Level Set 3, Atlanta United FC: 2025 & History, Ahoy, MLS's Drunken Sailors

The answer to the subtitle: enjoy the show.

What follows is a brief history of Atlanta United FC, plus more brief notes on whatever long-term tendencies they have. Their 2025 season gets weighed on both sides of that and the whole thing ends with where I see things with them in this very specific moment in time - i.e., before First Kick 2026. You should count on things happening between here and there.

The post ends with a scale I came up with to measure the long-term success of every team in Major League Soccer. It does some things well (e.g., count trophies/achievements), other things less well (capture recent trends). It's called the Joint Points Scale and you can find a link that explains what it does. I was really stoned when I came up with the scale and wrote the post. Caveat lector. With that...

Thumbnail History
As much as any team in league history, Atlanta United FC kicked off the tradition of expansion teams coming into MLS swinging. They arrived in the 2017 season like fun drunks livening up a wedding, finishing fourth overall and with the second-best goal differential (+30) behind an historically (and freakishly) good Toronto FC team. Atlanta finished even higher in 2018 – if, again, second-best after a Red Bull New York team winning its third Supporters’ Shield – but that promptly left their minds when they won their first MLS Cup at…well, an unfortunate stroll over my Portland Timbers. The secret to pulling that off followed from near-perfect roster construction. It started with (more or less) flipping off that season’s Expansion Draft, finding two future stars in the 2017 Superdraft – Julian Gressel was the stand-out (Miles Robinson bloomed later) – and then going nuts with trades and transfers. Atlanta’s FO built a spine out of ol’ reliables from all over MLS – e.g., Michael Parkhurst, Jeff Larentowicz, and their once-forever goalkeeper, Brad Guzan - but they had to scour the international markets for their crown jewels, Josef Martinez and Miguel Almiron. One gave them lightning-like verticality – Almiron, who seemed to bend time when he got on the run – while the other finally ended Roy Lassiter’s reign of terror atop the single-season record for goals scored. For two fun-filled seasons – 2018 and 2019 - defenses struggled to keep Martinez from scoring goals and all came perilously close to allowing him a goal per game. Just when Atlanta’s Act I seemed destined to go on forever, it moved on to Act II (as every play does), aka, the one where the hero(es) look lost and everything looks impossible and the doom kicks in. The trouble started when Martinez tore his ACL in the first game of 2020 – he missed the entire season – and then came COVID, chaos (aka, Gabriel Heinze) and, when it all ended, a 23rd-place overall finish in the final standings. That’s not to say Atlanta didn’t move heaven, earth and bags of money to avoid that fate: when Almiron moved on to the EPL’s Newcastle, they gambled heavily on Ezequiel Barco and Pity Martinez, two young, (reportedly) high-upside talents from Argentina. They paid a $15 million transfer for Barco and somewhere around $10 million for Martinez; Barco played more games (81), but Martinez got more in less time (39), but he was only around for 2019-20, while Barco lasted from 2018-2020. Both players are more memorable as cautionary tales than for anything they did on the field. Coaching problems plagued the team as well, starting with apparent sociopath, Heinze, but, with respect to Gonzalo Pineda, they haven’t got it right since. Some entry-level farting around in the CONCACAF Champions’ League aside (see below*), things faded fast and, hard as they’ve tried, the color hasn’t flushed back into Atlanta’s cheeks since…or has it?

Getting Reacquainted with Atlanta United FC, the Drunken Sailors of MLS

Pick his pockets! Pick his pockets!

