Atlanta United’s roster is a little bit lighter today as Israeli club Hapoel Be’er Sheva announced that they have signed Pedro Amador to a four-year contract.

The 27-year-old defender departs the club after two years. He appeared 42 times for the Five Stripes and had mixed success. During his first season with the team he lit the league on fire, recording eight assists in 14 matches, helping a struggling team turn their season around and make a playoff run. However, after that run of form, he amassed just one more assist in his remaining time at the club. His role diminished and he found himself not in Tata Martino’s current plans.

Amador could’ve possibly left the club for free after the season, with the team holding a couple of option years. However, he will now depart for Israel immediately with a small transfer fee coming Atlanta’s way to facilitate that, Five Stripe Final has learned.

As perhaps one of the only good pieces of transfer business this club has done in recent memory, Amador leaving is kind of bittersweet. The rebuilding of this roster is well and truly underway and he inevitably had to be a piece that was shipped out to make room for those changes.

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Atlanta United were blown out by the New England Revolution, 4-1, on Saturday night. The Five Stripes now find themselves at the very bottom of the MLS standings. Happy days.

While we all know how bleak it currently is, Tata Martino isn’t offering us much hope that this will get better any time soon.

With the team on a long road trip and a short turnaround from Wednesday’s draw in Charlotte, I had the rare chance to attend a Tata pre-match media availability via Zoom.

While he still seemed in good spirits, offering a few playful responses in addition to being analytical over the 2-2 draw in Charlotte, one answer from him paints the picture of a frustrated manager resigned to the team’s short-term fate.

Tata is rarely pessimistic, usually showing a confident face to the public. However, even he can’t pretend that this squad is good enough to compete as it stands currently.

Obviously he’s not going to throw any anyone at the club under the bus. There’s no upside to doing that as Ronny Deila proved over and over last season. But it is very telling that even Tata can’t remain optimistic about the team’s chances of getting results while it attempts to overhaul the roster during the summer transfer window.

The most depressing thing about the result against the Revs was that New England is everything this Atlanta team is not.

The first goal came from a superstar DP putting his team on his back and scoring a match-winning type of goal that no one on Atlanta’s roster can. When’s the last time anyone other than Jay Fortune beat someone on the dribble and scored a goal from outside of the box? Miguel Almiron can’t carry a team. Alexey Miranchuk can’t carry a team. Latte Lath can carry his bags to the airport.

The second goal saw the Revs absolutely rip through Atlanta’s whole left side with a beautiful, flowing move with passes, off the ball movement, and clinical finishing. Atlanta has none of that.

This team lacks any dynamism or individual brilliance along with being unable to play as a cohesive unit on a consistent basis. The talent level across the board simply isn’t good enough and Tata knows it.

It seems extremely unlikely that the summer window can fix these problems but several smart and bold moves could easily get the process moving in the right direction. However, as Tata said, prepare for a long and rough summer as we wait for those decisions to be made.

Atlanta United’s road trip continues in New England tonight. Here’s a few things to know.

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Just hours after a report that claimed Atlanta United is pursuing Swiss striker Breel Embolo emerged a different report suggesting the team is also attempting to acquire Uruguayan striker Darwin Núñez from Al Hilal in the Saudi Pro League. The Athletic’s Tom Bogert had the scoop.

The 27-year-old Núñez was one of the top prospects in the world just several years ago that led Liverpool to spend €75 million with €25 million in add-ons connected to the transfer. This came a year after Núñez was named Player of the Year in the Portuguese Primeira Liga when he bagged 26 goals in 28 league games for Benifca.

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While Embolo’s potential transfer presents its fair share of concerns, especially related to injures, Núñez would be an absolute coup not jsut for a struggling Atlanta United team, but for any MLS squad. And for that reason, it’s worth holding out some skepticism as to whether Atlanta United can get this deal over the line after losing the recruiting battle for some other high-profile players, like Koke, in recent weeks and months. Bogert added to his report that the talks are NOT advanced at this stage, but it would appear there’s at least enough interest for the story to leak to the press. Núñez is openly seen as a distressed asset at his current club in Saudi Arabia, who is attempting to offload him due to squad registration issues.

On the field, Núñez is a proven goalscorer who uses aggression and high-end athleticism to get on the end of balls in the box. He never quite panned out at Liverpool, and when Saudi came calling for him in similar fashion to Al-Nassr coming to Atlanta to take Pity Martinez, Liverpool was happy to get most of their initial spend back. But still, he scored 18 goals in all appearances for Liverpool (10 in the Premier League) in the 2023-24 season. He’s struggled at the international level for Uruguay recently, failing to score in competitive matches since 2024. But he has regularly played for his country under famed Argentine manager and Tata Martino associate Marcelo Bielsa, including at the 2026 World Cup.

