Rob Valentino was going to coach.
After Atlanta United declined to make him its manager after guiding the team to the playoffs last season and an upset of Miami as its interim manager, Valentino was going to lead someone somewhere.
A few months later, after a six-step interview process, Valentino was named the manager of the U.S. boys under-19 team.
“I’m really enjoying it,” he said in an exclusive interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It’s so different.”
When Valentino managed or was an assistant coach with Atlanta United, every day in the season had a structure and focus on the next match. With the Under-19s, there can be months between camps and matches. The team had a camp in June and traveled to Spain to play two matches. The team won’t reconvene for several weeks.
The team was together all day, every day, for a week. Valentino loved being with the players and the staff, saying several times he caught himself thinking, “This is so awesome.” Valentino spent much of his time trying to get to know the players, which was one of his strengths in his six years with Atlanta United.
“When you show up in a club environment, you can have those touch points every single day, whereas, like I had that camp in the beginning of June, I don’t see those kids again until September,” he said.
As he likes to do, Valentino learned things about himself by asking what he could improve. One of the areas was how to get ideas across in a short time.
“This is a big reason this job was interesting to me,” he said.
When Valentino returned, he found himself with time. That, he said, took some getting used to.
To adjust, Valentino spent last week, the first in which he started going to an office, collaborating with different people.
“I get to pick different staff and have different people around me with different experiences that have different ideas,” he said. “So that part’s been really fun.”
Valentino still pays some attention to Atlanta United matches, but that took a while.
“I’ll be honest, I didn’t watch it in the beginning,” he said. “It was not anger; it was hard to watch. I had emotions. I was just sad I wasn’t there.”
Last week’s match against Chicago was the first time that Valentino watched one of the team’s matches in person.
He said he holds no ill will toward the franchise, nor does he take any satisfaction that the team’s struggles are similar to what resulted in manager Gonzalo Pineda being fired last year, which was why Valentino was promoted from assistant to interim.
Valentino led the team into the final spot in the playoffs, led it past Montreal in the first round and then shocked Miami in a best-of-three series.
Months of stress from poor results and the managerial change resulted in the team running out of mental, emotional and physical gas in the next round at Orlando, ending the season.
Valentino said he’s proud that he remained true to himself throughout his time at the club. He is proud that he was able to help lead the team into the playoffs. He will never forget Xande Silva’s goal and the noise of the crowd in the 2-1 victory over Miami in Game 2 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
“No matter how we got in there, we turned it around in a way that no one thought possible,” he said. “I gained a ton of experience. Those are huge life moments.”
President Garth Lagerwey made the decision not to keep Valentino, citing that he didn’t lead the team to winning the MLS Cup and didn’t have enough trophies on his resume.
“Rob had an opportunity to prove himself,” Lagerwey said in November. “Different folks can have different opinions of what constitutes proof. But the standard, ultimately, for Atlanta United is, are we going to win championships?”
Valentino said he was never told specifically that was what he needed to do to keep the job, but it was one of many scenarios he played out.
“Winning MLS Cup, that’s what I wanted to do anyway, so that’d been great,” he said.
Between jobs, Valentino enrolled in MasterClass to learn more about leadership and communication. He watched a series led by former Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski. He watched a series led by former White House communications director George Stephanopoulos. Valentino spent time with the men’s group at his church, listening to and talking about values and collaboration.
Though he’s no longer there, and he has a new challenge with the U.S. U19s, Valentino wants to see Atlanta United succeed. He wants to see new manager Ronny Deila guide the team to its second MLS Cup.
“I am super supportive of the new staff, and they can get things going in the right direction because coaching is not easy … and I really hope that does come to fruition for them,” he said.
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