Thumbnail History
As noted in yesterday’s post on Los Angeles FC, Atlanta United FC started the tradition of expansion teams coming into MLS swinging. They arrived in the 2017 season like fun drunks livening up a wedding, finishing fourth overall and with the second best goal differential (+30) behind an historically (and freakishly) good Toronto FC team. Atlanta finished even higher in 2018 – if, again, second-best after a Red Bull New York team winning its third Supporters’ Shield – but coming second almost certainly got lost in the dopamine when they won MLS Cup 2018 at…well, an unfortunate stroll over my Portland Timbers. The secret to pulling that off followed from near-perfect roster construction. It started with (more or less) flipping off that season’s Expansion Draft, finding two future stars in the 2017 Superdraft – Julian Gressel was the stand-out (Miles Robinson bloomed later) – and then going nuts with trades and transfers. Atlanta’s FO built a spine out of ol’ reliables from all over MLS – e.g., Michael Parkhurst, Jeff Larentowicz, and their apparently-fovever goalkeeper, Brad Guzan - but they had to scour the international markets for their crown jewels, Josef Martinez and Miguel Almiron. One gave them lightning-like verticality – Almiron, who seemed to bend time when he got on the run – while the other finally ended Roy Lassiter’s 23-season reign of terror atop the single-season record for goals scored. For two fun-filled seasons – 2018 and 2019 - defenses struggled to keep Martinez from scoring goals and all came perilously close to allowing him a goal per game. Atlanta’s Act I seemed destined to on forever, but, as every play does, the action moved on to Act II, aka, the one where the hero(es) look lost and everything looks impossible and the doom kicks in. The trouble started when Martinez tore his ACL in the first game of 2020 – he would miss the entire season – and then came COVID, chaos (aka, Gabriel Heinze) and, when it all ended, a 23rd-place overall finish in the final standings. That’s not to say Atlanta didn’t move heaven, earth and bags of money to avoid that fate: when Almiron moved on to the EPL’s Newcastle, they gambled heavily on Ezequiel Barco and Pity Martinez, two young, (reportedly) high-upside talents from Argentina. They paid a $15 million transfer for Barco and (I think) somewhere around $10 million for Martinez; Barco played more games (81), but Martinez got more in less time (39), but he was only around for 2019-20, while Barco lasted from 2018-2020, but both players are more memorable as cautionary tales than for anything they did on the field. Coaching problems plagued the team as well, starting with the apparent sociopath, Heinze, but, with respect to Gonzalo Pineda, they haven’t got it right since. Some entry-level farting around in the CONCACAF Champions’ League aside (see below*), things faded fast and, hard as they’ve tried, the color hasn’t flushed back into Atlanta’s cheeks since…or has it?

Kidding. It hasn’t. Not really.

Total Joy Points: 10

Getting Reacquainted with Atlanta United FC, MLS's Super-Fun Party Guy

Act II, when things always look their worst.

[Standing Disclaimer: While I have watched…just a stupid amount of MLS over the years, I don’t watch the vast majority of games, never mind all of them. As such, it’s fair to take anything below that isn’t a hard number or a physical trophy as an impression, a couple steps removed.]

Thumbnail History

Tempted as I am to say that Atlanta United FC started a tradition of expansion teams coming into MLS swinging, that strictly applies to them and Los Angeles FC (with honorable mention to New York City FC because they didn’t actually lift a trophy until their 7th season). Atlanta announced their intentions in its very first season (2017, btw), finishing fourth overall and with the second best goal differential (+30) behind an historically (and freakishly) great Toronto FC team. They followed that opening triumph by finishing even higher in their second season (second overall, this time behind a Red Bull New York team winning its third Supporters’ Shield) and winning MLS Cup at…well, an unfortunate stroll because the team they bested was, again, my Portland Timbers (to any Timbers fans reading this, it only seems like Portland has lost MLS Cup to every team in MLS, but it was just NYCFC and Atlanta). That ended Act I in Atlanta’s history. They kicked off Act II in 2019 by finishing third overall and winning the U.S. Open…back when such things mattered. Then, Act II being what it is, tragedy (and a global pandemic) struck in 2020 and the breezes that forever blew at their back turned to blow in their faces. They ended the dread COVID season in 23rd place overall, out of the playoff picture despite a generous expansion of its outer boundaries. Atlanta’s fortunes have been mixed since then – e.g., two top 10 finishes (2021 and 2023) on either side of yet another 23rd place finish in 2022. In an expansion of theatric convention, Atlanta has stretched the third act of its early history over three seasons. The question is whether continues as tragedy or comedy.

Best Season(s)

Their Cup-winning 2018 season provides the obvious answer, what with Josef Martinez, Miguel Almiron and…[supporting cast] terrorizing all of MLS in transition, but I’m going to Atlanta’s 2018 season, when they finished third and won that Open Cup. Why? I mean, two trophies in three seasons. Think of what the future felt like to their fans…

…but, obviously, their best season was 2018. Lifting the Cup in front of your fans is a beautiful thing.

