Atlanta United FC
Also written as Atlanta.
The club
Atlanta United Football Club were established on 16 April 2014, when Major League Soccer approved an expansion bid from Arthur Blank, the co-founder of Home Depot and owner of the NFL's Atlanta Falcons. It was Atlanta's first shot at MLS: Blank's group had submitted an earlier bid in 2008 but withdrew it in 2009 for lack of a stadium partner and the financing to go with one. The NHL's Atlanta Thrashers relocating to Winnipeg in 2011 reopened the conversation, and MLS had named Atlanta a priority expansion market by 2012. The club began play in 2017 as the league's 22nd franchise, the first professional soccer team to represent the city in MLS.
Atlanta United share Mercedes-Benz Stadium with the Falcons. Standard capacity for soccer is 42,500, with the upper deck curtained off to concentrate the crowd and the atmosphere; the stadium can be opened up to hold more than 71,000. The club built the biggest attendances in MLS history from its first season: 70,425 against Orlando City on 16 September 2017 broke the previous single-match MLS record, and crowds kept growing through 2018, including 72,243 for a regular-season match on 15 July 2018. Atlanta United's average attendance was 48,200 in 2017 and 53,002 in 2018, both MLS records at the time and the first instance of an MLS club averaging more than 50,000. The overall attendance figures for recent seasons, once the novelty of the stadium wore off, were not established from the sources read here.
The head coach is the Argentine Gerardo "Tata" Martino, who returned to the club in November 2025 on a two-year contract through 2027 after Ronny Deila was sacked. Martino previously coached Atlanta United from 2017 to 2018, winning the MLS Cup and the league's Coach of the Year award in his second season. Between his two spells the club was led by Frank de Boer (2019 to 2020), Stephen Glass on an interim basis in 2020, Gabriel Heinze in 2021, Gonzalo Pineda from 2021 to 2024, Rob Valentino on an interim basis, and Ronny Deila, whose 2025 season ended with Atlanta United finishing 14th in the Eastern Conference, the worst finish in the club's history.
Atlanta United is not the same club as Atalanta BC of Bergamo, Italy, despite the similarity of the names. It is also distinct from every earlier professional soccer team to play in the city, including the Atlanta Silverbacks, who competed in the North American Soccer League until folding in 2015 to 2016; Atlanta United is not a continuation of the Silverbacks or of any other prior Atlanta side, and it has no connection to the city's NFL, NBA or MLB franchises beyond shared ownership with the Falcons and the shared stadium.
Recent seasons
Atlanta United's early seasons were their best: an inaugural playoff appearance in 2017 under Martino, then the MLS Cup in 2018. The club won the U.S. Open Cup and the Campeones Cup under Frank de Boer in 2019. Form declined through the Heinze and Pineda years, and 2025 under Ronny Deila produced a 14th-place finish in the Eastern Conference, the club's worst since it entered the league. The detailed points totals and final league placings for each individual season between 2019 and 2025 were not established from the sources read here.
Honours and landmarks
MLS Cup winners in 2018. U.S. Open Cup winners in 2019, the club's first major trophy on home soil after the Cup Final and the first time a Georgia team had lifted the Open Cup. Campeones Cup winners in 2019, beating Club América 3-2 to become the first United States club to defeat a Mexican opponent in that competition. Eastern Conference champions in 2018.
Notable scorelines
The 2018 MLS Cup final was won 2-0 over the Portland Timbers at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on 8 December 2018, Josef Martínez scoring in the 39th minute and Franco Escobar adding a second in the 54th. Attendance was announced as 73,019, a record for an MLS Cup final at the time, though the Georgia World Congress Center Authority later put the actual figure at 69,004; the MLS Cup record itself was subsequently broken by Charlotte FC's opening home match in 2022. Josef Martínez was named the final's Most Valuable Player, adding to the league Most Valuable Player award he won that same season after setting the MLS single-season scoring record with 31 regular-season goals.
The club's record win is 7-0 at home to New England Revolution in MLS play on 13 September 2017. Atlanta United's very first competitive result, a 6-1 away win at Minnesota United on 12 March 2017, remains one of the heaviest away wins in club history, and their first home match produced a 4-0 win over Chicago Fire on 18 March 2017. The club's first-ever competitive match was a 2-1 defeat away to New York Red Bulls on 5 March 2017, in which Yamil Asad scored Atlanta United's first goal. The club's biggest defeat in any competition was not established from the sources read here.
The 2019 U.S. Open Cup final was won 2-1 over Minnesota United at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on 27 August 2019 in front of a competition record crowd of 35,709, an early own goal and a 16th-minute finish from Pity Martínez enough to hold on after Robin Lod pulled one back for Minnesota and Leandro González Pírez was sent off in the 74th minute.
Head-to-head notes
The closest thing Atlanta United has to a rivalry is with Orlando City SC, the other Southeastern expansion club that entered MLS alongside them in 2017; more recently added Southeastern clubs Nashville SC, Charlotte FC and Inter Miami CF have built up their own fixture history against Atlanta United as the region's MLS footprint has grown. Detailed head-to-head records against any specific opponent were not established from the sources read here.
Records
Josef Martínez is the club's all-time leading scorer, with 111 goals in all competitions (98 in MLS regular season, 5 in the playoffs, 2 in the U.S. Open Cup and 6 in continental competition) from 158 appearances between 2017 and 2022; he reached 100 goals in just 125 games, the fastest any player has done so in MLS history, and left for Inter Miami in January 2023 after his contract was not renewed. Brad Guzan, the club's longest-serving captain, holds the appearances record with 262 across all competitions (225 in MLS regular season, 18 in the playoffs, 4 in the U.S. Open Cup and 15 in continental play) from 2017 until his retirement after the 2025 season.
Right now (2026/27)
Gerardo Martino is the head coach, back for a second spell after being appointed in November 2025. Confirmed transfer activity for the 2026 window includes the arrivals of the Argentine midfielder Tomás Jacob and the Argentine goalkeeper Lucas Hoyos, and the departures of Brad Guzan, who retired, the Polish midfielder Bartosz Slisz, sold to Brøndby, the full-back Brooks Lennon and the defender Noah Cobb. The forward Emmanuel Latte Lath had already arrived in February 2025 for a fee reported as the most expensive signing in MLS history, and the winger Thiago Almada was sold in the summer of 2024 for a reported 22 million dollars plus add-ons. Atlanta United have advanced through multiple rounds of the 2026 U.S. Open Cup. The club's exact 2026 MLS regular-season league position, points total and full run of results were not established with confidence from the sources read here, since the sources consulted for this dossier gave conflicting figures for the current standing and recent scorelines.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_United_FC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Mart%C3%ADnez https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_MLS_Cup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Atlanta_United_FC_records_and_statistics https://www.soccerwire.com/news/atlanta-united-fc-captures-u-s-open-cup-title-with-2-1-win-over-minnesota-united-fc/ https://www.ussoccer.com/stories/2019/08/ten-man-atlanta-united-claim-first-us-open-cup-title-with-2-1-win-vs-minnesota-united-fc https://www.atlutd.com/players/josef-martinez/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_Silverbacks_(NPSL) https://www.espn.com/soccer/team/results/_/id/18418/atlanta-united-fc
Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.