Thursday Kickoff: Carlos Bocanegra’s Departure Launches Atlanta United Into New Era

Atlanta United 1.0 brought in huge crowds, a dynamic attack, and the most impressive three-season run by an expansion team in MLS history. Let’s not forget that even in the weird 2019 season, they forced their way into the Eastern Conference Finals and came within two long-range saves of Toronto FC hosting the MLS Cup presented by Audi for the second straight year.

Then things got bleak. They lost Darlington Nagbe, Julian Gressel, Tito Villalba and Michael Parkhurst in the offseason before 2020. Then, in the first game of the season, Josef Martínez tore his ACL. In short, in the span of a few months, they lost: the best midfielder in MLS history, an elite fullback who stayed elite, one of the most productive wingers in MLS history based on per-90 stats, the best center back of all time and a forward who is having arguably the best three-year streak in league history.

Parkhurst (retirement) and Josef (injury) were beyond the club’s control. There were certainly ways for Nagbe, Gressel and Villalba to stay. It didn’t help that none of the signings that came close to replacing them were anywhere near their level. Since 2019, it’s been a steady stream of mediocre signings, underperformance, frustrating injury luck and waning enthusiasm for the league’s biggest ticket seller.

That’s the very short version of how we got to yesterday. Carlos Bocanegra has officially stepped down as Atlanta United’s vice president and technical director, three short months after they parted ways with coach Gonzalo Pineda. The early years were exceptional. Bocanegra deserves credit for that. Everything that followed was an extraordinary display of working through his own inertia. You can only ask “Are Atlanta United back?” so many times before you realize they really aren’t.

Now, the pressure is officially on club president and CEO Garth Lagerwey to make that happen. There’s no permanent manager to blame, no technical director to tweet about. It’s all up to Lagerwey to figure it out. But there’s reason to believe you wouldn’t want anyone else doing the heavy lifting here. Lagerwey’s track record at Real Salt Lake and Seattle Sounders FC should speak for itself at this point. Now he’ll have the chance to reshape the club as a whole in his own image.

That will likely start with the club’s new director of soccer. Atlanta doesn’t have much time to waste. Even though Lagerwey is technically taking over for now, he still has other duties to attend to. Hiring a trusted CSO to help plan the biggest offseason in club history should be a priority. Given the small pool of candidates with a deep understanding of the mechanics of an MLS roster, Lagerwey’s experience working with and against those candidates, and Atlanta’s deep pockets, it certainly seems like the easiest step in a multi-part offseason.

They need a new CSO AND new permanent manager AND two new Designated Players AND will probably need two new U22s AND will have to continue the plastic surgery on the deeper parts of the roster, which have so far fallen short of expectations. That’s a lot of work. But Atlanta United haven’t had this kind of flexibility since 2016, before they even entered MLS. The worst contracts of the 2.0 era have all but disappeared. And what’s in place isn’t as bad as the standings suggest. The underlying numbers remain solid — Atlanta still hasn’t been lucky — and several players should thrive with a bit more consistency and confidence.

Yesterday, Atlanta United’s utterly disappointing 2.0 era officially ended. Now they must prove that they are not simply too big to fail, but too competent to sink. Lagerwey’s story, and the blankest canvas an eight-year-old team could possibly have, suggest that Atlanta United 3.0 has been a much bigger success than its predecessor.

This is all theory. There is serious work to be done. Let’s see if Atlanta United can do it.