Atlanta United set to open at home away from home

ATLANTA — Goals sit at each end of Bobby Dodd Stadium — only these come with nets, not uprights. A worker unwinds a tape measure in what is normally the end zone, measuring off the last bits of the larger field that need to be painted for Atlanta United’s very first game.

The oldest stadium in major college football is getting a makeover. It’s time to welcome a new sport, if only for a few months.

Georgia Tech’s campus stadium will serve as the first home of Atlanta United, one of two expansion teams making its debut in Major League Soccer this season. A sellout crowd of 55,000 is expected for Sunday’s opener against the New York Red Bulls.

“We’re unbelievably excited and honored that Georgia Tech could be part of this historical event,” said Georgia Tech assistant athletic director Elizabeth Lancaster, who worked with United to arrange its temporary home. “To be part of an inaugural game for a brand new team in Atlanta is incredible.”

Bobby Dodd Stadium, which opened in 1913, will host eight United games. On July 30, the team will move into its permanent home, $1.5 billion Mercedes-Benz Stadium, a retractable roof facility under construction less than two miles away.

While the players certainly look forward to settling into their ritzy new stadium — where owner Arthur Blank’s Atlanta Falcons also will play starting this NFL season — they’re relishing the chance to play half the home schedule on the grass of Bobby Dodd Stadium. Mercedes-Benz Stadium will have an artificial surface.

“I’m used to playing on natural grass, and my preference is natural grass,” United defender Leandro González Pirez, a native of Argentina, said through an interpreter. “From what I’ve heard, the new stadium’s turf is supposed to be very similar to natural grass. Hopefully it is like that. The players will just have to get used to it.”

Not right away, though. After it became clear that Mercedes-Benz Stadium wouldn’t be ready for the start of the season, United considered playing solely on the road before reaching a deal with Georgia Tech to rent out Bobby Dodd Stadium.

While a bit narrow for soccer — along one sideline, there are only 2 yards between the field and the brick wall of the stands — it was approved by MLS after grass was installed over the entire surface of the field. Georgia Tech’s football team plays on grass, but the sidelines are covered with artificial turf.

No other major renovations were required, but United will lose about 10,000 seats after the first home game. Georgia Tech already had scheduled maintenance of the upper deck at the north end of the stadium, which means that section will be closed off for United’s remaining games at Bobby Dodd.

Still, the older stadium provides an intimate atmosphere that should give United, which has sold more than 30,000 season tickets, a solid home-field advantage. The team hopes to make the playoffs in its inaugural season.

“The seats are close,” Lancaster said. “We think that’s going to help them tremendously, to have the noise, to have the crowd behind them.”