Atlanta United President and CEO Garth Lagerwey sent the following letter to season ticket holders on Monday after the franchise fired manager Gonzalo Pineda. The letter read:
Dear 17′s,
As a valued member of Atlanta United, I wanted to personally inform you of a change in leadership within the club as of this morning. We have parted ways with head coach Gonzalo Pineda, in addition to assistant coaches Diego de la Torre and Eugenio Villazon.
Assistant coach Rob Valentino will take over as interim head coach, effective immediately.
First and foremost, I am grateful for Gonzalo’s hard work and positive attitude that he brought to the club each day. Alongside Diego and Eugenio, each of them was consistently ingrained into our community and were exemplary ambassadors for our club throughout their time in Atlanta.
As a club, we set expectations to deliver a championship club to you, this season and every season. To this point, those expectations have not been met. It is my responsibility to move our club in a positive direction to match these expectations. I feel the timing of this decision gives us the best opportunity to still achieve our goals this season.
As the best fanbase in MLS, the energy and passion you fill Mercedes-Benz Stadium with each week is deserving of a high-quality product on the field. I have full confidence that our group will emerge from this moment stronger and return to the field refocused for the rest of the 2024 season. The global search for the next head coach of the club begins immediately.
Unite & Conquer,
Garth Lagerwey
President and CEO
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