Atlanta United x Real Salt Lake
Tata Martino came back to Atlanta for his first home game since 2018, Mercedes-Benz Stadium was buzzing with anticipation, and the Five Stripes lost 3-2 to Real Salt Lake anyway. Atlanta dropped to 0-3, outscored 7-2 through three games, and it's starting to feel like last year's 5-16-13 disaster wasn't just a fluke.
The whole night was supposed to be about the reunion. Martino taking the touchline as Atlanta's head coach for the first time since 2018, the 17s ready to welcome an old friend home, all the energy and optimism you'd expect from a home opener. The intensity was there from the jump — end-to-end, both teams cutting through defenses with quick transition play. Tomás Jacob had to block a shot off the crossbar inside one minute. Emmanuel Latte Lath forced a save in the seventh. Everything felt electric.
Then Real Salt Lake remembered they're really good at scoring goals with teenagers, and things went sideways fast.
Sergi Solans broke through on the counter in the 23rd minute, made Lucas Hoyos guess which direction he'd shoot, dispatched it clean to make it 1-0. The 22-year-old former UCLA star who scored 16 goals last season before signing with RSL, getting his first professional goal at the worst possible time for Atlanta. Four minutes later, Aiden Hezarkhani carved out a strike across his body into the top left corner. Two-nil. Second goal in as many matches for the 18-year-old academy product.
Two goals in quick succession. The kind of momentum swing that crushes a team still searching for its first win of the season. Atlanta had been humming up until the 20th minute, controlling possession, creating chances, looking like maybe they'd figured something out. Then reality showed up and punched them in the mouth.
They responded, at least. Alexey Miranchuk scored in the 38th minute — starting for the first time this season — putting a lovely left foot on a cross from Elías Báez to make it 2-1. Atlanta's first goal of the 2026 season. The momentum was shifting. The home opener comeback narrative was taking shape.
Less than two minutes later, Zavier Gozo finished a counter attack with his left foot and pushed RSL back in front 3-1. The 18-year-old Utah native's first goal of the season after his breakout four-goal, three-assist campaign last year. Three-one at halftime. All the air sucked out of Mercedes-Benz Stadium again.
Atlanta came out of the break tentative, Martino went to his bench for a spark, new signing Matías Galarza made his club debut in the 59th minute. Slowly the pressure built. But the final product in the attacking third just wasn't there until Latte Lath whipped a cross to the back stick in the 74th minute. Miranchuk was there to tap it across the line, his second of the match. Three-two. Sixteen minutes to find an equalizer. One more goal to salvage something from the home opener.
They couldn't find it. RSL held on despite a shorthanded roster — they lost Diego Luna and Victor Olatunji to injuries before the season opener, DeAndre Yedlin picked up a hamstring injury last week. Didn't matter. The kids kept showing up. Hezarkhani, Solans, Gozo, 17-year-old Luca Moisa all contributing. Coach Pablo Mastroeni called it "like a brotherhood," said there's no guy bigger than the team.
Meanwhile Atlanta's sitting at 0-3, watching their home opener slip away, wondering how a team with Miranchuk and Almirón and all the talent in the world can't find a way to beat a Real Salt Lake side playing teenagers and dealing with an injury crisis. Cooper Sanchez got a secondary assist on Miranchuk's first goal — the 17-year-old became the fourth youngest Atlanta United player to record a goal contribution in club history. So they've got young talent too. It's just not translating to wins.
Atlanta completed 320 passes in the first half at 91.4% accuracy, the sixth most in a first half of a regular season match in club history. All that possession. All that control. Still lost. RSL improved to 2-1-0, their formula working perfectly — play the kids, let them run in transition, trust the veterans to bring them along.
Tata Martino's reunion with the 17s ended with another loss. Three games, zero wins, seven goals conceded. The home opener was supposed to be the turning point, the moment where things clicked and the season started making sense. Instead it was just more evidence that this team's got serious problems to figure out, and figuring them out against Philadelphia next Saturday is starting to feel like a must-win situation whether anyone wants to say it out loud or not.
[Photography by Dave Williamson]
