El Abismo: Dead Last, Still Falling

The 96th minute at Subaru Park told you everything.

Atlanta United were winning with ten men. Had been since the 27th minute. Almirón's strike in the 30th -- three minutes after Mihaj's red card -- was defiance made physical. Muyumba's in the 66th made it 2-nil. The supporters who made the trip to Chester were singing.

Iloski pulled one back in the 73rd. Then Pierre. Then Alladoh. Ninety-six. Ninety-seven. Silence.

This is not about one match.

This is about the worst season in Atlanta United history. And the season is only half over.

Three wins. Twelve losses. Three draws. Twelve points. Dead last in MLS East, 15th of 15. Nineteen goals scored in eighteen matches -- fewest in the entire league. Twenty-eight points behind Nashville. Eleven behind the playoff line.

The numbers are bad enough. What they describe is worse.

Since May 2025, across two seasons, Atlanta United's record reads 2-15-9. 0.57 points per match. The worst sustained stretch of any team in Major League Soccer. Not a slump. Not a rough patch. A condition.

And this is the club that drew 73,019 to MLS Cup 2018. The club that Josef Martínez scored 31 goals for. The club that sold Almirón to Newcastle for $21 million and made the league take notice. The expansion that rewrote how North America does football.

Where did that go?

Five managers in six years since Tata Martino left the first time. De Boer. Heinze. Pineda. Deila. Now Martino again, the man who built it all, brought back to restore what he created. His record since returning: 3-12-3.

In April, after a 1-7-1 start, Martino told reporters something no manager should ever have to say out loud: "If I didn't have the past that I did with Atlanta United, probably today I would be fired."

The past is a shield. It is not a plan.

Almirón -- the captain, the prodigal son, the man who represents both the golden era and this nightmare -- said it after the 4-1 loss to New England: "The same things keep happening to us." Six words that carry more weight than any tactical analysis. He is 32 now. Three goals, three assists in twelve appearances. Playing deeper, slower, further from the player who electrified the Benz in 2017. He still cares. That might be the cruelest part.

The transfer window was supposed to be the answer. Fifty million dollars. Alonso from Atlético Mineiro. Díaz from River Plate. Structural fixes, the South American spine this team needed. I wrote about la reconstrucción three weeks ago. I believed in the blueprint.

But Emmanuel Latte Lath -- the $22 million record signing, two goals in fourteen appearances -- is being held out amid transfer talks. His departure is imminent. And Darwin Núñez, the marquee striker who was supposed to make this roster viable? He chose Beşiktaş. A Turkish club. Over Atlanta United.

When a player of Núñez's caliber looks at your project and picks the Süper Lig, that is not a transfer miss. That is a credibility verdict.

The cruelest irony lives inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium itself. Six weeks ago, that building hosted FIFA World Cup matches. Argentina-Egypt. Spain-Saudi Arabia. Messi at 39, scoring three in thirteen minutes. The biggest football this continent has ever seen, played on the same pitch where Atlanta United sit dead last with 1.06 goals per match.

The stadium as monument. The stadium as mausoleum.

Attendance tells the trajectory. From 53,002 in 2018 to 41,435 last season. The numbers for 2026 are not yet public. I am not sure anyone wants them to be.

There is a version of this piece that ends with hope. With Alonso and Díaz forming a defensive spine. With Miranchuk -- five goals, four assists, the only player producing at rate -- carrying this team until reinforcements arrive. With the academy, four teams in MLS NEXT postseason, building something underneath the rubble.

But I will not manufacture what I do not see.

Sixteen matches remain. Atlanta United are on pace for roughly 23 points over a 34-match season -- worse than last year's 28, itself the previous worst in franchise history. To match even that low bar, they would need a point per match the rest of the way. They are averaging 0.67. The math is not impossible. The mentality might be.

Something leaves this team past the 70th minute. Composure. Concentration. The refusal to break. Whatever it is, they held it from the 27th minute at Chester until the 73rd, and then it cracked. Three goals in twenty-four minutes. An espejismo dissolved.

El abismo is not the bottom. El abismo is realizing the bottom keeps moving.