Atlanta United
Southern Soccer Explosion
By: Michael Spiers
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
For decades, soccer in the United States was viewed as a niche sport. It was something kids played on Saturday mornings before eventually moving on to football, baseball, basketball, or another traditional American sport.
If you asked most sports fans where soccer was strongest in America, they probably would have pointed to California or the Northeast. Not anymore.
As the 2026 FIFA World Cup unfolds across North America, one thing has become increasingly clear. The Southeast is rapidly becoming the center of soccer growth in the United States.
Just look at the host cities. Atlanta, Miami, and other Southern venues have become major destinations for World Cup matches and fan events.
Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium has established itself as one of the premier soccer venues in the world, regularly drawing crowds that rival those seen in Europe and South America. Miami has become an international soccer hotspot, attracting global attention through both club and international competition.
What’s remarkable is how quickly this transformation has occurred. Twenty years ago, many sports fans across the South viewed soccer as an afterthought. Football ruled Friday nights, Saturdays, and Sundays. Baseball was woven into the fabric of communities across Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and the Carolinas. Soccer simply wasn’t part of the sports conversation.
Today, that’s changing. Youth soccer participation throughout the Southeast continues to grow. Communities like mine here in Camden County have thriving recreational and travel soccer programs.
Weekend tournaments routinely bring hundreds of families together, filling hotels, restaurants, and sports complexes. Young athletes who once may have focused exclusively on football or baseball are now dedicating themselves year-round to soccer.
The growth isn’t limited to youth sports.
Atlanta United helped prove that professional soccer could thrive in the South. Since entering Major League Soccer, the club has drawn some of the largest crowds in the league and created an atmosphere that rivals many traditional American sports franchises.
Nashville SC has experienced similar success, while Charlotte FC has quickly developed a passionate fan base of its own.
The result is that an entire generation of young Southern sports fans is growing up viewing soccer differently than previous generations.
And then there’s the World Cup. The excitement surrounding the tournament has given soccer another significant boost.
Southern cities have embraced the event with enthusiasm, welcoming fans from around the world and showcasing the region on an international stage.
I think for many Americans, this World Cup is the first opportunity to experience the energy, passion, and global significance of soccer up close.
What makes the Southeast uniquely positioned for continued growth is that soccer isn’t replacing traditional sports. It’s joining them.
Football remains king throughout much of the South. College football Saturdays still dominate the sports calendar. High school football remains a cultural institution in communities large and small. But soccer has carved out its own place alongside those traditions.
In many ways, soccer fits perfectly within the Southeast’s sports culture. Fans appreciate passionate competition, community pride, and family-friendly events. Soccer delivers all three.
The sport’s accessibility also makes it attractive. All a child really needs is a ball and a patch of grass to begin developing a love for the game.
The World Cup will eventually leave North America, but its impact is likely to remain. Young players inspired by what they’ve seen this summer will sign up for youth leagues.
Families will continue attending professional matches. Communities will continue investing in soccer facilities and programs.
The Southeast’s sports identity is evolving. Football will always be at the heart of it. But soccer is no longer an outsider looking in.
It has become part of the conversation, part of the culture, and increasingly, part of the future.
The rest of the country may still be catching up, but the evidence is becoming impossible to ignore: when it comes to the growth of soccer in America, the Southeast is leading the way.
Atlanta Un-United
By: TJ Hartnett
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
Atlanta United, the defending MLS Cup winner and source of rabid fandom in Atlanta, doubled their win total last week with a victory over the Colorado Rapids. However, the victory still seemed a little hollow.
It failed to assuaged the concerns that United’s system isn’t working. Atlanta had seemingly endless possession of the ball and scored just one goal.
With the same amount of time last season, they would have likely had five. There are, of course, many differences between last year’s team and this one. Many have focused on Frank de Boer’s 3-4-3 set up and the loss of Miguel Almiron.
That’s fair, as the 3-4-3 has definitely had its growing pains and Almiron was snatched up for what was probably a record fee. Atlanta paid what is probably a record fee for Pity Martinez right afterwards.
That being said, it’s a little suspect that United’s Julian Gressel scored shortly after Martinez was lifted in the 71st minute of the game and followed up that substitution with a show of emotion. A more accurate description – and I saw this one in person – is that Martinez, last year’s South American Player of the Year, threw a temper tantrum.
He let de Boer know he was unhappy, then sat down and kicked the (occupied) seat in front of him.
It’s understandable that he’s upset. He was brought in among much fanfare and was expected to dominate Major League Soccer, but he has struggled mightily in the early going.
