Ronny Deila professed to be mostly pleased after Atlanta United’s 2-1 exhibition loss at Chattanooga FC on Sunday, the opening fixture of their 2025 preseason. Yet a few questions into his postgame media availability, he did not sugarcoat his evaluation of the, shall we say, less incisive stretches of the Five Stripes’ performance.
“I think we play too much backward. It's always safe, safe, safe, safe, so I get bored watching it,” said the plain-spoken Norwegian, who took the ATLUTD reins last month, after their first organized match of his coaching tenure. “But at the same time, it's a start. I knew it also. I’d seen it in training, I’d seen it from last year. So we need to work on [going] forward, breaking lines, playing forward.
“I don't worry about anything. I know where we're going to go. And I painted that picture for 14 days and I need time to get that into everybody.”
Lofty expectations
These short trips north across the state line to Finley Stadium, a cozy college football venue where Chattanooga FC have crafted one of American soccer’s most inspiring grassroots success stories since their launch in 2009, have become a cherished preseason tradition for ATLUTD. The ‘17s,’ as the Five Stripes refer to their most devoted supporters, will always remember Finley as the site where their team donned the crest for their first-ever matchday, a preseason game on February 11, 2017.
With well-worn artificial turf and long rosters with plenty of reserves, academy kids and trialists on both sides, this was a low-key occasion that starkly contrasts the ‘big club’ glamor Atlanta are synonymous with, their financial muscle, their state-of-the-art Mercedes-Benz Stadium and its huge crowds.
That’s particularly so this winter, where Atlanta United carry one of the biggest war chests in MLS history – reported at least $30 million – into the Primary Transfer Window thanks to owner Arthur Blank’s committed backing and a bumper crop of outbound sales of last summer.
“When I was here with New York City [FC], I saw what kind of support the club has. So the facilities, the stadium, the training center here, you have everything – it is a fantastic big club, and good club. You have everything to succeed, to develop,” Deila told reporters in an online roundtable earlier this month. “Everybody agrees that this club is a club that needs to fight for trophies, and be constantly up in the top of MLS.”
Logically, it follows that the Five Stripes’ head coaching post is one of the highest-profile in the league. Deila’s every move will be followed by one of MLS’s largest press packs. Fans are expectant, even those who fully recognize the size of Atlanta's rebuilding project.
Tactical turnaround
More so than Designated Players or transfer fees, Deila has emphasized the scale of the work required in his public statements so far, nodding to last year’s underwhelming ninth-place finish in the Eastern Conference’s regular-season table even as he readily acknowledges the limited patience he’s likely to be granted as the initial “honeymoon” with players, staff and supporters wears off.
“I'm not going to say that I want to be number four this year, you know? We want to win, of course, and it's so tight in MLS, it's so competitive that everything is possible,” he said. “At the same time, I understand that we were number nine last year, and the club has been struggling for some years now. So we have to be humble and understand that. So when we are in a chasing position, we are in an attacking position, that we have to really use for what it is.
“I have been a fan for many years myself, also, and I know what they're thinking. They want to see that the players are putting everything out there, that they want to attack, they want to entertain, they want to do something, and don't want to have people go around thinking about consequences, because that doesn't lead to anything. We need to be brave. We need to be bold. We need to be aggressive.”
Deila’s unafraid to speak bluntly. And with a possession-oriented, front-foot game model to install in a side that produced its best moments of an overall frustrating 2024 playing defend-and-counter, he’s often sounded as much like a math teacher or drivers-ed instructor as a high-level soccer manager in the opening stages of his new project.
“I think they’re going to be tired of the same messages,” Deila said last week. “It's important, I say that to the staff as well: We have to understand we train people, human beings, at 16 to maybe 30, 31 years old. When I was 16 to that age, I was not even close to know what I'm doing, what I know right now. So you have to make it simple enough. You cannot underestimate them in that way enough.
“You have to understand individual players. Some understand everything in football, and are very intelligent; then you can give a lot of freedom. But normally they need very clear lines [about] what they want to do, and it has to be clear, has to be simple.”
Preseasons are always a time for grinding physical labor; that’s the reality of the modern game’s relentless fitness demands. The Five Stripes’ new coaching staff is putting the squad through their mental paces as well, seeking to cultivate detailed patterns and an overarching mentality of daring and directness.
“We can complicate things, but I don't like to complicate. I like to coach as much in their position as possible and get the same messages over and over again. So I’d rather we let them to be tired of my voice,” Deila said.
“We just need to say the same things over and over again, so it's going to be automatic for them.”
