Josef Martínez set to meet with Atlanta United bosses over future
The Five Stripes cannot qualify for this season’s MLS Cup playoffs after losing 2-1 to the New England Revolution on Saturday.
Josef Martínez will have a couple of months to think about his future now that Atlanta United has been eliminated from the 2022 MLS Cup playoffs in the Eastern Conference. The Five Stripes lost 2-1 to the New England Revolution on Saturday and this puts Martínez’s future up in the air with the team.
Martínez is uncertain about his future
The 2018 MLS MVP is no longer happy in Atlanta and according to TUDN, Martínez has requested to meet with the bosses to discuss his future. The Athletic also reported that the player and the club are ‘not aligned’ anymore. The Venezuela international is not happy with the direction the team has taken after winning the 2018 MLS Cup and they are no longer competitive.
Atlanta United’s head coach, Gonzalo Pineda, was asked about the future of Martínez and didn’t give a definite answer. “I don’t know the answer to that,” Pineda told reporters in his postgame press conference. “There are many things in place with me, with many players, with the roster, with everything. The only thing I can tell you at this moment is I’m very disappointed at not making the playoffs.”
Asked about Martínez’s absences from Atlanta’s line-up, Gonzalo said: “My decision, again. We coaches, we live and die by our decisions. We have, as you can imagine, way more information throughout the week, the season, on players. And we make decisions based on that, based on what we see day-by-day in training sessions. At times I can make great decisions, at times I cannot. So, we’re talking about how good of performances we have had in the last three games and no one asked those questions. But today we lose and I can imagine people at this moment ask those questions.”