Your Tuesday kickoff: What’s next for Atlanta after Gonzalo Pineda’s departure?

Gonzalo Pineda is in Atlanta.

First of all, everyone who covers Atlanta United had nothing but nice things to say about how Pineda treated people during his tenure. That includes me. In any sport, you won’t find many coaches who are as caring and gracious with their time. From everything I gathered, he treated the members of the organization the same. It will always be valuable and I am grateful for the interactions we had.

From a sporting point of view, his time was up. Atlanta United continued its 3-1 demolition of Inter Miami on Wednesday by facing a Charlotte team that is doing everything that has made life difficult for Atlanta this year. Charlotte is comfortable without the ball, she’s willing to sit deep, and she’ll hit in transition if given the chance.

In typical Atlanta United fashion in 2024, they dominated Charlotte, generated numerous chances, took a terrible break when a deflection bounced off Derrick Williams and hovered inches beyond the goal line , caught another bad beat when Liel Abada found a way to salvage a 0.03 xG chance. in the corner of the net, allowed another goal, lost a center back to injury, then hit the gas a little too late for it to matter. The 3-2 loss made it five in a row at home and found a way to sum up so much about the Pineda era.

Everything is here. The injury to a key player might be the most notable feature of Pineda’s tenure. Although he places a high value on sports science, he has had by far the worst injury luck of any Atlanta United manager. Like, it’s not even close at all. It’s bad enough where I guess Atlanta has had the worst injury luck of any team in MLS since the start of 2022.

Then there’s the fact that Atlanta played relatively well, created more chances than their opponent and still lost. This one is a little more specific to 2024, but it makes sense that the best team Pineda has had in Atlanta would generate better opportunities for itself. Pineda leaves behind a team currently second in the league in American Soccer Analysis’ overall goals added metric, fifth in expected goal differential and ninth in expected points. They are just behind DC United in terms of underperforming their underlying numbers.

None of this is an attempt to retroactively save Pineda’s job — you can’t lose five straight home games and expect to come out unscathed — it’s about making sure we accurately frame his stay in Atlanta and to hint at what is likely to happen. throughout the season. Given their numbers, it wouldn’t surprise anyone to see them regress toward the mean. They’re not going to be a perfect team anytime soon, but all they need is a little more luck to find their way and they’ll suddenly look like they did in Miami a lot more often last week. Some of that may be due to coaching, but the majority will be due to finally being able to take some breaks, because this is a good team when healthy.

However, it’s important to remember that whether or not they will have full access to this list over the next few months is in question. Several players will miss time due to international tournaments, including Thiago Almada. Giorgos Giakoumakis is reportedly set to move to Cruz Azul and there is no guarantee the injuries will suddenly stop. Atlanta and interim manager Rob Valentino are still fighting an uphill battle this year.

But at least it’s something new. Even with its struggles since 2019, Atlanta had 60,000 people in the building on Sunday. Whether or not Valentino or a new head coach to be named later makes an impact is irrelevant. The league’s largest fan base needed something to pin their hopes on. Now the question is who could be next and how they could give this roster everything it needs to turn its excellent underlying numbers into real results.