Training Ground Notebook: Atlanta’s Full Roster, Galoppo, and Messi
- Jason Longshore
- 2 days ago
- 10 min read
The transfer window shut this week, and for the first time all season, Tata Martino has close to everyone he's going to get. Giuliano Galoppo is the newest arrival, while Breel Embolo and Mauricio Amaro are both available. Martino addressed why Atlanta didn't add a winger, while Alexey Miranchuk offered his read on Embolo, his role in the attack, and the challenge of facing Lionel Messi. Now the rebuilt group gets its first test Saturday in Miami.
The window is shut, and Martino calls the roster "complete"
The transfer window closed this week, and when Tata Martino sat down with reporters at Atlanta United's training ground Thursday, he opened with a sentence you don't often hear from a head coach three-quarters of the way through a season.
"Now we have it, the transfer window is closed, this is the squad, and we're complete," Martino said. "The club has done its job, and now it's up to us, in the little time that's left, to keep giving the team its shape."
One question put to Martino was why Atlanta did not add a winger this window. Martino didn't dispute the premise so much as the framing.
"If you think about wingers, we have Luke [Brennan], we have Fafa [Picault], and from my point of view, Enzo Dovlo is doing a really good job, same with Cameron [Dunbar] on the second team," Martino said. "So in terms of options, yes, we have them. Maybe the debate is something else — it's not whether we have the numbers anymore. There are players I like, and maybe the opinion on the other side is different from mine. But between the roughly eight players who left and the five who came in, our positions are generally covered."
He didn't close the door on the question entirely. "It's still fair to debate whether we should have brought someone in," Martino said. "Well, 'should have,' assuming we could have — assuming we had the budget to. There's a whole set of circumstances behind it. It's not just a question of whether we should have done it."
Alexey Miranchuk, asked separately about the mood the day after deadline day, described a group that noticed the churn but wasn't dwelling on it. "Many players went [to] different clubs," Miranchuk said. "With the transfer window, it's always like this." Training carried noticeably good energy during the portion open to media, with plenty of joking and laughing during a rondo. Miranchuk, meanwhile, described the new faces as potentially bringing “more energy, more blood in the team.”
Giuliano Galoppo is here, but not available yet
The final headline arrival is Giuliano Galoppo, the 27-year-old Argentine midfielder Atlanta United signed on loan from River Plate through June 2027, with a purchase option attached. He spent the last two seasons at River after stints with Banfield and Brazilian club São Paulo, and Atlanta's chief soccer officer and sporting director, Chris Henderson, called him "a dynamic midfielder who has a good tactical understanding of the game, quality on the ball and the ability to contribute goals from midfield" when the move was announced.
Martino described the role in more specific terms. "Giuliano is a mix midfielder who can play to the right of the 6 or to the left of the 6," Martino said. "He's what you'd call an area-to-area player, box to box, who scores a lot of goals, gets forward well from the second line, he's young, 27 years old, and has a really notable track record."
Galoppo is not yet available for selection as the club awaits the necessary paperwork following Wednesday's signing.
Embolo and Amaro, finally both available
That leaves Breel Embolo and Mauricio Amaro as the two significant additions Martino can actually pick from this weekend. Martino spent much of the press conference explaining what each can add.
"There's a part of this that's relevant to me, because in some matches we've been missing it, we can be more intense with them in there, have another physical presence on the field," Martino said. "I think there's still room for us to grow. And then I also have expectations from a football standpoint, because these are two players who know how to play. Mauricio knows how to bring the ball out from the back, Breel knows how to pivot playing as a No. 9, he's not just a penalty-area 9, a finisher, he's also a player who combines in the buildup."
Martino was careful not to promise instant results. "Whenever a club and a coaching staff make additions, expectations are high, because for some reason we took the step of bringing them in, of signing them, and hopefully we can have players who respond quickly," he said. "We're not in preseason, we're almost at the end of a season, and we have to shape the team around new players while thinking about the next opponent, and that's not always easy."
Asked directly whether Amaro projects as a 6 or an 8, Martino kept it simple. "It's possible he plays in either of the two," he said. "What's clear is that we think of him much more as a No. 6."
Miranchuk, who'll be sharing the front line with Embolo, gave the clearest scouting report yet on how that partnership might work, with the caveat that they're still getting to know each other on the field. "He hasn't trained too much with us, but what I've seen, he's able to drop a little bit because he has the ability to take the ball and cover it very well," Miranchuk said. "From there, he can turn or switch the play. And obviously, as he does this, he's well known for scoring goals. So hopefully, in the final third, he can help us too."
Asked if it's exciting to finally have that kind of target forward to play off of alongside Miguel Almirón, Miranchuk said the work now is communication. "We just need to understand each other a little more, and talk a lot between us," he said. "Little details, like giving him the ball at the right moments — we're still working on all of that to get better. But maybe he can drop and I can be more offensive and go in behind the defense."
Playing without traditional wingers, on purpose
Earlier in the day, Chris Henderson was also asked about the winger position and noted that Almirón and Miranchuk have been part of that conversation for most of the season.
"Most of the time, I played on the right side of the field, middle or right," Miranchuk said. "But whatever the coach wants in the offensive part of the field, I can do it easily, whether it's a little more inside or wider." He connected that flexibility to what his teammates need from him. Playing narrower, he said, opens the lane for a right-sided teammate to get forward. Miranchuk pointed specifically to Tomás Jacob. "I'd like to come a little more inside to give him more space to go, because he has the ability to score, make assists, and do both offensive and defensive work," Miranchuk said. "That's why I play a little more inside than Miggy [Almirón] as well."
