The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
UNITED, WE WIN!
BELOW: FOR ATLANTA, ‘SOCCER TOWN’ JOURNEY BEGAN IN 2014.
IN SPORTS: CITY CAN NOW CELEBRATE MLS CHAMPIONSHIP.
When Juan Mena moved to Atlanta 13 years ago, he was almost on an island by himself.
He grew up in Queens, N.Y., as a diehard New York Giants fan and was a bat boy for the New York Yankees during their championship run of the late 1990s.
But he was born in Medellín, Colombia, where his father was a star of a local soccer club.
“Atlanta is SEC country, where it is all about college football, then the Falcons, then t he Braves,” Mena said. “But soccer is in my blood.”
Then in 2017, Mena got his own soccer team. Or, more accurately, soccer got him and Atlanta.
Now, less than two years after Atlanta United FC’s first match, the city’s hometown team on Saturday night reached the pinnacle of North American soccer, beating the visiting Portland Timbers 2-0 to claim the MLS Cup Championship.
More than 70,000 fans, many of them decked in Atlanta United’s red, black and gold colors and chanting “A-T-L,” packed Mercedes-Benz.
United draws more people per game than any American professional sports team not in the National Football League, attracting crowds large enough to rival top clubs in Europe, where soccer long has been a religion.
The meteoric rise has the feel of an overnight sensation. But in some ways it’s not, with roots dating to 1968, when the Atlanta Chiefs won a national soccer league championship. It’s also the natural outcome of the shifting face of the city — more diverse, more international — decades in the making.
Even United has been around longer than its inaugural game, a 2-1 loss against the New York Red Bulls on March 5, 2017, at Georgia Tech’s Bobby Dodd Stadium. Atlantans started collecting petitions for a team years earlier and United owner Arthur Blank weighed an MLS franchise for more than a decade.
It doesn’t hurt that United keeps winning in a city that has had its share of losing and heartbreak. The team’s cumulative record: 36 wins, 16 losses and 16 draws. This week, United forward Josef Martinez notched the league’s Most Valuable Player award after netting more goals in a season than any other player in MLS history.
Football versus futbol
Football, the American version, has long dominated Atlanta and Georgia’s landscape.
Last week at Mercedes-Benz, the University of Alabama beat the University of Georgia for the SEC championship in a thrilling rematch of last year’s national championship game. Next Saturday, North Carolina A&T State University and Alcorn State University will battle for the black college national championship. Then there are the Atlanta Falcons, with one of the most rabid fanbases in the NFL.
But there was always room for more. The Atlanta Hawks have never traditionally drawn well, two NHL teams have abandoned the city and the Atlanta Braves, the oldest professional sports team in the region, abandoned the city in 2017 for comfier, newer digs in Cobb County.