Steven Alzate's debut showed that he isn't in a hurry

not gonna win a footrace (but that's probably ok)

61 minutes isn’t enough to tell you about any player’s future, but that’s not going to stop us from speculating about what Steven Alzate’s future in Atlanta might look like.

He’s the highest-priced summer arrival with the most notable resume and the clearest long-term role in Atlanta. He’s also a former Ronny Deila player who may very well not be playing for Ronny Deila beyond this season. Obviously, that brings up some questions regarding whether Atlanta signed Alzate because he offered the most of the players available or if they signed him at the encouragement of a head coach who, at the very least, will enter 2026 on the hottest of seats. And, obviously, that makes him extremely intriguing.

I went back and watched Alzate for the entirety of his 61 minutes against Nashville, and I came to a few broad conclusions.

Note: I’ll do my best to refrain from sweeping judgments after a player arrives during the summer. We don’t want another Muyumba Situation.

The first conclusion I came to after watching his Nashville performance is that he played very well. The second conclusion is that his game is a total snoozefest.

That doesn’t have to have [derogatory] behind it. Atlanta has needed a little more boring in midfield. We’re talking about a player whose whole deal is “Old guy at a pickup game who clearly played professionally and is making things happen despite being slower than everyone else around him.” There is clear on-ball quality, a clear understanding of how to read the game around him and a clear lack of high-intensity actions. He’s approaching the game at his speed, and that’s probably ok.

You can see the Brighton in him. He’s tactically disciplined, he’s clean on the ball and the game never feels too fast for him. You can also see why he didn’t become a Premier League standby. His game lacks the necessary physicality. And without that, he’s not so elite on the ball and in his positioning that he can make up for it at the highest levels of the sport.

In MLS though…well in MLS you can probably get away with it if you have the right folks around you. Look, it’s not like he’s standing still the whole time. He covered the second-most ground per minute of any Atlanta United player against Nashville. But he is extremely disciplined in his positioning in possession and has an “I’ll get there when I get there” approach to defending. Again, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

First, let’s look at how he operates in attack. If you’ll remember back to the first days of Muyumba, we applauded his ability to move around the pitch to find space. Eventually, though, Atlanta had to put restrictor plates on that movement. He distorted the team’s shape too often. And when he started maintaining the team’s shape more often, he didn’t have the technical ability to impact the game with more defenders around him.

Alzate is the opposite. He’s got a foosball player’s commitment to staying in his designated area. But within that area, he does a solid job of letting space develop around him and making the most of the moments the ball arrives at his feet.

He starts this clip off inside the center circle. Eventually, he (lightly jogs and) finds space within the team’s existing structure. It leads to a decent chance.