Garber wowed by big Atlanta crowd

The Green Bay Packers and Atlanta Falcons will battle at Mercedes-Benz Stadium Sunday night during an NFL game broadcast nationally on NBC.

The field will show no signs of what happened 24 hours earlier, when an announced crowd of 70,425 packed the stadium for a different kind of football.

Atlanta United set a Major League Soccer attendance record when it played Orlando City to a 3-3 draw in front of that crowd Saturday afternoon.

Red and Black scarves filled the stands — with dots of purple in between — and the crowd roared when they watched replays on the massive halo television board overhead. The dome remained closed but it will open for the NFL game.

There still were empty seats in the new stadium, implying an actual attendance slightly lower than announced, but the scene impressed many, including MLS commissioner who attended the match.

“It’s awe-inspiring. It’s absolutely spectacular,” Garber said.

“Ya know, when I drove in from the airport, it’s such a massive structure. You can see it from far away. It just is absolutely incredible and it's an exciting day for me and for the league.

“Some of the stats are just incredible. This team in six days will have, I think, more than 150,000 people come to three soccer matches. So, there's all sorts of records being broken.

“It’s a good moment for all of us in MLS. I think it says that there are really no limits. We never expected this to happen.”

Orlando City coach shared a similar sentiment about the atmosphere, saying it was “spectacular” and “unbelievable,” while players were less impressed.

“I wasn't aware of it, but that's a pretty cool thing to be a part of,” centerback said of the attendance record.

“The atmosphere was good. It’s nice to be a part of, but it’s not really that significant to me, personally, to be perfectly honest.”

Striker who scored two goals in the match said the crowd was loud but not as loud as he thought it would be.

“It’s always cool to play in front of a good crowd,” Dwyer said. “It was a little quieter than I thought, but I think that’s just because we scored a couple goals.”

Garber went on to say he was skeptical about soccer working in Atlanta and the southeastern United States in general, but Orlando City and Atlanta United are thriving. He’s hoping the same holds true for the coming Miami expansion side.

“It’s a great statement about what’s going on in this part of the country,” Garber said. “These are cities that have become incredibly diverse, very millennial driven. There’s lots of companies moving down here. There’s just a demographic shift happening and a new energy that you feel in the southeast that’s exciting.”