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On the eve of Major League Soccer's 24th season, a plot that would have bothered believing just two years ago – that is, what have you done of Atlanta United winning the MLS Cup? – is not only relevant, but an issue that simply should be put in the names of the stars operating in North America.
In 2014, the year that Atlanta United was honored at the first table of football – the inaugural season was in 2017 – some scoffed that the sport could never really take off in a city where the other type of football would dominate forever. .
And while the likes of the Atlanta Falcons and the state of Georgia's college football teams are obviously big business, the new block kids have come to life in MLS as if they had been part of the league from day one.
A playoff appearance in the first season of Atlanta United confounded expectations, but the early exit simply solidified the passion of fanatic fans who wanted more than one team to play to more than 70,000 football fans when the magnificent Mercedes-Benz. The stadium was open to its full potential. Attendance records have fallen, as have many of the opposing teams.
The rest is in fact a recent story. The Five Stripes, in just their second season, apparently swept everything before them during the 2018 campaign.
And while they fell short after locking in the fans' Shields, they regrouped to play the playoffs and become MLS Cup winners, beating the Portland Timbers in front of 73,019 fans, most of whom celebrated the city's first sporting success since the Atlanta Braves won the World Series of Baseball in 1995, which occurred even before part of that team was born.
Venezuelan striker Josef Martinez broke a season-high scoring record, scoring 31 (he added four for the most part during the playoffs).
It was not unusual for his goals to be scored by Miguel Almiron of Paraguay, who broke a record himself during the opening season, moving to the English Premier League, making it the highest transfer rate in Newcastle history.
Before the new season, CNN Sport met a handful of Atlanta's biggest rivals, interested in finding out what they did to the recent success story of the newly formed champions. Alphabetically, these A-listers are composed of Jozy Altidore, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Wayne Rooney, Bastian Schweinsteiger and Bradley Wright-Phillips.
Among them, these players have won trophies of the highest magnitude that the beautiful game has to offer: World Championships, Champions League and major European national titles.
But they also came across the phenomenon of a team at Atlanta United and were more than happy to reflect, discuss and celebrate possibly the biggest – or at least most recent – success story of the American sport.
Watch the video at the top of the page to see more about the incredible rise of Atlanta United.
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