Breel Embolo to Atlanta United is happening.
According to Tom Bogert, Embolo will head stateside on Friday to put the wraps on his $18 million transfer to Atlanta. It would be one of the top five transfer fees in MLS history.
After initial reports in July linked Embolo to Atlanta, talks picked up steam, eventually culminating in the deal approaching its final stages on August 14. Things looked to be in jeopardy a few days later as Embolo reportedly rejected Atlanta’s salary offer, with L’Equipe in France stating that newly promoted Premier League team Ipswich Town was the frontrunner. However, that was more or less debunked by subsequent reports from England.
Now, though, it looks like the green light is on for good. Barring any unforeseen hiccups, Breel Embolo is set to be Atlanta United’s newest No. 9 as the club has fully turned the page on the failed Emmanuel Latte Lath era.
Gabriel Slonina would be my next move and then we have a team. I know Hoyos had a blinder of a match last ime out but Slonina is 22 not 37.
Better be correct on this One Spector and Henderson.
I predict we will look back on this move at the end of the full 2026-27 season as another failed signing. #spector-out
I’m not one to look at the moneyball part of this game with any enjoyment, i prefer watching performance to decifer worth regardless of the price. (Though I get all the reasons expectations are high with the price and DP tags).
My worry with this move is reading that he has had a couple of issues with the law some years ago, potentially indicating he might have a bit of a temper problem. And I didn’t love the way he responded after the bad dive in the WC that ultimately cost his team advancement.
Both high hopes and concerns for this one.
The legal issues delayed his visa for the WC, so may delay player visa too.
His visa from the world cup should be active, so he should be able to get into the US with little issues this time, but he will need a long term visa to actually play, so that may get delayed depending on that previous legal issue. Also as much as we give crap about our FO, I would think they did their due diligence regarding his legal issue.
I think we all hope for and expect much better finishing from this move and would be disappointed if it doesn’t happen. With that said, 18m USD really isn’t that much money for the international market. It’s like in baseball, where the super stars are making 20-30 mil per year now, so a middle of the rotation yeoman starter gets 13 or so. Athletes get paid lots and lots of money. 18m is a lot for MLS, but Atlanta’s model is to sign international players as DPs. That’s the price of it. And it’s not my money.
Wasn’t he originally supposed to be a loan?
That was Darwin.
He was just waiting until he could join a “winning” team on a win streak.
Let’s just hope that little bookmark from him being a loan doesn’t yank that page back open.
He’s starting the Pokal match this morning so we’ll see how the first real game goes.
Welp, he was subbed out in 62nd minute with his team down 2-1 after registering zero (0) shots. His replacement immediately got an assist and then scored two (2) goals.
So assuming normal visa processing, we’re looking at maybe 10 games available the rest of the season. I feel like 5 G/A isn’t unreasonable as the minimum expectation.
As a bare minimum, okay, but for the money, I certainly hope for more. For the sprint season, the minimum should be more like 15 G/A.