The 2025 Major League Soccer regular season has come to a close. While 16 of the league’s top teams compete for the MLS Cup, the remaining 14 have some serious reshuffling to do.
Three teams — Atlanta United, the Colorado Rapids and the New York Red Bulls — closed out their dismal regular seasons by firing their head coaches. But why? What happened? And who is in line to turn things around for each club?
Atlanta United
What happened? Atlanta entered 2025 desperate to recapture its pre-pandemic, MLS Cup-winning magic. Under the watchful eye of proven MLS coach Ronny Deila, midfielder Aleksei Miranchuk, winger Miguel Almiron and striker Emmanuel Latte Lath were expected to bring Atlanta back to the top of the Eastern Conference.
It didn’t happen. Atlanta’s expensive leaders failed to gel, and the team finished the 2025 season third from bottom while shouldering the league’s third-highest wage bill. No one in MLS spent more to achieve less.
Was it a coaching issue? Sort of. Atlanta’s 2025 roster construction turned out to be a big swing and a miss. Knowing what we know now, it’s hard to see any coach delivering results with that lineup. Deila did, however, struggle mightily to adapt his style to Atlanta’s needs.
Who’s in line to take over? There’s really only one name on Atlanta’s wish list, and it’s a familiar one: Tata Martino. The Argentinian coach was the architect of Atlanta’s 2018 success and the man who led Inter Miami to its first club trophy in 2023. (He did, to be fair, get a heavy assist from Lionel Messi on that last one.)
Tata’s return is an exciting prospect for Atlanta fans … but after a failed year of partying like it was 2018, it does feel slightly alarming to see the front office leveraging that approach yet again.