The silly season rumor mill is spinning. According to Ben Jacobs of GetMeSport, Atlanta United have interest in signing striker Breel Embolo. Yes, that Breel Embolo of red card against Argentina in the World Cup fame.

According to Jacobs, the Five Stripes are one of a couple of clubs interested in signing the 29-year-old Switzerland international, who could demand a transfer fee of around $17 million.

This is admittedly a weird one. Embolo is an experienced European striker who has had varied success around the top five leagues in his career but has also dealt with a host of injuries. At 29, he still has some gas in the tank, but would he fit in Tata Martino’s system?

Embolo scored 10 goals in 34 appearances in all competitions for Stade Rennais in Ligue 1 last season. He joined from AS Monaco in 2025 for around $15 million.

There’s always a chance this is his agent getting his name out there during the transfer window to spark interest around the world. But it’s not out of the realm of possibility that this is legit seeing as Atlanta are clearly in the market for attackers.

Personally, this rumor doesn’t move me too much. What say you?

Atlanta United turned around a 2-0 halftime deficit to salvage a 2-2 draw away to Charlotte FC on Wednesday night. Two shorthanded teams lacking quality clashed and produced some forgettable soccer. Somehow, in the end, the score finished all-square with the Five Stripes earning a point.

With another match coming up on Saturday, I’m just going to give some quick thoughts on the match and some potential silly season silliness on the horizon.

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Atlanta United has made the trip up the road to Charlotte. Here are a few things you should know.

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Atlanta United announced Monday that Jay Fortune, who left Atlanta United’s 1-0 loss to Nashville with a hamstring injury, will miss at least the next three to four weeks.

A month-long absence would see Fortune miss at least four games — the next three of which are on the road including a double-matchweek this week. The team returns to Mercedes-Benz Stadium August 15 — ostensibly the last game Fortune would miss.

The injury is made worse for Atlanta with Cooper Sanchez having been called up for the most recent U-19 United States national team competing in the 2026 Concacaf U-20 Championship. In light of Fortune’s injury, Sanchez will remain with Atlanta United for at least the next week before departing for international duty. Sanchez is expected to also miss a month, putting him back with the Five Stripes around the same time Fortune is hopeful to return.

In other injury news for Atlanta, Matt Edwards also left Frida'y’s loss in Nashville due to a knock, but his status has been deemed day-to-day.

Atlanta United returned from the World Cup break with a 1-0 loss at Nashville SC on Friday night, the team’s seventh scoreless performance in 15 league matches this season.

Despite outplaying a short-handed Nashville side, the Five Stripes’ inability to produce in the final third doomed them again.

A few thoughts on the maddening result and the even more infuriating start to the summer transfer window.

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Atlanta United are back. And they return with a trip to the best team in the Eastern Conference.

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If you’re looking for optimism at Atlanta United, look at the academy.

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Paulo Díaz and Júnior Alonso are Atlanta United’s newest players.

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Tata Martino surprised Atlanta United fans tuning into the team’s friendly against Sporting KC last week when they saw Latte Lath, the team’s woefully underperforming striker, deployed on the wing in an apparent attempt to salvage some form from the Ivorian Designated Player.

“I got the feeling we could try him out there because he can give us a bit more depth, given that Alexey [Miranchuk] has been dropping back from the number nine position,” Martino would go on to say after the match.

It’s an interesting quote for two reasons. First and foremost, it seems to be an admission from Martino that he sees Miranchuk as the team’s best option in the central forward position. And only following from that premise, does the idea of Latte Lath The Winger come into play (and even then, only as “a bit more depth,” underscoring just how underwhelming the player has proven in Martino’s tenure.)

How should we be thinking about this dwitch in roles? Was it just something Martino was toying with in a friendly? Could Latte Lath actually add a dynamic to Atlanta’s attack playing from a wide position? Is this more about Tata planning for life after Latte Lath, and simply using him as a stand-in winger until Atlanta can make an acquisition in the transfer window? The answer may be a mix of all of these scenarios. But since the only thing we know for certain is that the season’s resumption on Friday is rapidly approaching and the squad is what it is until it isn’t, let’s earnestly look at what could be a new-look version of the team’s attack.

Here’s what a full strength team would look like under Martino with Miranchuk deployed at striker, as we saw in glimpses of in the first half1 of the season. And before anyone gets too hung up on the arbitrary arrows I’ve assigned, let’s describe the whole thing this way: Miranchuk will be the center forward, but in the role of a creator who receives the ball to feet. The wingers, Miguel Almiron and Latte Lath, provide the forward thrust and impetus on the break to stretch teams vertically and in behind. And both of the homegrown central midfielders will be encouraged to get forward – even into the box looking to score themselves as each did in Thursday’s friendly.

The setup brings me back to a famous clip of Johann Cruyff describing the way his team’s played in his career and how a “diamond” midfield can be formed when a team doesn’t have a natural (or high-performing) No. 9 goalscorer.

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