That’s a heavy and unfair burden, but figuring out his struggles (and Josef Martinez’s) is the key to figuring out the team’s struggles and most of that is a lack of aggressiveness.
Much like the game against Colorado, Atlanta has dominated possession this season but they are also creating fewer chances and taking fewer shots in the box.
The 2017 and 2018 seasons under Tata Martino saw tons of shots and tons of goals (the first Atlanta United game I ever attended was a 7-0 victory). Frank de Boer has apparently asked his team to take a chill pill.
Since Martinez’s style isn’t as aggressive as Almiron’s, that should be working in his favor but that style also prevents him from taking the team on his shoulders. That means that the team’s failures might also come from a weaker squad around a superstar incapable of changing the game on his own (which, to be fair, isn’t realistic in professional soccer anyway, unless your last name is Ronaldo or Messi).
Because Atlanta isn’t incredibly deep, there’s more pressure on Martinez to be a superstar instead of a piece of the puzzle and that in turn means more people are going to make a mountain out of a temper tantrum when it’s thrown by an underperforming should-be superstar.
This isn’t to say that a player of Pity Martinez’s caliber (and paycheck) should be allowed to throw a tantrum when he gets pulled from a game (especially in hindsight, since the winning goal came shortly thereafter).
Martinez shouldn’t be acting like a prima donna. However, his attitude is far from the source of the problems with United’s season so far. Plus, at the very least, it shows that there is some life somewhere in Mercedes Benz stadium.
If de Boer can siphon off some of that attitude, refocus it towards something productive and share it with the rest of the team, Atlanta might be able to turn things around before it’s too late.
Kicking It Big
By: TJ Hartnett
GeorgiaSportsEdition.com news services
The Hawks have been in Atlanta for half a century and haven’t won a single NBA Championship. The Falcons have been in Atlanta for 52 years and haven’t won a single Super Bowl. The Braves have been in Atlanta the same amount of time and have one World Series Championship to their credit, 23 years ago.
The city of Atlanta broke through seasons and years of futility and heartbreak and was delivered a second championship by Atlanta United, who defeated the Portland Timbers 2-0 to win the MLS Cup. It was their second year of existence.
It is a triumph in so many ways for the team and for the city. Aside from the brevity of the club’s tenure in the league and ending of Atlanta’s championship drought, there was the passion with which the state’s capital embraced a new professional sports franchise. This is no easy feat for a town where pro sports come in a distant second to college athletics.
But the fans showed up for Atlanta United since the beginning, with Mercedes Benz Stadium housing six of the seven best-attended regular season games in MLS history, not to mention setting a new MLS All-Star Game attendance record this past summer. They did that again,breaking the previous attendance record for an MLS Cup Finals game – by over10,000.
As with any major championship, there were story lines aplenty. Among the biggest going into the match was the imminent departure of United’s Coach Tata Martino.
Martino announced that he would not be renewing his contract following the season’s conclusion (he’s been strongly linked with the Mexican National Team’s vacant head coach position).
It also seems somewhat likely that it was the final match for Miguel Almiron, the young star who finished second in the MLS MVP voting this year. He left the match in stoppage time and the goodbye seemed to mean a little more than a usual sendoff, unofficially confirming the rumors that he’ll be making the move to Europe.
The man Almiron finished behind in that MVP vote, Josef Martinez, scored Atlanta’s first goal in the 39th minute of the game.
It couldn’t have been written better. Martinez has been the face of this team, a superstar who led the league in scoring, bringing constant energy to the club and the city of Atlanta since its inception. He added another trophy to his mantle;the MLS Cup MVP went home with him as well.
There was also the story of Michael Parkhurst, who in four previous attempts in an MLS Finals match failed to come away with the big win. He was brought to Atlanta to be a leader and was made the club’s first-ever captain. He led them to that elusive win, feeding the ball to Martinez for that first goal.
Veteran goalkeeper Brad Guzan played a starring role in United’s victory on Saturday as well, making several stellar saves, including a gasp-inducing save on what would have been the equalizer in the 43rd minute.
Franco Escobar doubled the score in the 54th minute and the Five Stripes cruised to a well-deserved and exciting victory in front of a hometown crowd that may still be celebrating in the streets as you read this.
Atlanta has suffered its fair share of heartbreak. Arguably several shares of heartbreak when it comes to pro sports, but the newest kid on the block did not disappoint when it came time to shine on the big stage.
It’s a cathartic moment for the city and one that can only cause an already thriving fanbase to grow. Atlanta will never stop being a football town but it may find the term “football” to be a little more encompassing now.
