The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
New president excited for opener
Atlanta United’s Garth Lagerwey talks about changes and what he expects this season.
With a Seattle-like rain pouring Tuesday, it seemed fitting that Atlanta United President Garth Lagerwey, formerly the Sounders director, would spend almost 40 minutes talking to journalists about his MLS club. This will be Lagerwey’s first season with Atlanta United after helping former clubs Seattle and Real Salt Lake to consistent success, including a Champions League and three MLS Cups.
Lagerwey stepped into a tough situation with Atlanta United, one that involved having to sell, trade or loan several players to create salary-cap room to upgrade at other positions.
He explained those moves, changes he’s made within the franchise to try to keep the players on the field, the path for the youth players, the Apple TV deal and U.S. Soccer possibly building a training site somewhere in Atlanta.
Questions and answers have been edited for clarity and brevity. Some questions and answers have been moved around so that subject matters remain consistent.
Q: The roster is full. It’s mostly healthy for the first time in years. You’ve seen the team in the preseason, what are your expectations for the season? A:
Expectations are for a home playoff game. I think that’s within our grasp. We need to get back to consistently winning in the beginning of the season. We’ve had to reset some things. Obviously, you’ve seen us move a number of players out. We’ve talked already about the players that are coming in.
The reality though, is that (Derrick) Etienne, and (Giorgos) Giakoumakis, and (Luis) Abram have played very limited minutes in terms of being part of the group.
So as those guys integrate, as we get work permits first of all, and then they integrate, the team should get better every week for the first month or two of the season without doing anything else.
So we’re really happy about where we are in our progression that we’ve gotten all the transactions done before the season.
Would we have loved to have done it earlier? Sure. But given the amount that had to come out before we could bring anything in, I think we wound up in a pretty reasonable spot. And we’re very excited now about the season.
Q: In Seattle, obviously a lot of notable summer moves. Is there any flexibility still for a move (by Atlanta United) this summer? A:
Yeah, so the big, big difference structurally here from some stuff we’ve done in Seattle is we have a bunch of players out on loan here. So the significance of that is those players on loan could be sold. So that then builds in flexibility right there because if you are able to sell on those players, then potentially you could gain from the sale. So you could actually wind up with a big bucket of money in the summer.
So we have an international spot that’s been reserved for the summer, as well. So there is that possibility.
I want to be careful here. We want to give this team a chance to jell and to see where we are because we do believe that we’ve made some moves that are good long-term moves for the club. And we’ve reset the foundation of the club, and that’s why we’re excited about the season. So if we start making progress, what we don’t want to do is just revert back to chopping and changing and change in four or five players every window.
But that said, I believe we’re in a very good position such that if there is an opportunity in the summer, we’ll be able to take advantage of it.
Q: There were a lot of questions about the infrastructure at the club when you came in, analytics department, scouting. What have y’all done to kind of refresh that? A:
From a hard infrastructure perspective let’s be clear, this is the best, maybe in the world, between Mercedes-benz Stadium and Children’s Healthcare out here in Marietta. So the infrastructure is amazing.
In terms of some of the soft infrastructure, yes, we’ve begun building that out. We’re closing in on a deal with an analytics consultant. As I told you earlier, we’re going to add a data engineer in that department. So really feel good about that. We’re going through a total review of all of our player-development systems right now, as well. And we’ll see that that stuff probably wouldn’t evolve until the summer. But I’m really excited about the direction we’re headed there.
And beyond that, I think we’ve really drilled down and organized our scouting in a way that’s pretty efficient. So feel good about the resources we have here in terms of going forward.
Q: What about sports medicine? Are there going to be any changes to that, considering all the injuries last year? A:
No, but there are going to be changes. There have already been changes in terms of methodology. So with sports medicine, with performance, those guys are literally Ph.d.-level guys. And the thing that we have to do is listen to them.
