Atlanta's Transfer Issues Are Bigger Than Just Money

By Juan Roman

Unfortunately for Atlanta, the issue of pulling in a really big star is about more than just the funds and willingness to splash out on a big star. Atlanta is in a position where, theoretically, just about any door is open. The team has lots of funds available from the sales of Giakoumakis (€9.3M), Almada (€19.5M), and Wiley (€10.2M) and slots open on the team for some big players. So why is the best the team can do a Russian attacker and failed reports about an Uzbekistani Striker?

The Issue

Photo by Melissa McAlpine

Well, simply put, because the players have to actually want to come first. If you are an Antoine Griezmann or Marco Reus, you both have enough money that salaries aren't an issue and will get a ridiculous amount of money regardless of where you go. So the question then becomes where do you want to go. This falls into 2 main ideas each with their own subcategories: the team and the location vibes.

The team part is fairly straightforward. Is the team in a top league? Are they competitive in their league and cups? But also, do they have a good coach? And, will the pieces around me be good? For Atlanta, there are some disappointing answers to these questions. We are in MLS and, no matter how much the league's perception is improving, it is far from Europe and every player wants to be in one of the top 5 leagues. The competitive question is also even more frustrating, we aren't even good in our bad league. We are a mid-table at best team right now and look abysmal across all competitions. Not exactly a great sell. And we also still lack a head coach. This is especially bad because the front office isn't able to pitch a vision of a return to greatness under fill-in-the-name-here because we don't have anyone yet. And the team is in shambles from the sales that caused this conundrum. So no, the pieces around the transfer can't be a selling point. All of this team stuff is what makes an Antoine Griezmann very hard to sign, they are still very good and don't want to go to a --- brace yourself --- retirement league, much less a bad team in that retirement league.

The location vibes are a little better but there isn't a lot of gradient. LA is cool, Atlanta isn't. If you are going to come to MLS, you better have a good time. This means a city people around the world know and want to live in (New York, Miami, or Los Angeles). But if you aren't one of these ideal cities, you should at least have a good fanbase and be warm. Thankfully for the Five Stripes, Atlanta has a huge fanbase that will fill our massive stadium. And the city is warm. So Los Angeles will likely always win Reus on the basis that they are LA, but surely we can beat a Kansas City or Montreal on location vibes.

A Possible Solution

From Atlutd.com

So this is all kind of sad, but there are solutions to make the team more attractive and find those stars we are missing. Firstly, we desperately need a coach. We absolutely must have a coach by the start of the winter transfer window and really should have a verbal agreement with one already so he is ready to go as soon as the window opens and so that he can have input on who he wants and be a draw for our targets.

Then, we have to start bringing some guys in. It is easier to sign a star if there are some promising pieces on the team already and he isn't surrounded by a whole bunch of question marks on the team sheet. The front office also has to be talking to anyone and everyone. I am still blindly confident that Garth knows what he is doing but I will still say that, at this point, I would call it a failure if the front office wasn't calling dozens of guys a week.

After that, it is more up to the discretion of the front office and new coach but personally, my plan would be to sign an old star and work my way up. I would bring in a Marco Reus or Thomas Muller or Pepe or Ilkay Gundogan or someone in that vein who is a star who is just simply getting a little too old for the pinnacle of soccer. Then, I would go after a Raheem Sterling and a bunch of players like that who have been forgotten a little bit or fallen out of favor with their team like Sterling and make the pitch of joining an Icon at Atlanta and being a god among men. The contract should include a statue of him in front of the stadium and a stand named after him or something ridiculous because, from a team perspective, Atlanta is always going to be worse than Aston Villa or whoever else is going after him so Atlanta has to be the fun option with good location vibes. And hopefully, after enough phone calls, you get lucky with someone.