Will Ronny Deila be successful at Atlanta United?

2700 words plus footnotes, we're back baby

I’m back from Ireland and I made you a chart (see if you can spot the influences).

First off, eat your heart out John Muller, this is what peak data viz looks like. Second, I guess I should explain what you’re looking at.

This is my hastily constructed coach's curve. We’ve already talked plenty, like so much, like oh my god please make it stop about the degree of a head coach’s impact on a team relative to the quality of roster construction which is directly related to how much a team spends on players unless you’re Manchester United. This is the FSF Deep Magic. You may have been there when it was written. Hopefully, you’re at least familiar with it.

To refresh, studies seem to put a head coach’s influence across professional sports at about anywhere from 15-30%. When asked about that split, Garth Lagerwey has told us he puts the split at about 80% roster building, 20% coaching. I’m willing to put that split even lower, but I watched Brendan Rodgers nearly lead Liverpool to a Premier League title.

The chart above tries to capture that. It’s my opinion that the majority of managers fall under the middle category. They’re going to have the same influence as any other coach and any differences are going to be marginal. Roster quality is all that really matters. A great example of this is LA’s Greg Vanney, who toiled in the middle and lower tiers of the West the last few seasons before the Galaxy got their shit together on the scouting side, nailed multiple signings and became an MLS Cup-winning side. He wasn’t bad at coaching the last few seasons, he just needed the pieces. On a long curve, he didn’t make things all that worse or better.

On the right side are the unicorns. The ones who, for at least a period of time, genuinely elevate a team through their game model and individual instruction. By all accounts, the Crew’s Wilfried Nancy is that kind of coach. They’re good even when they aren’t dealing with the most talented side (see: CF Montréal 21-22). When the infrastructure around them is set up to acquire elite talent, those sides become otherwordly (see: Columbus 23-24). They are extremely rare.

And then on the left are the folks who for, whatever reason, are actively making things worse. At times this can come down to tactics—Chris Armas blew it—but more often it comes down to man management. This is where Gabriel Heinze failed and what Frank de Boer survived for a moment and then capitulated to. For the large majority of their tenure, they failed to have the large majority of the locker room on their side.

The big question facing Atlanta United now is where Ronny Deila will fall on this curve. The good news is that Atlanta doesn’t need a unicorn. Not with their investment in scouting and analytics, the track record of success from their front office (including the newly hired Chris Henderson), and the willingness to spend. The roster should eventually be good enough for a head coach in the 70% range to thrive. They just need to avoid actively making everything worse.

The goal for Atlanta United during this coaching search then, just like Lagerwey’s general goal with player signings in a salary cap league, has been to limit risk. So has Atlanta United done that by hiring Deila?

If you don’t want to come on this journey: Guess what, he’s probably in the middle. If you’re ready to hop on this nerdy, overwritten Willy Wonka Boat Ride come with meeeeeeeeeeeee…..

Nothing is a certainty in MLS of course, but we do have plenty of history to look back on that will help us make an educated guess. Like, a lot of history. Based on the number of years managing at a first-team level, Deila is the second-most experienced Atlanta United coaching hire ever.¹

A brief history

²Like, the first-most experienced hire, there have been highs and lows throughout a long career. Deila spent his playing career as a center back in Norway’s Eliteserien.³ By the end of his playing career, he was pulling double duty. From 2006-2007, he operated as a player/assistant manager for Strømsgodset. When the Strømsgodset head coach left, Deila took over his first full-time managerial role.⁴

Deila made a name for himself here by slowly but surely dragging Strømsgodset out of the cellar. In his first two seasons, Strømsgodset fought against relegation. By 2013, they were winning their first title in 43 years and second title in club history.⁵

In 2014, Deila, at 38 years old, caught his big break.⁶ Celtic, one of the two big bads in Scotland, gave Deila his first high-profile, high-pressure job. He proceeded to piss everyone at Celtic Park off by winning back-to-back league titles. That really seemed to make everyone mad.

That’s just how it goes at Celtic. He won, but he didn’t do it enough and he didn’t do it in the style fans demanded. After losing to a zombie version of Rangers⁷ on penalties in the 2015 Scottish Cup semi-final, Deila decided he would step down from the position at the end of the season. Celtic, of course, won the league title that year. He at least left on good terms with the club itself, even if the fans had a differing opinion.

“He is a man of real humility, someone of tremendous character, and I personally wish him nothing but success for the future,” Celtic’s press release announcing the change said.

Everyone wins at Celtic, of course. As of today, they’ve won 54 Scottish League titles. During Deila’s tenure, they didn’t even have to compete with Rangers. The club went into administration in 2012 and didn’t return to the top flight until 2016. Celtic didn’t just expect to win, they expected to win big. Deila didn’t match that level.

From there, he returned to Norway. His stint with Oslo’s Valerenga went…well, let’s just say Celtic’s loudest fans felt vindicated. I’ll let Deila sum it up himself.