After just over a year with Atlanta United, Enea Mihaj appears to be set for a move away from the club amid a revamp of its backline.
According to multiple reports, Mihaj has reached a “verbal agreement” with Samsunspor, a team in Turkey’s top flight. The reports quote Samsunspor president Yüksel Yıldırım while adding that Mihaj is keen to make the move.
This probably isn’t a massive surprise. Paulo Díaz’s announced signing left the club with four true first-team CBs in Díaz, Mihaj, Stian Gregersen, and Júnior Alonso. Mihaj’s guaranteed compensation is just over $1.5 million. Even without knowing Díaz and Alonso’s budget numbers, Atlanta would have a decent amount of money to work with.
Samsunspor, a 2025-26 UEFA Conference League participant, finished seventh in the league during its most recent season. Not long ago, it was playing in Turkey’s third division before a first-place finish there in 2019-20 won it promotion to the second league, which it won in 2022-23. After finishing 13th out of 18 teams in 2023-24 — its first season in the first division since 2011-12 — it finished third in 2024-25 to earn a place in the UEFA Europa League play-off round.
We’ll keep you posted on this. For now, stay locked on our transfer tracker for the latest during another big window for Atlanta United, and be sure to follow us on social media at the links below.
I guess we will know for sure whether the rumor is true when they announce the squad for tomorrow’s match.
The CB salaries didn’t make sense with the product on the field. JB and EM massively underperformed for what they were paid. Personally glad we freed up money. We are out of those 2 salaries, got a good amount for Saba, and now can hopefully go get a difference maker at wing
I think it’s hard to keep 3+ $1M salaried CB’s on the roster when you usually play with 2 and rarely sub them out. No $1M salaried CB wants to sit on the bench, especially after watching your Argentinian coach go pick out Argentinian players or players who play for Argentinian teams.
We need some homegrown/MLS style talent CB’s as our backups if we continue down this route.
Too bad we sold off our cheap homegrown CBs to buy Mihaj and Berrocal. Last year’s summer transfer window might just end up being the worst transfer window in club history.
so much for regaining some CB depth. now we are basically back to just 3 true CBs again…
Of what looks to be similar cost, similar age, similar ability. Change for the sake of change. I mean I guess anything has to better than it was right?
Is it just me or did we used to have a percent of US players we wanted on the team? Don’t feel like we have more than a few.
I was curious so I had a look and found a roster on mls.
in 2018, out of 30 players:
9 players taking international spots
6 players in the reserves who are basically all homegrowns, 1 of which is international
3 players in supplemental spots – Mikey, Mitch Hildebrandt, Miles
of the 20 senior spots:
8 you would consider Hispanic and foreign
Gressel takes one of the international spots, Villalba has a green card
about 8 American players in those senior slots
in 2026, according to the club page:
9 international slot players
12 supplemental players including homegrowns. no one taking international slots. Of note here are Fortune, Hibbert, as well as Togashi (born in the states) and Sergio Santos (born in Brazil)
of the 13 senior/U-22 spots on the page (Saba, Galarza, Berrocal, all foreign are already gone, Alonso and Diaz also all foreign are not listed yet):
1 is American – Picault
5 are Hispanic
6 are European
1 is African
There’s definitely something to be said about there basically no American senior roster players. One caveat is that the homegrowns are playing a massively bigger role now compared to then. There are 7 homegrowns that are or have had major playing time with the first team, whereas in 2018 if you include the drafts, you can only really argue maybe 3 of them.
I would argue the problem isn’t too many hispanic players, but too many foreign players in general just looking for a paycheck. We could use a core similar to Parky, Jeff, and Nagbe again.