That’s the job at the moment, and it’s an aspect of the trade he hasn’t always felt empowered to deliver on at previous managerial stops.
“When I come here, I was on a trip in October, I met Garth [Lagerwey], the management and the leaders in the club, and I felt a really good connection with them,” he explained. “It was a family feeling, a feeling that we do things together, that we see process instead of results – and let's see behind the results. Of course, everybody wants to win. That's not [to say] we don't have a result pressure, but that we want to develop and improve everything to get the results that we want.”
"Everybody has to be hungry"
His two and a half years in charge of New York City FC showed Deila that both sides of this coin, both big-ticket acquisitions and revitalization of existing talent, matter a great deal in MLS.
“Of course, it's a good thing also that [there] is financial power in the club, because that makes it easier to succeed,” he said earlier this month. “Because it's two ways to improve: one is develop the players that are here, and two is to bring in players that can improve the squad. And if you can do both, then things can go quicker than other places.”
With the opening day of the MLS campaign less than a month away, silly-season speculation swirling around the likes of Miguel Almirón and Emmanuel Latte Lath understandably draws the lion’s share of attention. ATL are expected to sign two high-grade DPs in this window or the next.
For Deila, however, that’s not the first stage of the process.
“Always, when I come into clubs, I give the players who’s there that chance, and then I assess where they are and what kind of quality [they have],” he said. “And also about their attitude – what kind of ambitions they have, how good they are to take in the information and improve. Because players that are standing still, or staff that’s standing still, and we go in circles, they have no future in my squad or my staff. Everybody has to be hungry to get better.
“What kind of level is in the young players? Is there players who can come in and are ready now to do a difference?” he continued. “So now we concentrate a lot about the DP spots, and then we have to also see when you get to assess and get to know the team better, or if you need something more.”
Proven winner
Deila arrived in Georgia with a compelling track record, having won major honors with four clubs across the Norwegian, Scottish and Belgian top flights in addition to his 2021 MLS Cup triumph with NYCFC. That should empower him for the balancing act between methodical, farsighted construction and Atlanta United's tendency toward restless ambition.
Similarly, he aims to gain buy-in from his team even as he points out how it’s grown long in the tooth. He speaks of the need “to find the right mix between the young, the older, and in the prime time,” adding, “maybe right now that we have too many players that is in the end [range] of 29 to 40.”
That helps explain the raft of youngsters who traveled to Chattanooga, like Dominik Chong Qui, a just-signed 16-year-old academy product slated for MLS NEXT Pro duty, who started the match alongside mostly first-teamers.
“The first message to the players is, I need to trust you, you need to trust me, and you need to trust each other,” said Deila. “That is the basic things to create a culture environment that you feel safe, that you feel a part of something, and you start to enjoy playing football. So for me, it's to find out who's trustworthy. Now we're talking about the simple things: Do the easy things good, then you can come with your skills after that.”
Even big-money DPs can benefit from that sort of guidance. Another Deila priority is to nurture greater impact from Alexey Miranchuk, the Russian playmaker signed for a reported $13 million last summer whose early displays in ATLUTD colors have not always lived up to his billing.
“He needs to be more aggressive in the defense. At the same time, he needs to get more into the [penalty] box so he also gets his own goals,” said Deila of Miranchuk. “I think that's things I can come in and try to help, and I'm sure he's also a lot willing to listen and to try to get better and better.
“At the same time, he needs players around him that is understanding his quality, and we need to bring players that is attacking space more, or get the players here to attack space more, because he has that technique and that vision that very few have,” he added of the No. 10 Lagerwey has dubbed the “quarterback” of Atlanta’s attack.
“Start running, and then you will get the ball. So I see a lot of things in him. And also this takes time, for foreign players to come here, and now he has this six months or four months or whatever he was here under his belt.”
Such a broad array of challenges, and Atlanta’s potent toolkit with which to address them, are what drew Deila back to MLS after a stint in the United Arab Emirates at Al Wahda FC.
His progress will be closely monitored, on these shores and beyond.
“The reputation is getting better and better, and I don't think now it's a league for older players that want to earn their last money and enjoy the US in the end. That thing is gone,” he said of MLS. “And I think the level now also, with a lot of South American players coming through, young players coming, and also players from the US, also players that come from MLS and go to Europe and do well, that's also a very positive thing.
“Generally, from the time I was there and to now, I think it just get better and better. It's got better stadiums, surroundings, supporters in the stadiums, and the teams. So I think it's just got more and more attractive to be here, and that's also one of the reasons that I want to come back again, because I see what MLS are, and what they can be as well.”
