El Despertar

The 24th minute against Sporting Kansas City. Almiron bends a corner to the back post. Elias Baez meets it, and Fafa Picault — who has made a career of being exactly where the chaos needs a finisher — hammers it home. 2-0. Thirteen minutes old, already over.

But it's the 13th minute that tells the real story. Almiron picks the ball up in the left half-space, sees Tomas Jacob's run before Jacob sees it himself, and threads a pass that turns a good player into a dangerous one. Jacob finishes. 1-0. And with that assist, Miguel Almiron surpasses Brooks Lennon. Forty-three career assists. The most in Atlanta United history.

No ceremony. No announcement over the PA. Just a man doing what he has always done — finding others, making them better — and a number clicking over on a page that no one in the stands was tracking. The club's all-time leading assister didn't score a single goal Saturday. He didn't need to.

Three weeks. Nine points. A resurrection that nobody predicted.

On August 14, Atlanta United sat at 3-12-3. Dead last in the Eastern Conference. Twelve points from eighteen matches. The kind of record that makes front offices update their LinkedIn profiles. The kind that makes supporters wonder if they're watching a rebuild or a ruin.

Then the Red Bulls came to the Benz. Then Minnesota. Then Kansas City. Three consecutive 2-1 victories — the first three-match MLS win streak for this club in five years. The xG against SKC told the story in cold numbers: Atlanta 1.89, Kansas City 0.68. This wasn't survival. This was domination wearing a 2-1 scoreline.

Jacob and Picault scored. Muyumba scored in three straight before Saturday. The tactical shape — Tata Martino's stubborn 4-4-2, the one that looked like a relic through twelve losses — suddenly looks like a foundation. Low possession, high transition threat. The ball moves forward with purpose. The press has teeth.

But the soul of it is Almiron. Thirty-two years old, back from Newcastle, carrying the institutional memory of a club that has spent two years trying to remember what it was. Three assists in 748 minutes this season isn't prolific. It isn't dominant. It's something harder to measure. Present. Creative. Necessary.

And now, Breel Embolo.

I wrote the canonical piece on the signing — the $18 million from Rennes, the Ipswich near-miss, the injury history, the DP slot mechanics after Latte Lath's loan to Union Berlin. I won't rehash it. What matters today is the timing. Embolo signed on August 23, the same day Almiron became the club's all-time leading assister. The same day Atlanta completed a three-match win streak without him. He arrives into a squad that has already started believing again. That's not a coincidence. That's a front office — Culebro, Henderson — that read the room.

The temptation is to declare the resurrection complete. To say the 2017 energy is back, that Tata has worked his magic again, that the playoff push is inevitable.

Resist it.

Three wins against three teams going nowhere. The Red Bulls are rebuilding. Minnesota entered on a nine-match winless streak. SKC sits at the bottom of the West. The playoff math — three points behind ninth-place Orlando City, thirteen matches remaining — is real, but it requires sustained form this club hasn't shown since Josef Martinez was healthy. Embolo hasn't played a minute of MLS football. The 4-4-2 hasn't been tested by a team that can match its intensity.

That test arrives Saturday. Charlotte FC. Mercedes-Benz Stadium. 7:30 PM.

The Battle of the South. Charlotte leads the all-time series 5-4 and swept the 2025 season series. Dean Smith's side isn't rebuilding or stumbling. They're organized, physical, and they've figured out how to win at the Benz.

This is where el despertar — the awakening — either proves itself or reveals itself as a fever dream. Three 2-1 wins against basement teams is a heartbeat. Charlotte is the cardiac stress test.

Almiron will be on the pitch. Embolo might be on the bench. The 17s will be in their section. And for the first time in five months, the question facing Atlanta United isn't what went wrong? but how far can this go?

The answer hasn't been written yet. That's the beautiful part.