Messi says goodbye to Argentina, and two very different views on facing him
Atlanta plays at Inter Miami on Saturday, days after Lionel Messi announced his retirement from Argentina's national team. Martino, who coached Messi both at Miami and with the Argentine national team, was asked for his reaction.
"Unfortunately, it was something that was going to happen at some point," Martino said. "Whatever went into the timing of the decision, it was surely talked through with his family, with his inner circle. It's clearly something he thought through carefully."
For Martino, there was little left for Messi to prove.
"For those of us who wish him well, the only thing that matters, after everything he's given, not just to Argentine soccer, but to soccer worldwide, is that he's happy with whatever comes next," Martino said. "He doesn't need to answer to any more demands. He's earned the right to enjoy life with the people he loves, to keep playing for his club for as long as he wants, and to enjoy what he's already given to Argentines and to soccer around the world."
As for actually facing Messi this weekend, Martino framed it as something no amount of scouting can completely solve.
"Really, he's the one who makes the decision," Martino said. "No team is capable of neutralizing him for 92, 93, 95 minutes of a match. So there's always going to be a moment where he's decisive. Sometimes there are a lot of moments in a match; sometimes it's one moment and that's it, there's no going back. It's the same thing here. I told the players, if we control the match for 89 minutes, it's possible we still lose it."
Miranchuk was asked what it's actually like to share a field with Messi, and his answer had none of Martino's tactical distance.
"It's been incredible, and I'm really grateful for this opportunity," Miranchuk said. "You can see him on TV, on YouTube, wherever. But when you see him personally, three meters, one meter close to you, you can see all this magic he's doing on the field, and you don't understand how."
The small details stood out most.
"As a human being, sometimes you have a bad touch, bad passes," he said. "But what he does every time, perfect. Wherever he wants the ball to be, he can place it there."
Rather than becoming a distraction, that admiration becomes part of the challenge.
"You put in your head, maybe I can stop him somehow, win the ball or something like this, and this motivates you," he said. "In some ways you enjoy him, but on the other hand you're thinking, let me see if I can stop him, or block his passing lane, or block his vision."
Seven or eight midfielders, three jobs
The additions of Amaro and Galoppo have created a different kind of roster math in midfield: seven or eight players competing for three spots.
"[It will be] generating the competitiveness we wanted," Martino said. "Yeah, of course, right now we have between seven and eight midfielders for three different spots. So they're going to compete. Sometimes one of them plays, sometimes he goes to the bench, sometimes you're going to end up outside the roster. But in some way, this is what we were looking for, a lot of competition during the week, because I think that raises the level of any squad, any team."
Asked how he talks to the club's younger players about staying in that competition once experienced additions start taking minutes, Martino framed the new arrivals as motivation rather than a threat. "I think the arrival of players in their positions is actually there to help them develop, because they're going to have to compete more, they're going to have to earn their spot," Martino said. "And besides, they know they have a coach who, if the academy kid has to play instead of the new signing, that's going to happen too."
One of those players trying to break through got a longer answer of his own. Enzo Dovlo is in his rookie season as a professional after being drafted out of UNC-Greensboro. He has been playing consistently with Atlanta United 2 and made a brief appearance in the first team's last match. Martino likes what he's seen. "I'll speak about the last three matches with the second team that he played, and the other day, when he came on for a stretch in our match, honestly, I think he's doing really notable work," Martino said. "There's a secondary part of the game, winning the ball back, the pressing, the first press, that he does very well, he's understood it well. I think that's the job of a second team. And then he brings speed into space, an ability to unbalance a defender one-on-one, which is what any coach wants from a winger."
Martino was upfront about the limits on Dovlo's opportunity this year, tied partly to roster mechanics. "I don't know if we're going to be able to give him all the chances he deserves for what's left of this year, but next year he's going to be with us, for sure," he said. "Or at least we're going to try, because he also takes up a foreign-player roster spot."
One more thing: Culebro, Jacob and Baez
One question turned toward the front office. New AMBSE President of Soccer Mauricio Culebro has been part of the executive group behind this window's roster moves, and Martino was asked about their relationship and Culebro's impact on the club.
"I know Mauricio because he traveled to Rosario at one point when he wanted to hire me to be the coach of Tigres, and before that, we'd had brief contact when I was with the Mexican national team," Martino said. "That's the extent of the prior relationship I have with him. As for his work here, I don't know if I'm the right person to speak to the impact of the president. The president holds a really important role, it's clear he has a lot to do with decisions involving the first team, but also with a lot of matters involving the club in general, and obviously with all the evaluations that MLS puts you through when you're hired into any part of the club. I imagine whoever hired him did those evaluations and understood he was the right person for it."
The final question turned to two of Atlanta's young defenders, Tomás Jacob and Elias Baez, and how much the team felt Baez's absence over the weekend.
"What they're doing is part of the growth we're aiming for from very young players," Martino said. "It's true that a lot of money gets invested, maybe, relative to kids coming out of the academy, but when you look at the ages, Tomás, and in this case Mauricio [Amaro] too, and Elias, they're the same age as Will [Reilly], or Jay Fortune, or Adrian [Gill]. These are players who are still really young, and we need to give them the tools to keep growing."
Atlanta United at Inter Miami kicks off at 7:40 p.m. Saturday night from Nu Stadium. Pregame coverage starts at 6:30 p.m. on 92.9 The Game and the Audacy app.
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