Fixing Atlanta United ahead of the 2026 season

Atlanta United and Sporting Director Chris Henderson has two transfer windows to put a competitive team on the field in 2026.

Editor’s Note: As the transfer window opens this week, Five Stripe Final will turn an eye toward how the team is best preparing to be competitive next season. This week, Joe, Sam and Rob will offer thoughts on how to do that.

So. Mistakes were made.

We all understand that Atlanta United is far away from where they want to be and where *we and the organization thought they’d be* ahead of the summer transfer window opening for MLS clubs this week. So with an eye toward the future, what should be the top priorities for the team to put themselves in best position to be a competitive unit in 2026? Lets dive in.

Move on from as many players as possible

In order to acquire some of the players and archetypes Atlanta United needs, it’s going to require as many resources as possible in the form of Salary Budget dollars, or GarberBucks, if you will. Fortunately for Sporting Director Chris Henderson, this shouldn’t be a huge problem. Players eligible to come off the books after the season include:

Totaling up the salaries here equates to just over $6 million in salary, though it’s not an exact science. For example, Matheus Klich’s salary is largely paid for by DC United, meaning that Atlanta might only free up $200-400k of it’s own cap space — not nearly 2 million as listed. But the point is that there’s quite a bit of significant salary that can be freed up.

And that’s just the player who can naturally fall off the books. Here are the other players who will remain under contract, but I’d still advocate for any of these players being moved (in Amador’s case, only for the right price).

This isn’t even a comprehensive list of players that could be moved, as yesterday proved when news broke that homegrown CB Efrain Morales will be exchanged for $450k GAM that could rise to $800k with incentives.

And there’s also at least one more outgoing transfer that will need to happen…

Move on from Alexey Miranchuk or Miguel Almiron

This translates to “move on from Alexey Miranchuk” because he’s by far the easiest of the two to move due to his more reasonable salary and proof of performance in Serie A — particularly his time in Atalanta. On the field in Atlanta, it’s simply not working for him or anybody else, and I’d have to think the player would welcome a move at this point.

I throw Almiron into this because, performance-wise, he’s been just as bad, if not worse, than Miranchuk. But he’s one of the top-paid players in MLS, and no team from around the world is going to be able to take on that salary. The nuclear option would be to use a contract buyout on either of these players, but as long as Miranchuk can return even a small fee or be loaned in full, they may not need to move with such haste on Almiron. Having said that the Paraguayan will be 32 next season. How his game will have to adapt as he ages is something the club must be considering.

Add a press resistant central midfielder

In terms of additions, the No. 1 priority for Henderson should be a press resistant central midfielder. The team’s only true successful spell had the best version of this archetype MLS has on offer in Darlington Nagbe. There’s a reason Nagbe has won four MLS Cup titles with three different teams in his career. He’s that good at what he does, and what he does is that important for top teams.