Is Gabriel Heinze considering offer to become Atlanta United manager?

After nearly 125 days of radio silence since Atlanta United parted ways with Frank de Boer, we have a rumor. Kind of.

Argentine outlet Doble Amarilla reports that Gabriel Heinze is “close to joining” the Five Stripes to become the club’s new manager.

The report goes on to state:

According to sources, Heinze’s arrival in the USA could be defined in the coming days. Those who know the Gringo assure that the proposal “closes him”. (Translated via Google)

We here at Dirty South Soccer try to do our best when it comes to sifting through these types of rumors and figuring out what’s plausible and what’s not. This one is extremely difficult to gauge.

The rumor itself makes a ton of sense. We know the club are searching for someone of Heinze’s profile. A South American manager with an exciting style of play. We wrote a breakdown of Heinze’s managerial prospects last week and he fits those characteristics perfectly. He’s also a free agent, available to sign with any club he chooses.

The issue with Doble Amarilla’s report is that it quotes our article as justification that Atlanta United fans would want Heinze as the club’s manager. This can be looked at one of two ways. The report is genuine and they happened to use our post as supporting context. Or they stumbled upon the post, took it literally and escalated it to a full-on rumor. These situations happen all the time over the internet when it comes to soccer rumors.

Unfortunately, it’s impossible to know what the truth is until it’s corroborated by another outlet or Heinze all of a sudden shows up in Atlanta. We feel the report is serious enough to put a spotlight on and discuss as a community, but want to warn anyone reading it to take it with a massive grain of salt until more info comes to light.

What do you make of the Heinze-to-Atlanta United rumor? Would he be the right fit for the job? Let us know down below.