He is the one who marked the very recent history of Atlanta United. Gerardo ‘Tata’ Martino was the club’s first manager when it launched in MLS in 2017, before leading them to the league title the following year. After two years of great play and excellent results, the Argentinian coach had given way to the Dutchman Frank de Boer in 2018 without the team managing to regain the heights. So the very ambitious Georgia franchise decided to return to its fundamentals for the 2021 season by hiring Gabriel Heinze. The 42-year-old coach already enjoys a solid reputation in South America.
Debut worthy of Bielsa in Argentina
Those who watched PSG and OM matches in the early 2000s remember the rough and combative defender Gabriel Heinze was. Fifteen years later, the Argentinian has lost none of this pugnacity in his new job. After a first failed experience of barely six months at Godoy Cruz in 2015 (Argentine first division), he joined the second division the following year with Argentinos Junior, Diego Maradona’s training club with a glorious past in the 1980s. “The Primera B is a very difficult championship, a bit like the Championship in Englandexplains Nicolas Cougot, founder of the Opposite Lucarne site and specialist in South American football. He took the club back to the first division in his first year, finishing best attack and best defense, with a pleasant attack-oriented game. Fans felt like they were reuniting with the great Argentinos of the 1980s“.
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This success will reopen the doors of the first division. He joined Velez Sarsfield in December 2017, a club marked by the passage of a certain Marcelo Bielsa, winner of the championship in 1998. “The arrival of Heinze in Velez caused a lot of talk in Argentina. During his first press conference, he explained that he had watched and analyzed all the team’s matches the previous season. It was Bielsa in the text“, recalls the journalist. In three years at the head of Velez, Heinze will raise the club from 19th to 3rd place in the rankings, bringing them back to the Copa Libertadores. “Beyond the rankings, many observers felt he had produced the best football in the country“, adds Nicolas Cougot.
Gabriel Heinze press conference
Crédit: From Official Website
“An uncompromising and obsessive coach”
After leaving Velez in March 2020, Heinze gave himself a few months of respite to think regarding his next challenge. He finally opted for MLS and Atlanta United in December, once more following observing and analyzing the team for several weeks. “During our meeting, I appreciated his way of being focused on the details. He arrived with an already fairly thorough analysis of our first team, but also of our academy.“, explained Carlos Bocanegra, the sporting director of Atlanta United (and another former Ligue 1 player) during Gabriel Heinze’s introductory press conference in late December. “My recruitment process dates back several months. They really gave me time to analyze their proposal“, added the Argentine coach in a very laconic question and answer with the American journalists. This first exercise in front of the press will have come to a halt, Heinze seeming annoyed by the comparisons between him and Bielsa. “Heinze was already struggling with the press in Argentina. He considers that they are there to argue and that we cannot talk regarding gambling with them. This is another common point with Bielsa“, says Nicolas Cougot.
Determined to make a name for himself as a coach outside Argentina, Heinze will find it difficult to get rid of the ghost of his bespectacled elder as his playing philosophy seems similar. “We often like to compare certain coaches to Bielsa, but none are more like him than Gabriel Heinzeinsists Nicolas Cougot. Like Bielsa, he does not like to talk regarding tactics but rather regarding geometry. He considers that a team cannot be reduced to a 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 game pattern, that the positions of the players are shifting depending on whether they are attacking or defending. The goalkeeper position is also essential for both coaches. They consider him to be their first outfielder, and have developed a set number of possible re-runs from him. Heinze also has this obsessive and uncompromising side. When he arrived at Argentinos, he had changed everything by implementing video analyses, strict dietary rules and going so far as to ask to change the height of the lawn“.
“Licha” always hungry
At Atlanta United, Heinze arrives on conquered ground in a club still nostalgic for two successful seasons 2017 and 2018 under Tata Martino. “He’s a coach who fits into our philosophy and what we want to rebuild on the pitch: high pressing, quick recovery of the ball, and high-intensity play forward,” summarizes Carlos Bocanegra. For his part, Gabriel Heinze declared “to join a young team with a lot of desire”, and “to like me (to) focus on the players to make them grow and improve”. He will be helped in this task by another Argentinian recruited at Racing Club at the end of January, Lisandro Lopez.
The former Lyon striker between 2009 and 2013 joined the Argentine league in 2015. In five years at Racing Club – one of the five big clubs in the country – he scored a whopping 50 goals in 149 matches, winning the title Argentine champion in 2019 and the individual distinctions of top scorer and best player in the championship. “Licha is a star in the country. He was a magnificent player at Racing, winning the title and wearing the captain’s armbandcomments Nicolas Cougot. We thought he would end his career there, but the end of his adventure went badly and he lost his status last year“.
Recruited by Atlanta to everyone’s surprise in mid-January, the Argentinian international answered the call from Heinze’s foot. “Gabriel told me regarding the opportunity to join him. A challenge like this doesn’t come up every day at my age.“, he explained in a press conference last month. Gabriel is a very demanding coach who sets up very intense training sessions. I like this“. Recruited for his champion mentality, “Licha” will also be able to share his high-level experience.”I’m not the type of player who talks a lot in front of the group, I prefer to lead by example in my actions every day in training and matches“, he developed, before promising “healthy competition to other forwards on the team“, like a message sent to the usual holder, the Venezuelan Josef Martinez. Enough to pull a whole group up.
Lisandro Lopez
Credit: Getty Images
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