EPTAtlanta United president Darren Eales didn't look like a man basking in the glow of professional triumph as he paced between the players' entrance and the Bobby Dodd Stadium field on the afternoon of March 5.
It was a just a few hours before the MLS expansion team's raucous inaugural match against the New York Red Bulls and the 44-year-old Englishman was far too busy making sure every last detail was taken care of to celebrate the culmination of three years of meticulous planning that went into the club's ballyhooed debut.
Eales knew exactly what to expect. The 55,000 in the stands may have raised eyebrows elsewhere -- the crowd was the fourth largest in global soccer that weekend, behind only games in Manchester, Barcelona and Dortmund -- but selling out the opener was never in question after the club moved an astounding 30,000 season tickets in the run-up to its maiden campaign.
The dynamic young team on the field displayed its attacking chops but also its inexperience by squandering a 1-0 halftime lead and losing to last year's Eastern Conference regular season champs. But even that was part of what Eales envisioned when he left his job as Tottenham's director of football administration in 2014 for a chance to build from scratch the most ambitious expansion team in MLS history.
"Soccer is fun," Eales told ESPN FC. "It's entertainment. I want fans to see an exciting game win, lose or draw."
"One, just about every man, woman and child had Atlanta United gear on," Eales said. "The other thing was, they stood up the whole game. The sort of electricity, energy and knowledge of the game far surpassed what I expected. I thought there would be a learning curve for the fans. As an expansion team, I thought it would take a lot more time for people to almost learn about cheering us on. But on day one, it felt like you could've dropped into that stadium and someone who didn't know better would have thought this team had been around for 30 years."
Two months into the new MLS season, a case can be made that Atlanta United's launch is the most successful of a new team in the history of North American professional sports.
The Seattle Sounders have made that claim often since arriving in MLS in 2009, with the numbers to back it up. Atlanta's are even more impressive so far. Their curtain-raiser was the third-highest attended among expansion sides, behind Orlando in 2015 and Montreal three years earlier. They're the first team in league history to draw more than 100,000 fans to their first two games. And they've done it in a city that, unlike Seattle or Portland or New York, has little history of embracing pro soccer, as well as a reputation for not supporting its established sports teams.
"We never dreamed we would ever have anything like this in Atlanta," MLS commissioner Don Garber said at the opening of the team's $60 million, 30,000-square-foot training facility in suburban Marietta.
It was a just a few hours before the MLS expansion team's raucous inaugural match against the New York Red Bulls and the 44-year-old Englishman was far too busy making sure every last detail was taken care of to celebrate the culmination of three years of meticulous planning that went into the club's ballyhooed debut.
Eales knew exactly what to expect. The 55,000 in the stands may have raised eyebrows elsewhere -- the crowd was the fourth largest in global soccer that weekend, behind only games in Manchester, Barcelona and Dortmund -- but selling out the opener was never in question after the club moved an astounding 30,000 season tickets in the run-up to its maiden campaign.
The dynamic young team on the field displayed its attacking chops but also its inexperience by squandering a 1-0 halftime lead and losing to last year's Eastern Conference regular season champs. But even that was part of what Eales envisioned when he left his job as Tottenham's director of football administration in 2014 for a chance to build from scratch the most ambitious expansion team in MLS history.
"Soccer is fun," Eales told ESPN FC. "It's entertainment. I want fans to see an exciting game win, lose or draw."
"One, just about every man, woman and child had Atlanta United gear on," Eales said. "The other thing was, they stood up the whole game. The sort of electricity, energy and knowledge of the game far surpassed what I expected. I thought there would be a learning curve for the fans. As an expansion team, I thought it would take a lot more time for people to almost learn about cheering us on. But on day one, it felt like you could've dropped into that stadium and someone who didn't know better would have thought this team had been around for 30 years."
Two months into the new MLS season, a case can be made that Atlanta United's launch is the most successful of a new team in the history of North American professional sports.
The Seattle Sounders have made that claim often since arriving in MLS in 2009, with the numbers to back it up. Atlanta's are even more impressive so far. Their curtain-raiser was the third-highest attended among expansion sides, behind Orlando in 2015 and Montreal three years earlier. They're the first team in league history to draw more than 100,000 fans to their first two games. And they've done it in a city that, unlike Seattle or Portland or New York, has little history of embracing pro soccer, as well as a reputation for not supporting its established sports teams.
"We never dreamed we would ever have anything like this in Atlanta," MLS commissioner Don Garber said at the opening of the team's $60 million, 30,000-square-foot training facility in suburban Marietta.
Eales had a connection to Gerardo "Tata" Martino, who had led Lionel Messi and Argentina to a runner-up finish at last summer's Copa America Centenario, through Tottenham's Argentine boss Mauricio Pochettino. After he and Bocanegra flew to Rosario, Argentina, to meet with Martino, they came away convinced they could get him.
"Darren told me we had this candidate who had been the coach of Paraguay, of Argentina, of Barcelona. I said, 'Sounds great,'" said Blank. There was one problem: Martino didn't speak English.
"This is Major League Soccer. We're playing in America. How is that going to work?" Blank asked Eales.
Eales eventually convinced his boss that language wouldn't be an issue on a multicultural team. He'd take lessons. Besides, Martino's wife was an English teacher. After Atlanta got its man, Martino's all-world pedigree quickly became the fledgling club's best recruiting tool.
Eales had determined that a marquee designated player signing was not required to sell tickets, which were being snapped up in droves. Instead, he set about acquiring lesser-known South Americans who would produce on the field, grow with the club and, if all went well, eventually be sold to European teams for profit that would be re-invested in the roster.
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What the fuck Nürnberg 
