Training Ground Notebook: Atlanta United's Rebuild Closes In On Its Missing No. 9

By the time Tata Martino sat down for Friday's press conference, the rumor report had already been out for more than an hour. The reporters in the room knew it. Martino, pointedly, didn't say he knew it too.

Foot volley was part of the open portion of training this morning, matchday minus one for Atlanta United, before the Red Bulls come to town. (photo: Jason Longshore)

Atlanta United was still out on the training field Friday morning when The Athletic's Tom Bogert reported, citing sources briefed on the situation, that the club is finalizing a deal to acquire Switzerland international Breel Embolo from Ligue 1 side Rennes for a fee in the region of $18 million. The 29-year-old would be one of the five most expensive signings in MLS history, and Atlanta's fifth entry in the league's all-time top 10. The club has not confirmed the move. Embolo scored 10 goals and added three assists in 34 appearances for Rennes last season, has 26 goals in 92 caps for Switzerland, and was part of the Swiss squad eliminated by Argentina at this summer's World Cup, a tournament he'll be remembered for at home partly because of a contested second yellow card in that quarterfinal.

By the time Martino walked into his press conference more than an hour later, every reporter in the room had already read those details. When asked to comment on the reported signing, Martino gave the answer he almost always gives about a deal that isn't officially done, not because the room didn't already know, but because he wasn't going to be the one to confirm it.

"We'll comment once it's confirmed," Martino said.

Fair enough. But go back through what he actually said later in that same session about what kind of forward Atlanta was looking for, and the answer sounds less like deflection than a scouting report with the name blacked out, offered up anyway.

A profile that had a name before it had a name

Asked what kind of striker would be ideal for this team, Martino didn't talk about a specific target. He talked about a shape.

"We don't just need players who know how to play in combination, a 9 who can link play, but also a 9 with presence in the box, who can run into space, who can time short diagonal runs," Martino said. "That's part of what we're looking for."

Embolo is not a target man in the classic sense. He is a penalty-box presence who has spent his career playing off wide creators rather than dropping deep to build, and the numbers from this season back it up. Among Ligue 1 attackers, he ranked in the 96th percentile in expected goals per 90 and the 91st in actual goals for Rennes, but closer to the bottom third in key passes and big chances created, the profile of a striker who finishes what teammates build rather than building it himself. He is not just efficient in front of goal. He wins his share of the ball in the air and in the challenge too, 5.65 duels won per 90, the 77th percentile among Ligue 1 attackers, strong enough to hold off a center back long enough to get a shot away. He showed a different gear at the World Cup this summer, two goals and two assists in six matches for Switzerland, ranking in the 89th percentile among tournament forwards for big chances created, evidence he can do more than finish when a roster asks him to. It's exactly the kind of forward who complements Miguel Almirón and Alexey Miranchuk instead of competing with them. Both are attacking midfielders Martino described as needing a different kind of partner up top, players who, in his words, "normally play as a third midfielder, a No. 10 type."

"Especially since Emmanuel Latte Lath's departure, we've had a DP spot open, and we clearly want to fill it with another center forward," Martino said.

The Athletic's report adds that Atlanta was working, in Bogert's words, "simultaneously on a number of high-profile targets" this summer, including Uruguayan forward Darwin Núñez, before settling on Embolo as the reported target to lead Atlanta's attack.

Miranchuk on the partnership that didn't work

Alexy Miranchuk put the team ahead of individuals in his comments Friday to the media (photo: Jason Longshore)

Martino was circumspect about Latte Lath in front of reporters. Asked directly why the attack didn't click during his stint in Atlanta, he said, "I don't have a clear picture of the reasons." Alexey Miranchuk was asked the same question from his own side of it later that same day, and he was almost as guarded, for a different reason.

"To be honest with you, I don't really like to speak about players who've left, about when he left," Miranchuk said. "But I think, generally speaking, it's like this: when the team's results aren't good enough, it affects your confidence, all of that."

Then Miranchuk did what he's done most of this season when a question threatens to land on one player's shoulders: he spread the weight back out across the group.

"Attacking players should score the goals and lead the team," Miranchuk said. "But like I always say, this is a team sport. So everyone, I don't know, 25 players, 11 who start from the first minute, we all have to help each other. I wouldn't put all the weight on the attacking players."

Martino has returned to the same idea all season. Atlanta's issues this season don't trace to one position or one player, so fixing them means adding pieces without asking any single one to be the whole answer. Embolo, whenever he's officially unveiled, walks into a group that has spent all week refusing to put that weight on a new arrival before he's even signed a contract.

The math of a reconstruction

Embolo isn't the only name walking through the door. Martino confirmed this week that Atlanta has added midfielder Mauricio Amaro, a player he described as still adjusting to MLS.

"He's a midfielder who can play as a six or an eight, good feet, dynamic, with a strong presence in the middle of the field," Martino said. "He's very young, so we'll likely have to help him through his learning curve, but he's a very good project for Atlanta and we have big expectations for him."

Veteran center back Paulo Díaz is also now training with the group after getting his visa, and Martino was careful not to promise him a starting role just because he's fresh off a plane.