Atlanta United FC 0-1 FC Cincinnati: Frankie Learns to Ride a Bike

Frankie Amaya, just a couple weeks ago...

With the second yellow/sending off of Atlanta United FC’s Jake Mulraney, a game that started as a salvage operation for FC Cincinnati evolved into something else. And I’m not even going to attempt to describe what that is because a dog-pile of weirdness surrounds FC Cincy’s 1-0 win over Atlanta this morning. Where to begin…

If you’re a parent, especially of a very young kid, you’ve had that moment where you can’t talk your kid into something you know they’re gonna love – think, say, riding a bike. To carry the analogy one step further, think of Mulraney’s sending off as training wheels. To set the scene: there you are, your kid is propped up on a bike that’s basically arranged to not fall down. All your son or daughter needs to do is pedal.

The question that lingers about this game for me was the extent to which Cincinnati’s still-brand-new head coach, Jaap Stam, encouraged his charges to starting pushing the pedals. Prior to Mulraney’s secondyellow, Cincinnati clearly lined up and played with avoiding a loss as the highest priority…which made sense after the searing blow-out against Columbus Crew SC a few days back. It’s after the red card where the questions came in. I didn’t expect them to fly forward the second Victor Rivas (the ref) flashed the red – as made plain today, Cincinnati has only vague theories about how to get to goal at this point – but as, it grew increasingly obvious that Atlanta shares the same weakness, I expected a little more urgency out of the Orange and Blue.

The one player to consistently provide it was Joe Gyau, who figured out early, and then again later, that he could play around whoever Atlanta played at left back. In fact, the duel between Gyau and Atlanta’s Edgar Castillo (subbed on to replace the absent Mulraney) provided the only fireworks worth watching in what otherwise played out as one dull, aimless fucking game. Cincy bunkered from the start, but the whole thing devolved into wayward crosses over dueling sets of low-blocks and general flailing.

In an attempt to conjure up a frame for the game, Taylor Twellman and Jon Champion floated the question of how large/long this win will linger in Cincinnati fans’ shared history. Speaking solely for myself, I’ll strive mightily to forget it after this post goes up. I don’t intend that to take anything away from the man of the hour, Frankie Amaya, who scored an absolutely cracking first professional goal; that the team made it stay up (assist by Atlanta) will leave him with a memory he’ll carry around for life. I’m not even going to fart around with my usual theories of replicability (i.e., did Cincy find a reliable route to goal) on the grounds that, when a player hits the ball that beautifully, it is good and right to take off your hat and say, “well done, son!”

Atlanta United FC 2-1 FC Cincinnati: A Different Feeling in My Stomach

Explaining a nonsense phrase below...

I’m going to use Atlanta United FC’s second goal as exemplary evidence that they are a better team than FC Cincinnati. The latter’s defense earned every shot you want to take at its shape, but Emerson Hyndman, 1) spotted the space, 2) Ezequiel Barco found it, and with a well-weighted pass and, more than the first two points, 3) Hyndman’s touch took him around the defender and opened Spencer Richey’s all the way up. A professional player 10 yards from goal with the ‘keeper on or near his line ends badly nine times outta ten, and that’s how one team breaks down another team, or vice versa, and whatever that means.

As people paying careful attention already know, Atlanta beat FC Cincy last night by a final score of 2-1. Cincinnati pulled one back with a slicing shot from Yuya Kubo ("golazo"? srsly, MLSSoccer.com; are expectations so low?), and they had a couple chances besides – good ones, too – but Atlanta already had one crack in Cincy’s defense in the bank before the second one happened, and that left the Orange and Blue playing out of a hole for the second week running…

…and yet, I feel good. Bah-nah-nah-nah-nah.

For anyone watching at home, no, you didn’t imagine it: Cincinnati put up a fair number of shots last night, and more than Atlanta. In fact, Cincy nearly doubled Atlanta’s necked shots total (i.e., just shots not shots on goal; eight for Atlanta v 14 for Cincinnati), but two key thoughts follow from that:

1) Did Cincinnati ever appear entirely in control of last night’s match?

2) The box score from Atlanta’s season-opening win over Nashville SC looks much the same, and the result looks exactly the same.

The question is, what you draw from all that?