The Five Stripe Final Blueprint to (finally) Fixing Atlanta United

it's not a manifesto stop calling it a manifesto

If you’ve been reading or listening to Five Stripe Final this season, you know there’s not *that much* Atlanta United needs to fix. The short-term addition of a little luck and a little confidence and suddenly this team will be off and running toward the mean and the playoffs and Rob Valentino will look like a genius. By and large, the roster has quality and depth. 

That doesn’t mean everything will stay the same though. The first of two major dominoes fell last week with the dismissal of Gonzalo Pineda. The sale of Giorgos Giakoumakis to Cruz Azul is reportedly up next. Even if there may not be many changes on the way, the changes that do arrive will be big. 

So I figured we’d take a look at the major changes on the way and lay out a blueprint for how I think the club should and/or will approach each decision. Basically: This. 

The next manager of Atlanta United 

We’re fortunate here. Garth Lagerwey has already laid out most of the criteria Atlanta will be looking for. 

• “A leader of men”

• An ability to “demand, manage, and to understand how to meet all the players where they are and to be able to communicate effectively with them both good news and bad news.”

• Someone with “at least some familiarity with MLS”

• Someone who can be tactically flexible and pragmatic

• Someone who can contribute long-term and “fix this in a way where it stays fixed.”

We laid out some names who fit that criteria here, but just to recap my personal favorites…

• Former River Plate manager Marcello Gallardo should be the first call. He has (technically) played in MLS, his son plays for Atlanta United 2, and he managed River Plate to multiple Copa Libertadores titles. The only learning curve here would be learning what is and isn’t tactically effective with an MLS roster. The biggest drawback is that he likely wouldn’t be around long, but it would be a coup for Atlanta to bring him in and away from Europe for a while. They should at least try and gauge whether he can handle the MLSness of it all. 

• Former NYCFC head coach and MLS Cup winner Ronny Deila makes a ton of sense and is probably more attainable. He’s already done the thing in MLS and he’s looking for his next role. His game model fits with Atlanta United’s front-foot ethos. He checks a lot of boxes. Like Gallardo though, the biggest issue could be longevity. He moves around like a Methodist pastor. Deila has been in charge of five teams since 2014.

• Current Real Salt Lake manager Pablo Mastroeni checks all the boxes. Like legitimately all of them. His dudes will run through a wall for him and RSL have been thriving since the arrival of Chicho Arango as their DP No. 9. They’re on top of the West right now through a mixture of gritty defending, tactical flexibility, young players like Emeka Eneli and Andrés Gómez becoming rising stars, and Arango going turbo-nuclear. He’s not as big a name as the others, and you’d have to wait until the end of the season to get him in, but you could absolutely pull him away from RSL. He feels like a high-floor bet. 

Whoever it is, they’ll almost certainly be able to implement the kind of “pragmatic” tactical adjustments Lagerwey wants to see. That means adding…