The standard of defensive midfielders for Atlanta United, and really much of Major League Soccer, is Darlington Nagbe, with the running joke among the fanbase being that “Player X is the Nagbe replacement”. Not a true like-for-like replacement, because there won’t ever be one, but a player that can be a consistent, steady performer at the position.
Bartosz Slisz’s departure for Brøndby in the offseason left a massive gap that I thought the team would fill rather quickly. It didn’t, and, although Tata Martino’s tactics haven’t called for a true No. 6, the lack of one so far this season has been noticable. During this window, however, Atlanta is making this a priority, with several credible names either having been linked to the club or been identified as outright targets. And it’s about time.
Here are the names we know of so far:
Mauricio Amaro
This is one of the latest names connected to Atlanta United, and possibly one of the most credible. The 21-year-old, who stands 5’10” and has appeared in 58 matches for Defensor SC in Uruguay since 2023, would be worth an over $3 million transfer fee and would take up Atlanta’s remaining U22 slot. He doesn’t appear to have had any major injuries during his relatively brief career. Reports state that he could be headed to the United States in short order to finalize the signing of his contract.
Milton Delgado
It hasn’t always worked, but no one can accuse Atlanta of not paying the big bucks when it feels it’s found a player. According to Germán García Grova, it offered $10 million to Boca Juniors for “a large percentage of the transfer rights” of Milton Delgado, who has 50 appearances with Boca and seven caps with the Argentina U-20 team. Delgado, who turned 21 in June, would also utilize a U22 slot. Boca, however, turned Atlanta down and are asking $15 million to at least start talks; Delgado’s release clause is a reported $25 million. It’s money Atlanta could pay, but not really any money it should pay.
Koke
This was always going to be an aspirational signing for Atlanta United given Koke’s stature and longevity at Atlético Madrid, the only club he’d ever known since joining its academy at the age of eight and debuting professionally with its senior team in 2009. Despite being out of contract, and despite longtime teammate Antoine Griezmann signing for Orlando City, Koke, who would have commanded a DP contract, spurned his own move to MLS and opted to return to Atleti for at least one more season.
Giuliano Galoppo
Galoppo, currently at River Plate, emerged as a possible target for Atlanta United in June. The 26-year-old had most recently played for São Paulo and was loaned to River in 2025 before permanently joining the Argentine first-division outfit. An ACL tear suffered in March 2023 sidelined him for 10 months with several minor hiccups on his injury history. This one might have been a bullet dodged for a much different reason: Galoppo has been banned by FIFA from competing after not settling an outstanding debt with his agent.
None of this is to say that a No. 6 will automatically cure all of Atlanta United’s ills. It will, though, make them an incrementally better team, and will have filled a void that’s existed on this roster for far too long.