This was supposed to be the season everything came together.
Atlanta United entered its 10th MLS season with renewed optimism after bringing back the most successful coach in franchise history. Now, at the midpoint of the campaign, the Five Stripes are packing for a road trip unlike anything they have faced before — and the reason is parked right outside their front door.
Mercedes-Benz Stadium is no longer theirs. The building that has served as one of the most formidable home-field advantages in Major League Soccer has been handed over to FIFA for the 2026 World Cup, and it will remain under tournament control through the July 15 semifinal. For Atlanta United, that means consecutive road matches, a forced mid-season pause, and a test of the depth and discipline that coach Gerardo “Tata” Martino was brought back to instill.
Tata’s Return and the Season So Far
Martino’s return to Atlanta in late 2025 was one of the biggest coaching stories in MLS. The Argentine, who led the club to the 2018 MLS Cup title in just the franchise’s second season, came back to a roster that had cycled through multiple coaches and identities in the years since his departure.
The early returns have been encouraging. Atlanta United has shown improved tactical structure, better defensive organization, and a renewed sense of purpose that had been missing in recent campaigns. But the World Cup disruption now threatens to interrupt whatever momentum the team has built.
The Road Ahead — Literally
The specifics of the displacement are daunting. With MBS unavailable, Atlanta United faces a stretch of consecutive away fixtures that ranks as the longest in club history. Road matches in MLS are already demanding — the travel distances, the artificial surfaces, the hostile atmospheres — and stringing them together without the relief of a home date compounds the difficulty.
The MLS schedule also calls for a mid-season pause during the World Cup group stage and knockout rounds, meaning the team will go through an extended period without competitive matches before returning to action in a hostile environment.
For a club that has historically thrived on the energy of its home supporters — the capos, the tifo displays, the wall of sound that has rattled visiting teams since the stadium opened — the silence of an empty calendar and a locked home ground is a strange kind of adversity.
Managing the Break
The coaching staff has framed the pause as an opportunity rather than a setback. The extended break gives the training staff time to manage fitness loads, integrate tactical adjustments, and allow players carrying knocks to recover without missing matches.
Martino’s experience managing Argentina’s national team and Paraguay’s World Cup qualifying campaigns gives him a familiarity with tournament-driven schedule disruptions that few MLS coaches can match. His staff has built a training plan designed to maintain sharpness without burning players out during a stretch when they cannot play.
“You cannot simulate match intensity in training,” a club representative acknowledged. “But you can use this time to get sharper tactically and make sure the group is physically ready for what comes after.”
The Bigger Picture
Atlanta United is not the only MLS club affected by the World Cup — teams in other host cities face similar displacement — but the Five Stripes’ situation is among the most pronounced because of MBS’s heavy match schedule and the semifinal assignment that extends the lockout through mid-July.
When the team finally returns to Mercedes-Benz Stadium later this summer, the building will have hosted some of the biggest sporting events on the planet. The question for Atlanta United is whether the club can channel that energy into its own late-season push, or whether the disruption will have cost them too much ground in the Eastern Conference standings.
For now, the Five Stripes are on the road — and the road is long.
Jordan Reyes covers Atlanta sports for WACN 21 News. Reach him at jreyes@wacn21.com.