So when you have the rash of injuries, some of it is luck. Sometimes older players are going to get hurt more than younger players. But I think we have to be mindful to still pay attention to periodization and the amount of strain we’re putting on our players. And if you get kind of an endemic set of injuries, you have to be evaluated on how you’re training and preparing the players. And to be fair, that started before I got here. The guys had pretty detailed answers for that and the things that they were going to tweak on that even before I arrived. So I feel good that we’re in a better position to learn a little bit from some of the things that happened last year.
Q: Is there an example you can give of a change? A:
I think whenever there’s an injury, there’s always this temptation to say, ‘Well, he got hurt because of this.’ Brad Guzan tore his Achilles for different reasons than Miles Robinson tore his Achilles. It’s a totally different profile player: late 30s versus mid 20s.
It’s tempting always to make a commonality. But I think that one of the problems you can run into is that if you generalize too much, you’re not being specific.
So the example I would give you just as we’re going back to, we have individual development plans for all the young players. And we have individual training plans for all the senior players. And we’re going to make sure that we take the time to accommodate all of those things so that we cater to give them the best possible chance of remaining on the field.
So you’ll see, for example, with somebody like Abram, who’s just played a couple of minutes, we are not going to panic and say he has to start opening day. He might, he might not. But we’re going to err on the side of trying to build these guys up and do so in a sustainable way so that once they get on the field, they can stay on the field. And we hopefully can lower that rate of recidivism on the injury front.
Q: What do you define as premium positions in MLS? A:
It’s the spine, by and large. Not that that’s overly simplified. But I mean, to state the obvious, if you look at any expected-goals model ever made, the guys that are closest to the goals have the biggest impact on the model, right? So your center forward and goalkeeper.
The way we built this team, the center forward is probably more of a compliment than the tip of the spear, so to speak, because of the investment in the midfield.
One of our biggest investments, is that right wing in (Luiz) Araujo and centrally with (Thiago) Almada. You have to look at what the analytics suggest. If these are your two investments, how do you complement those players to put them in a position to succeed because those are the guys that are going to drive us forward in terms being a contender.
Q: Can you just talk about the excitement to the regular season on Saturday? A:
Absolutely.
Just for me, coming kind of for the first time in the building for an opener ... you saw what it looked like on Wednesday (against Toluca), when we were kind of doing a dry run for everything. So I can only imagine what it’s going to feel like when it’s just packed to the rafters.
And our fan base has been so enthusiastic. At the block party last weekend, hordes of people coming ... and you could feel their energy and their enthusiasm for the start of the season.
I know things have been a little bit rough here over the last couple of years. If you look at some of the data, we led the league in shots, but we were one of the poorest teams in terms of goals. So you should see some direction to the mean, in terms of some of those data analytics. You should have fewer injuries this year as well, given the adjustments that were made.
So you’ve got a bunch of things that are kind of lingering in the background that started building and building, and we kind of have some positive momentum.
We believe in ourselves. We really feel like culturally, this is the best locker room we’ve had in a while. So I think there’s a number of positive things that feed into our enthusiasm for this season.
Q: What makes you feel that culturally this is better? A:
I think that we’ve gotten a bunch of good young players that have real opportunity to grow within the club.
And I think we have really good leaders in terms of the veteran guys who want to mentor these kids, who want to bring them along. If you look at the group cohesion, when you go to a preseason in Mexico like we did, one of the positives of that is it’s nice to have to spend a lot of time together. And so by all accounts, that was a really successful cultural move for us.
And then you look at game like Toluca in the Amfam Cup. We lost the game, it’s disappointing, but in the preseason you’re always focused on process, not on results. So, if you looked at, for example, integration between the young players and the older players, in that first half you had three, and at the end, four kids under 23 that were out there, and they looked like they belong, right? They looked like they were part of that cohesive whole.
And then in the second half, they took it to Toluca, right? And it was a real competitive game. So those things I look at and say, ‘Hey, culturally, it looks like we’re going the right direction. Because that group is cohesive, they today appear to believe in each other, and they appear to be supporting each other.’ And those are really important things.