"Normally, when a team is in the situation we're in, the first instinct is, 'whoever just arrived plays,'" Martino said. "And I think that would be a huge mistake on our part. We can't let the situation dictate that; instead we have to make sure players are in good physical and footballing shape, so that when they do play, they have better tools to do things well."

Patience was the theme all week. Asked to compare this rebuild to his first stint in Atlanta, when he inherited a nearly empty roster, Martino called this version "more of a reconstruction" and pointed to a specific example of what he wants on the other side of it.

"If I had to picture an example of this, I'd say Columbus is a good one," Martino said. "Columbus makes small tweaks, always has a very competitive team, and is always near the top of the table. It's obviously an exercise in patience, because in any other league in the world you have no restrictions on changing one, two, four, six, ten players, whatever it is. Here, those deep changes that any other team in the world might make in a single transfer window, it clearly takes one, two, sometimes even three windows."

Even with Embolo, Amaro and Díaz walking in, Atlanta walks into Saturday shorthanded elsewhere. Jay Fortune, who had only recently returned from one muscle injury, suffered another in his other leg this week and will miss the match. Will Reilly rolled an ankle in training and was still being evaluated as of Friday.

The pipeline behind Amaro

There's a pattern to how Martino signs players in their early twenties, and it goes back further than this rebuild. Mauricio Amaro isn't just a name added to fill a hole in midfield. He fits into a development pipeline Martino has been running since his first stint in Atlanta, the same one that produced Diego Gómez at Inter Miami: a young player who proves himself, then jumps to a bigger club.

"Personally, I can't recall, not during my first stint at Atlanta, not at Inter Miami, not now back at Atlanta, ever considering an under-22 player I didn't see potential in to play at a high level," Martino said. "That's always the point of looking at a sub-22, in my view: if that's your search, then the choice of that player has to look not just at what he can contribute right now, but at whether his growth can take him to another level."

He framed it, too, as a pitch to the next wave of prospects, a track record he's counting on to sell itself.

"It also sends a message to other young players," Martino said. "When this happens, it's like saying, 'look, here they develop you, we play, we compete well, they push us forward, and eventually we're able to jump to the highest level.' So what we did with Diego carried over from Miguel [Almirón], to [Ezequiel] Barco, different players. We tried the same thing with Fede Redondo, with Facu Farías. Sometimes you reach the goal, sometimes you don't, but we always start from the idea that these players have the potential to keep growing."

The list is a real one. Miguel Almirón and Ezequiel Barco broke through under Martino during his first Atlanta stint before both moved on to bigger transfers; Federico Redondo and Facundo Farías did the same at Inter Miami. Whether Amaro becomes the next name on it isn't something Martino was interested in deciding out loud in August. By his own framing, that's a question for the growth still ahead of him.

No excuses for professionals

The conversation eventually circled back to a question a reporter said he'd already put to Junior Alonso on Tuesday: how does the relative lack of outside pressure in MLS compare to what a player feels elsewhere, where fan expectation weighs more heavily on results? Alonso had told the reporter the difference was real, that kind of public pressure simply doesn't exist here. Martino was asked whether that gap works against his team.

Junior Alonso's comments were taken out of context by quite a few folks this week, Tata Martino explained things thoroughly. (photo: Jason Longshore)

"No, not at all," Martino said. "I think the responsibility of a professional, in any field, is on that person. It doesn't fall on others."

He reached for an analogy to make the point.

"It's like saying a doctor who operated poorly needs 20,000 people insulting him to operate better," Martino said. "The doctor sets out to do things better and better, and that goes for any professional. We don't need someone coming to pressure us, because we're the ones living it day to day."

Martino didn't dismiss the idea that professionals eventually walk away once they've exhausted what they can do. He described that as part of the job, too, not a failure of will.

"We understand that honest professionals keep trying until the moment they believe there's nothing more they can do, and then, at that point, they leave," Martino said. "But I don't think this is something MLS needs to import. If anything, this is a part of MLS that's worth imitating elsewhere, not the other way around."

It's a notably unbothered answer for a coach whose team sits last in the league. It also fits the tone Martino carried through the whole session: whatever standard Atlanta needs to hold itself to this season, it isn't going to come from the stands.

A homecoming, and an invitation

Saturday's game against the New York Red Bulls is Atlanta's first home match since the World Cup, and both Martino and Miranchuk framed it the same way, without being asked to connect the two.

"The great pursuit for any team is for its supporters to feel represented," Martino said. "At certain isolated points this season, we managed it. For most of the season, we didn't. We need to try again, so people understand we're focused on, and working toward, giving them a team that represents them."

Miranchuk, who has now spent about three years in Atlanta, put it more personally.

"It's been a long time since we played in front of our fans. To be honest, I really missed our stadium," Miranchuk said. "We don't give up, and I don't want them to give up on us either. It's a tough moment for everybody, and I want to ask them to stay together and go through these difficult moments together. That's my message."

Atlanta sits last in the league with 12 points through 18 matches, a number that makes patience a harder sell in the stands than it is in a press conference. The club hasn't confirmed the Embolo deal, and Martino never said his name out loud on Friday. He didn't have to. The report had already done that an hour earlier. All he had to do was describe him.