Atlanta United faces uncertain path after ‘organizational failure’ of Pineda departure

The cities of Atlanta and Charlotte are separated by less than 250 miles. It’s a direct shot at Interstate 85. The build-up to this new Southern derby has seen the Atlanta United and Charlotte FC social media teams throwing jabs at each other.

Bragging rights were on the line, but Atlanta United maintained they were the true King of the South. Gold paper crowns were handed out Sunday afternoon as fans entered Atlanta United’s state-of-the-art Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Home fans wore them proudly, but after Charlotte’s 3-2 victory, which was Atlanta’s fifth straight home loss, a procession of men, women and children left the stadium feeling more like court jesters as kings of the South.

The next day, head coach Gonzalo Pineda was statement of duties. Another home defeat had plunged Atlanta United to a new low.

Once a fortress for the club and an intimidating home ground for visiting MLS teams, Atlanta United Stadium has lost its luster as Atlanta United has become a middling team. Six years after winning an MLS Cup and revolutionizing the league, Atlanta United is now used to hitting rock bottom. Once the shining example of MLS’ aggressive expansion model, the club has become synonymous with underachievement.

Firing the coach responsible for the team’s match day performance was an obvious move by Atlanta United Chairman and CEO Garth Lagerwey. On Monday, Lagerwey spoke about interim manager Rob Valentino’s opportunity to move forward.

“If you think we have a good team,” Lagerwey told reporters, “then with a new voice or a fresh start, this team should start picking up points at a higher level. And again, if this is not the case, then we need to spend more time truly assessing the root causes of this phenomenon.

Valentino will have every chance of succeeding. Depending on the results until the end of the season, Valentino could be a name that would be added to the list of possible successors to Pineda. However, this would be a useless gamble for Lagerwey. He bided his time to revamp Atlanta United’s athletic department. Lagerwey is unlikely to stake the club’s future and legacy as the organization’s chief football decision-maker on another unproven head coach.

“From day one, I evaluated what was real and what was fantasy,” Lagerwey said Monday. “And you know, we haven’t made the progress I was hoping for yet. I think it’s a reality.

Lagerwey let things play out in Atlanta. This pragmatic approach to managing organizational change has come to define it as the MLS framework. This means there is very little chance of Lagerwey making the same mistakes made by his predecessor Darren Eales and the club’s current sporting director Carlos Bocanegra.

Eales and Bocanegra can be credited with engineering one of the most successful launches in MLS expansion history. They also hired and fired two head coaches (Frank de Boer and Gabriel Heinze) in the span of two years and the millions of dollars spent on player signings have yielded no success since 2018. Eales and Bocanegra, despite their efforts to manage the club, contributed to Atlanta United’s precipitous fall from the elite levels of MLS.

Lagerwey, however, took responsibility for the current state of the club on himself.

“I think any time you change coaches, it’s on some level an organizational failure,” Lagerwey said. “My responsibility as president and CEO is to support any head coach and try to give them the tools, the resources they need to be successful. Ultimately, the responsibility for such a change lies with me.

In other words, it’s time for Lagerwey to fix Atlanta United. The club’s problems have persisted for several years now. Lagerwey was hired in late 2022 and was tasked with stabilizing a faltering organization. Atlanta United’s immediate success in 2017 and 2018 was followed by successive years of massive disappointment.

Lagerwey during his first Atlanta United press conference of 2022. (Photo courtesy of Atlanta United)

“There was definitely a start-up mentality here,” Lagerwey said Athleticism in March last year. “There was literally a boom and bust of start-ups. What we’re trying to do right now is just level the playing field and say, “How do we operate this business now in a sustainable way going forward so that we stay out of these cycles?” The way to do this is to transform into a corporation.

Unlike many corporate acquisitions, Lagerwey didn’t clean house as the first thing upon arriving in Atlanta. And maybe that’s because long-term stability is Lagerwey’s ultimate goal as CEO of Atlanta United. But the writing is on the wall for those in the corridors of Atlanta United who have allowed the club to linger in a state of mediocrity.

Last summer, Lagerwey’s data-driven player recruiting process resulted in new signings that addressed some of Atlanta United’s most problematic areas on the pitch. Namely effective wing play, solidity in midfield and a more stingy back line.

However, Atlanta United sits in 13th place in the Eastern Conference, having collected 16 points from the same number of matches. If Pineda was the problem, the logical outcome would be a noticeable improvement from game to game. But professional sport is not an exact science. Lagerwey called this season “probably the most frustrating chapter of my career.”

“We are all warned in the second half of the season,” Lagerwey said. “Let’s be honest. We’ve changed a number of players in the last two transfer windows. Now we’ve changed coaches. It’s now up to us to go out on the pitch and prove (our ambition), go out there and to win games, to dig in and be brave and fight, scratch and claw and commit to the club. That’s what it will take to turn around again this season.

If the problems extend beyond the touchline and who is giving instructions to the players, then Lagerwey will have a more complicated situation to rectify. Pineda’s firing indirectly places Bocanegra in the spotlight he prefers to avoid.

The former captain of the United States men’s national team played a leading role, alongside Eales, in Pineda’s hiring. Bocanegra is also the director of football, most responsible for identifying talent. It’s his roster that has underperformed. Lagerwey considered that making a change at the head of the sports department “did not make sense” as a summer transfer window approached.

But if Valentino can’t light the fire under this team, then it’s obvious that the current team isn’t as talented as initially thought. Additionally, players must be held accountable for the current state of the team. A frustrated Lagerwey highlighted the team’s lack of resilience on Monday. He also called Atlanta United a “paradise” created by owner Arthur Blank.

“It’s one thing to be grateful for it, and it’s another thing to deserve it,” Lagerwey said.

The disparity has gradually widened between Atlanta United’s on-field product and the club’s high-end facilities and multibillion-dollar valuation. The swaggering, brash attitude that defined the club’s personality at its peak in 2018 has been replaced by a tendency to cave in at the slightest pressure. Atlanta’s thick skin and championship mentality seem like a distant memory.

Pineda was unable to restore the image that Atlanta had created after its launch. His teams were often riddled with injuries, but overall, Pineda was unable to raise a group of players who were given everything they could ask for to succeed.

“We’re trying to avoid starting all over again, and that’s why we made the change that we made now, and hopefully that’s enough to right the ship and get us in the right direction,” Lagerwey said . “Because again, we think the guys in this locker room are capable of better results.”

Atlanta United has been reset and restarted several times since 2019. During that time, the club has not won a single playoff game. Players have come and gone. Different coaches implemented their philosophies, taking their ideas with them through the back door of the club. Lagerwey rightly reiterated to reporters that the entire athletic department, including performance and medical staff, was being evaluated.

Multiple stakeholders will be involved in the hiring of the next head coach. It was understood, however, that Bocanegra, under contract until 2025, would not play as big a role in selecting Atlanta United’s next manager.

“I will lead (the coaching search) personally,” Lagerwey said. “I’ll do some research and (the coaching committee) will ultimately make a recommendation to Arthur Blank, and we’ll see what direction he wants to go. We’ll take our time. We are going to be very thorough in our evaluation of the next coach.

In the meantime, Atlanta United and those inside the building must come to terms with their reality as an ambitious institution that has mismanaged its potential.

(Top photo: Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)