a designated player in the position that they play.”
The answer, he explained, is often a loan that keeps the player developing while protecting Atlanta’s investment, and he pointed to Cobb as the model.
“In the case of Noah Cobb is a great example. And you are getting value back for that. The player is happy because he’s playing meaningful minutes, but is also still property in some form or another of Atlanta United.”
The dream version, he said, is simpler.
“Ideally the player comes through our system and he’s playing in Atlanta United’s first team and he’s there for the rest of his career. That’s the ideal scenario and we’re winning games and winning trophies.”
On Jay Fortune, whose contract is up after 2026, Henderson kept it short, telling us only that “the conversations are ongoing” with Jay’s camp.
The USMNT, and what the World Cup is doing for Atlanta
We recorded this with the US preparing to face Belgium in the Round of 16, and Henderson, a former national team player himself, admitted he wasn’t sure what to expect early in the tournament but has been won over.
“I think the team has been extraordinary,” he said, singling out the group’s togetherness and praising Christian Pulisic, noting “the first half of the Paraguay game, Pulisic was fantastic.” He also gave full credit to the coaching staff for the belief they’ve built.
“I have the US winning in penalties tonight,” he said, back in the city of Seattle where he grew up.
The part that should excite Atlanta fans a bit more, though, is what Henderson is hearing from around the sport now that the world has come through. He said visiting teams and staff have been blown away by the club’s facilities, with Egypt and Uzbekistan two of the national teams that have trained at the Atlanta United training ground during the tournament. Egypt is there now.
“I’ve heard comments, ‘your training ground is as good as any in the world’,” Henderson said. “And that includes top clubs that are paying hundreds of millions of dollars for players.”
He rattled off the bigger picture, the US Soccer National Training Center, the NWSL build, and called the whole thing “really an epicenter of soccer in this country.” For someone who came up in a very different version of this league, it clearly means something.
“I’m really proud of being a player who was in this league since 1996,” he said. “And we were dressing out of a rec center next to a guy just working out. And now we have like this and stadiums like Mercedes-Benz Stadium.”
That all ties into this becoming a genuine recruiting tool, with Atlanta’s facilities playing a big part.
“There are many players around the globe now who are looking at MLS,” he said.
The message to fans
We closed by asking what he’d say to a fanbase that’s frustrated and, frankly, tired of waiting. Henderson didn’t ask for blind faith so much as effort.
“We are doing everything in the front office, the coaching staff, the players, to take the steps to get this team to where we need to be and where the fans and the people in Atlanta want to see this team,” he said. “Not just in the second half of this season, but in the following years to come. We want to be a club that is competing for trophies each year and a really tough place to come play in Atlanta.”
And then, as plainly as he put anything all day: “We’re doing everything we can and working as hard as we can, as smart as we can to be efficient in the cap and build a team that could compete.”
In the meantime, keep it locked to our Atlanta United transfer tracker, because according to Henderson, there are going to be a lot of moves to keep up with between now and September.
Great write up. Just finished watching the US crash out of the world cup, so positive vibes are needed right now. Need an addition to this squad that gets momentum turned around and the fanbase excited.
not exactly the answer I would have wanted to hear regarding Cobb and Morales. Especially since we are struggling with CB depth and quality.
Yeah, my counterargument to Henderson is that these players were already getting first team minutes, and were essentially sold to help afford the purchases of the players expected to take their spots on the starting lineup – Berrocal and Mihaj. Those purchases have looked pretty bad. Mihaj is maybe ok, but I don’t know that it’s any better than what Morales or Cobb were producing, and for fraction of the price too.