BREAKING: Charlotte FC fires head coach

Playoff berth not enough to spare Christian Lattanzio, who is ousted after less than two seasons at helm. Plus Charlotte FC prepared to entertain international offers for star striker Swiderski.

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Despite leading team to the postseason, Coach Christian Lattanzio is out; Critics have cited blown leads, ‘experimenting’ and at times overly aggressive tactics

Charlotte FC coach Christian Lattanzio was fired Wednesday after less than two seasons with the team. (Photo by Kevin Young of The 5 and 2 Project.)

by Carroll Walton

Charlotte FC coach Christian Lattanzio was fired on Wednesday, two weeks after the team got blown out 5-2 against the New York Red Bulls in its first-ever playoff game.

Lattanzio led Charlotte FC to the postseason in its second season in Major League Soccer — and did so during a challenging year marred by the tragic death of Anton Walkes in a jet ski accident. But the front office seemed to believe that the team ultimately underperformed.

“Christian had sort of met his capacity,” said a source with knowledge of the situation. “This decision was about ’24 and beyond.”

Wednesday’s firing will leave Charlotte FC looking for its third head coach for its third season, which starts in February.

Lattanzio was 18-21-15 in his tenure with Charlotte FC, including 8-10-2 last season, after he took over for Miguel Angel Ramirez, who was fired halfway through the team’s first season.

This year, with Charlotte finishing 9th of 15 teams in Major League Soccer’s Eastern Conference, the team developed a habit of blowing leads late in games. While it seemed like a different player was involved each time, the blame ultimately fell on Lattanzio, who rarely changed tactics late in games to protect leads. Couple that with constant lineup tinkering, a penchant for moving players out of their natural positions and a lack of rapport with fans, and the club ultimately did not see him as a fit going forward.

The implication was that the team wanted to make the change now, as it faces an offseason that will likely see the departure of star striker Karol Swiderski to Europe and could conceivably see one or two of its remaining designated players (star players paid without regard to salary cap), Kamil Jozwiak and Enzo Copetti, depart as well.

Overall, Charlotte FC went 13-18-3 in 2022 and 10-11-13 this season. This year, Charlotte advanced to the postseason with the help of a new playoff format that included the top nine teams from each conference rather than the top seven.

The decision to part ways with Lattanzio was made late Tuesday afternoon after owner David Tepper met with club president Joe LaBue and sporting director Zoran Krneta, according to a source. Lattanzio was notified of the decision Wednesday morning, before the club announced it around 9 a.m. Assistant coach Andy Quy was also let go. The remainder of the coaching staff was retained.

Lattanzio, 52, came to Charlotte as an assistant coach under Ramirez, the club’s inaugural head coach. He took over as interim head coach after Ramirez was fired three months into last season. He was named full-time coach at the end of last season. That was the first head coaching position for Lattanzio, who had been an academy coach for Manchester City of the English Premier League, an assistant coach for New York City FC, and an assistant with Nice of the top league in France, Ligue 1.  

While Ramirez’s ouster came as a surprise because it was based largely on problems that took place behind the scenes — issues with player relationships and the overall culture of the club — this move comes with a coach who regularly came under fire publicly for his team’s on-field performance.

Each of the past two seasons, Lattanzio seemed to do just enough to warrant keeping his job. Last year, Charlotte won three of its last five games before getting eliminated from contention. This year, he led Charlotte FC to a playoff berth with a win on the final day of the season. But had Charlotte held even just a fraction of those late leads, it would have made the best-of-three Round One series as a No. 4 or 5 seed. Charlotte wouldn’t have had to play the midweek wild card game in New York on Oct. 25, weary from playing three games in seven days.

Charlotte FC blew leads in games in the 80th minute or later six times this season, including three times in extra time. For the season, Charlotte FC led Major League Soccer with 25 points dropped from winning positions, meaning they stood to accumulate points with a draw or win had they held onto the lead. In all but one or two of those games, Lattanzio stayed with an aggressive formation, leaving Charlotte vulnerable to counter attack.

Sporting director Zoran Krneta after a 1-0 win against Miami in this year’s regular season finale. (Photo courtesy of Charlotte FC.)

Charlotte FC sporting director Zoran Krneta spoke with The Ledger earlier this week about the upcoming offseason. And while the decision to fire Lattanzio was made after that conversation, it was clear Lattanzio and Krneta did not always see eye to eye.

