Ronny Deila: "Everything is too nice. But you cannot be nice in a culture when you're wanting to win."

Atlanta United head coach Ronny Deila believes that Atlanta United is “too nice” as an organization.

Deila spoke with media on Thursday, two days before Atlanta United faces off against D.C. United in a match that will determine who wins MLS’ Wooden Spoon trophy. As Deila and his team approach what could potentially be the absolute rock bottom moment for the club, Deila took a surprising approach to explaining what’s wrong in Atlanta.

FSF: You mentioned that there are things the organization can do better. What are those things?

A: “We have to get more out of the money we use. So that’s, you know, that’s can go from scouting, it can go to physical, medical, coaching.

It’s about how to create an environment, a performance culture, a high performance culture. Then it’s about demands. It’s about standards. Every day. It’s about daring to stand up for what you need to get the results you want.

You know for me, for what I’m used to, it’s...too nice. Everything is too nice. But you cannot be nice in a culture when you’re going to win. Yeah, love each other, but you have to put demands on each other. You cannot accept mediocre, you know? And then you have to take the feedback. We have to be strong and stand together and drive that process together. It’s impossible for a coach or a CEO or a sporting director or whatever it is, to do this alone. You need together and that’s also a job for me, and also to get everybody into that process. So maybe that’s also been a failure in a way. But you need to take responsibility for your tasks and put demands on the players so they are actually improving at the things we need to do. So we don’t go in circles. I don’t like to go in circles. And I will tell you, if I don’t feel like it’s possible to do anything here, I will say I’m out, because I don’t have any motivation. I don’t need anything. But I want. Because I think it’s possible.

So it’s for me. This is the whole thing. I take the blame. It’s no problem. But one person cannot change everything around. Everything has to be high standard in everything you do. And that’s come back to the players. It’s about demands. So the players understand that this is not accepted or this the standards to be a player.”

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