Atlanta United explains firing of disastrous Gabriel Heinze
Atlanta United’s first casualty of its poor start to the season hit on Sunday, the Eastern Conference club firing Gabriel Heinze following a 1-0 home loss to the New England Revolution this weekend.
For Atlanta United, the firing of Gabriel Heinze represents a second head coaching change in the span of less than a calendar year for a club that won MLS Cup in 2018. Atlanta United is currently in tenth place in the Eastern Conference on a 2-3-7 record with 13 points.
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Last July, Atlanta United fired Frank De Boer just halfway through his second year coaching the ambitious club. Now in Heinze, a successful coach in Argentina prior to coming to MLS this offseason, Atlanta United has struck out in their last two hires since Tata Martino left the league following a 2018 season where the club won their first MLS Cup.
“Look, I mean, I think, again, you know, always when, when these things happen you’ve got to sort of sit back, reflect and learn from them. I think that’s like anything in life. And no one has sort of hindsight is 20/20 as they say,” team president Darren Eales said on Sunday during a virtual press conference.
“I think the reality is, and this happens throughout the world of sports there’ll be some times you know, managers will fit at certain clubs that will not fit at other clubs and sometimes you’re just not going to know that they’re actually in the job. Obviously, our job for the next hire is to try and de-risk that process as much as we can but again till someone’s in the building, it’s very hard, you know, to, to know whether or not things are going to fit and that is you know, what we’re going to try and do the next hire to be sure that we make sure we do our due diligence.”
Assistant coach Rob Valentino will take over as interim head coach during the search for Heinze’s replacement. Sporting director Carlos Bocanegra said that the team’s goal is to make the playoffs this year.
Last week, star striker Josef Martinez was relegated to training away from the first team in an apparent disciplinary move. Eales said that the decision to fire Heinze had nothing to do with the decision to discipline Martinez.
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