When asked about how he would evaluate the job Lattanzio had done so far, Krneta said:

I think he's done an OK job. I think he experimented a lot. I think he was trying to find the way that he wants to play. He didn’t play this way last season and then he changed throughout the season a few times, the press, the defense. He’s a first-time head coach, so you’re questioning yourself against him. And we’ve worked with him, we talked to him a lot. He’s very much a believer in a playing style. He wants to win beautifully. He wants to win with a style. He is not a coach who doesn’t care about how he wins. He does care how he wins. He wants to win only one way, to be a better team, to outperform and to be dominant. That’s the only way he will do it.

Lattanzio likes to use defenders to build up in the offensive attack, either sending an outside fullback or a center back upfield and leaving the three defenders to cover a counterattack. When asked if acquiring a veteran center back was important to him this offseason, Krneta said “maybe” but explained how difficult it would be.

“The way Christian Lattanzio wants to play, it’s not easy to find the center back, because he wants them to be technically gifted, very fast, very mobile with understanding of the game,” Krneta said. “I know about 20 of them. And they’re all playing for [a] minimum [of] $5 million to $10 million a year for a top club in Europe.”

The “experimenting” Krneta referred to was moves, especially early in the season, like when Lattanzio tried putting Swiderski — who’d been playing striker or attacking midfielder — on the wing and moved midfielder Brand Bronico to an outside fullback spot. Lattanzio struggled throughout the season to find the right fit between Swiderski and Copetti, both natural strikers, and it became a regular thing to see a natural midfielder like Ben Bender or Brecht Dejaegere on the wing.

“I felt this year we put some players in a position to fail,” Krneta said.

Carroll Walton writes The Charlotte Ledger’s Fútbol Friday newsletter on Charlotte FC, which comes out weekly during the season. Reach her at carroll@cltledger.com.

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Charlotte FC prepares to part ways with Swiderski

Swiderski and his skilled left foot likely headed for Europe. (Photo by Kevin Young of The 5 and 2 Project.)

Not only has Charlotte FC star Karol Swiderski been lobbying in the Polish media to make a jump to Europe — both late in the summer and again recently — but sporting director Zoran Krneta said he also made it clear in a face-to-face meeting late in the summer. Swiderski is under contract through 2025 with an option for 2026 but could be sold to an international team.

“We sat here (in his office), Karol said ‘I'd like to go,’” Krneta said. “And I said ‘No, we can’t, I’m sorry.’ First, the offer was not good enough. Once we reached an offer that we were happy with, which is basically more money than we paid for him … We had a meeting about it, we informed the owner of course, and the decision was made that the playoffs were more important than making money.”

Charlotte initially signed Swiderski in January of 2022 from POAK FC, one of the top teams in Greece, for $5 million.

Krneta said Charlotte FC received offers for both Swiderski (believed to be Italian teams) and Enzo Copetti (Mexico) before the international transfer windows closed, but because Charlotte FC was still in the hunt for a playoff berth and Charlotte couldn’t have replaced either one with the MLS transfer window closed, they wouldn’t part with either one.  

Swiderski is a fixture on the Polish national team and has been open about the challenges he faces traveling back and forth from Charlotte to Europe for international breaks. Krneta said Swiderski continued to play with a good attitude and was a team player for Charlotte, even when a deal didn’t make sense for Charlotte.

“Credit to Karol, he’s done great, he put his head down and worked hard and scored goals and led us into the playoffs,” Krneta said. He added that despite recent reports in Poland, “I don't think (Swiderski) means any disrespect towards the club. Honestly, he loves the club. He loves the fans.”

But now that Charlotte has a clean slate, an offseason to rework the roster and a new coach coming in, he’s more likely to take up a European team now if the price is right.

“We will consider it and let him go if there is the right offer for the club and for him,” Krneta said. “Look, we don't want to keep anybody who doesn't want to be here. He's done a good job for us. He helped us. He’s been two years here. It all depends on the offer and what he wants to do, but we can replace Karol or any other players. This is why we have a scouting and analytics department and the front office, to be ready to replace any player.”

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Carroll Walton is a longtime baseball writer with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution now cutting her teeth on soccer and the Charlotte FC just as fans in Charlotte do. She would love to hear from you. E-mail her with questions, suggestions, story ideas and comments!

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