Atlanta United should consider its 2021 MLS season a success, but not successful.
It made the playoffs despite working under three managers, Gabriel Heinze, Rob Valentino and Gonzalo Pineda, and still had a chance to secure a home seed in the eight-team Eastern Conference postseason field.
It was able to wash away the horrible 2020 season in which it failed to make the playoffs for the first time -- and from which the scars were still sometimes visible, particularly late in games.
To say the team played under Heinze is understating the myriad self-inflicted issues he caused within the franchise and the club. But, in a way, what the front office realized that it was missing may result in long-term success.
Here are the moments that defined the club’s season:
Hiring Heinze. Heinze was considered one of the up-and-coming managers in world football, a solid tactician and developer of young talent. He was also known to be, well, a jerk. Still, Atlanta United hired Heinze with dreams of him taking a roster that President Darren Eales and Vice President Carlos Bocanegra said was much better than the sum of the parts, a roster filled with exciting South American players that they hoped Heinze could relate to and Homegrown players from the team’s academy and turn it into powerhouse.
Heinze’s first press conference was OK. He was vague with answers. Despite playing for some of the world’s best managers, he didn’t want to cite any influences, such as Gerardo Martino or Marcelo Bielsa. Oddly, he said he never spoke with Martino about MLS, the franchise or all the challenges that are unique to the league. That proved prophetically bad.
His best quote: “In this moment I have many steps first. I know very well the club that I’m at and the magnitude of the club. I’m not looking for the results or success today like you guys would say, but there are many things to do first. And today we’re very far away.”
Heinze then went almost two months without speaking again to the media or supporters.
For a team still working to establish itself in a crowded Atlanta entertainment-scape, and one trying to make people believe that 2020 was an aberration, it wasn’t a smart decision by him.
Credit: Curtis Compton / Curtis.Compton@
Credit: Curtis Compton / Curtis.Compton@
Losing to Philadelphia at home in the Champions League. Heinze’s tenure started with the team winning at Alajuelense in the Champions League. Neither Martino nor Frank de Boer won their first games with the clubs. And the way the team won by holding on with 10 men and back-up goalkeeper Rocco Rios Novos having the game of his life foreshadowed a bright future.
The team knocked off Alajuelense 1-0 in the second game at Kennesaw State. It was a boring performance, but the team didn’t need to do too much to win.
And then came Philadelphia in the next round.
It was an amazing performance in the first half. Atlanta United ripped apart the Union’s defense time after time.
This was what Atlanta United supporters had been waiting to see. The team attacked. It shot. It threw numbers forward. It was like 2017 and ‘18 were back and ‘20 was a mirage.
The only problem was Atlanta United didn’t score.
“We controlled the game,” Heinze said in what became a familiar theme in his postgame press conferences.
And then Philadelphia’s Jim Curtin outcoached Heinze. Philadelphia won by taking Atlanta United’s aggressiveness and turning it against it by counter-attacking.
“When the team sheet came out and we saw the lineup, I told the team they are coming to attack us and end this thing tonight,” Curtin said. “Let’s get through the first 15 minutes.”
The Union scored three goals. It won 3-0.
The teams played to a 1-1 tie in the second leg, which eliminated Atlanta United.
For the next four months Atlanta United looked like a broken team.
Credit: Curtis Compton / curtis.compton@ajc.com
Credit: Curtis Compton / curtis.compton@ajc.com
Firing Gabriel Heinze/promoting Rob Valentino. After that loss to Philadelphia, Atlanta United seemed unable, or not coached, to truly attack. The aggressiveness was gone.
The team won only two of its first 13 games and scored only 13 goals in those games. It had an eight-game winless streak.
After a 1-0 loss to New England at home in which Heinze chose not to use striker Josef Martinez, with whom he was feuding, I asked Heinze if he was worried about his job because the team fired de Boer the previous season after a similar run of performances.
“I’m not afraid to lose,” he said. “It’s a long time that I’ve been in this world. I know very well the rule.”
Heinze was fired the next day. I then reported that because of Heinze’s draconian training schedules in which players weren’t given days off, the club had been reported to the MLSPA for violations of the collective bargaining agreement. The allegations eventually were found to be accurate.
Valentino, an assistant, was promoted to lead the team while a coaching search began.
Valentino dumped Heinze’s man-marking system and replaced it with a zonal marking system.
He allowed the players to, well, play. And off they went.
The team went 4-2-2, scored 12 goals and climbed back into the playoff picture.
“I really have to thank Rob for what he’s done and love for the team, and Rob is someone who feels for this club, and he loves the club,” Martinez said. “And those are the kind of people that we need here.”
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Hiring Pineda. In a change in philosophy, instead of chasing a worldly name, Eales and Bocanegra turned to a person considered the best assistant coach in MLS at the time, Pineda.
A former player and then assistant with Seattle, Pineda helped that club win a U.S. Open Cup and MLS Cup.
“We have confidence that this team has what it takes to make the playoffs this season,” Eales said. “Gonzalo does as well. We have a half a season left, and we are going to work hard to get above the line.”
Unlike Heinze, Pineda immediately began to try to connect with everyone at the club by holding Zoom meetings. He reached out to the players. He met many times with the media. He hosted a watch party for the supporters.
The team continued most of the tactics established by Valentino.
“Try to always be on the front foot,” Pineda said. “Try to create more and better chances than the opponent and playing with energy.”
After losing its first game under Pineda 2-0 to Nashville, the team continued to pick up points.
Giving up late goals to NYCFC. The team won five of its first eight games under Pineda. The team was poised to secure a home game in the first round of the playoffs.
It was hosting NYCFC on Oct. 20. NYCFC was winless in its previous five with only one goal scored.
Atlanta United took a 1-0 lead on a goal by Marcelino Moreno in the 17th minute.
It couldn’t find that second goal.
Trying to protect that lead, the team committed a foul in the 90th minute about 20 yards from goal. Gudmundur Thorarinsson stepped up and nailed the free kick to secure a 1-1 draw from NYCFC.
It wasn’t the first time the team dropped points from an advantageous position. It also wasn’t the last. It happened again two games later in the 88th minute against Toronto, among the worst teams in the league.
For the season, the team dropped 13 points from games it was leading in the 75th minute.
Atlanta United finished in fifth points with 51 points. Philadelphia, the second-place team, finished with 54.
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