Atlanta United plays tonight

I guess this is happening

It is hard to care about Atlanta United these days. It’s even harder to care about Atlanta United when hurricanes, exploding chemical plants and Ryan Williams—who is 17—are making life harder.

But there is a game tonight and it technically has stakes and I’m going to assume that a few of y’all are going to begrudgingly go sit in MBS and wait for the swift axe of MLS Wild Card-related death to fall upon the Five Stripes’ head. So we’ll talk about it.

At some point.

It’s been a bad week for the southeast. Like many of you, I’ve spent chunks of time unable to contact loved ones affected by the storm. Unlike many of you, I spent a little too much time accidentally driving through a chlorine haze from a chemical plant fire that had just reignited in Conyers (oops). And like some of you, I’ve spent nearly all my time horrified that Alabama football might still be pretty ok without Nick Saban.

But I have, at the very least, been heartened by the folks in this community coming together to help each other out. For a personal anecdote: When Augusta and FSF’s own Rob Usry needed some supplies this week, Joe Patrick decided to hop in his car and drive down I-20 to give them to him. When we asked if any of our subscribers could help out with funding the trip, Joe immediately got so much funding he had to cut donations off.

In the meantime, folks in the World Famous Five Stripe Final Discord have been recommending and donating to charities providing disaster relief across the region. Those have included…

• The Bitter Southerner’s fundraiser for World Central Kitchen

• East Tennessee Disaster Relief

• Mountain Projects

They could also include you. If you or a loved one is in need of any kind of help, ask. There are no bad asks. The folks around here are ready and willing to help out. Just let us know via Substack or Discord and we’ll do our best. That’s all we’ve got right now, but we’re happy to offer it.

I guess we’ll talk soccer now.