Atlanta United at FC Cincinnati: Three Things to Watch in Saturday’s 2026 MLS Season Opener

Atlanta United travels to TQL Stadium on Saturday for the 2026 MLS season opener against FC Cincinnati, coming off a busy preseason that included a marquee coaching change and a smorgasbord of roster updates. While the Five Stripes are still very much a work in progress under Tata Martino, Cincinnati is a team with legitimate trophy expectations and a system that really hasn’t changed much in three years. That familiarity is both their strength and, potentially, their vulnerability.

The system Atlanta is walking into

Pat Noonan has been running a 3-5-2 or 3-4-1-2 at Cincinnati since he took the job in 2022, and it’s not going anywhere. The idea is pretty simple on the surface: three center backs (our ol’ pal Miles Robinson, Matt Miazga when not injured, and likely Nick Hagglund or Teenage Hadebe), a double pivot of Obinna Nwobodo and Pavel Bucha to control the middle of the park, and wingbacks who push high to provide all of the team’s width. Evander operates as the 10 behind Kevin Denkey, who is the focal point of everything Cincinnati does in the final third.

The wingbacks are the key to the whole thing. This year, it’s Bryan Ramirez on the left and Ender Echenique on the right, and their job is to get high up the pitch, stretch the field, and find Evander in dangerous positions or deliver service for Denkey. It’s worth noting that Cincinnati just put four past O&M FC in the Dominican Republic on Wednesday night in their Concacaf Champions Cup opener, with Denkey getting on the scoresheet and Nwobodo picking up two assists. They’re coming into Saturday feeling good about themselves and with competitive minutes already in their legs.

The whole setup is interesting for Atlanta, though. When those wingbacks push up, they leave the three center backs responsible for covering the full width of the pitch. Cincinnati has been comfortable with that trade-off for years now because their double pivot is good enough to win the ball back, and their center backs are experienced enough to manage the space. But it does leave gaps, specifically in the half-spaces behind the wingbacks, and those gaps are exactly the kind of areas that Tata Martino’s teams have always looked to exploit. Go back and look at about half the highlights of any version of Tata Martino’s past teams, especially 2017-18 Atlanta United.

What we know about Tata’s Atlanta 2.0 so far

I’m not going to sit here and pretend like we know exactly how this team is going to line up or play on Saturday. I’ve seen roughly 180 minutes of preseason football across the Torneo de Tejas matches and against Lexington, and while the signs have been encouraging, this is still very much a team that has a lot to prove. I’ll give it a go, though.

What we do know is the general shape of what Tata wants to do. Quick transitions have always been his calling card. When the team wins the ball, the expectation is to move it forward with purpose and pace like a bat out of hell. I saw that clearly in the second half against Red Bull New York, where the introduction of Miggy, Latte Lath, and Saba completely changed the match. The speed of the front group’s movement, the willingness to make runs behind defenders, and the fluid interchange of positions all looked like something out of the 2018 playbook. It’s worth noting, though, that the first half lineup was clearly playing with the same exact identity, but with a tad less precision.

In the graphic above, don’t get hung up on Alexey Miranchuk and Miguel Almiron. Yes, on paper, they appear as wingers, but you won’t see them deliberately making runs to the end line and sending in crosses. Those two positions will accompany Latte Lath directly into the box, while a combination of midfielders and a wingback helps provide depth and width for ball movement.

Tata’s training sessions have reinforced this. From the very first day back at the training ground in January, he and his staff were adamant about correcting inaccurate passes and rough first touches. That kind of attention to detail in the small moments is what allows a team to transition quickly, because you can’t counter effectively if you’re giving the ball away with a sloppy touch the moment you win it.

Another thing that’s been clear is Miggy’s role. Tata said from his first press conference that the team would be built around Miguel Almiron, and what that appears to mean in practice is a free-roaming role where Miggy can drift across the front line, drop into pockets of space to receive the ball, and get into the box to finish. It’s very similar to what he did alongside Josef Martinez in the golden years.

Alexey Miranchuk’s role is the other piece of the puzzle. Tata has said that Miranchuk’s medium-to-long range passing and shooting are his most valuable qualities. What this likely means in practice is that Miranchuk will be the one responsible for picking out those quick balls to release Miggy and Latte Lath in transition (similar to what we all screamed for last year), while the rest of the midfield does the dirty work around him. That being said, I think he’ll have a bit more freedom to operate closer to goal than he ever really had under Ronny Deila.

Three things to watch on Saturday

Where does Miggy position himself when Cincinnati has the ball?

This is the biggest tell for how Atlanta plans to attack. If Miggy, along with Latte Lath and any combination of the midfield trio, is pressing high and positioning between Cincinnati’s center backs and wingbacks, that should signal Atlanta is trying to aggressively win the ball in advanced positions and hit those half-spaces immediately. If they’re sitting deeper and waiting, that’s a more conservative approach that respects Cincinnati’s quality in possession and the threats from allowing Evander and Denkey too much space. Based on what I saw against a high-pressing Red Bull team out in Texas, my guess is it’ll consist of Miggy picking his moments to press early before tapering off to a more transition-based counter later.

How quickly does Atlanta move the ball forward after winning it?

This is really the difference between the last few years and what Tata wants to build. Under Deila, and to a lesser extent Pineda, Atlanta’s transitions were slow and deliberate. Win the ball, settle it, look for the safe pass. Under 2018 Tata, transitions were immediate. Win the ball, look forward, and start flying with arrows all pointing towards goal. I saw flashes of the latter in the second half against Red Bulls, especially on the Latte Lath goal, where the sequence from winning possession to the ball hitting the net was just a handful of passes with everyone moving forward at pace. If Atlanta is doing that against Cincinnati’s back three with the wingbacks pushed up, they can create real problems. And not that I expect it because Tata would lose his mind, but if they revert to the slow, cautious buildup that plagued them last year, Cincinnati’s midfield will eat them alive.

The one to watch here, and some fans who maybe haven’t followed my coverage and tweets from Texas, is Tristan Muyumba. He was crucial in helping win the ball in dangerous spots and then, incredibly quickly, playing the ball forward. Each of the three midfielders in the trio all had their moments here, but it was obvious Muyumba was the main fulcrum.

Evander’s positioning when Atlanta has the ball.

This one is about Cincinnati’s attack, not Atlanta’s. Evander is the engine of everything Cincinnati does going forward, and one of his most dangerous qualities is his ability to drop deep to receive the ball and then play balls over the top or through the lines. Evander has been one of the most productive attackers in MLS over the past two seasons, with back-to-back 30-plus goal contribution campaigns, and this year, he and Denkey have actually had a full preseason together for the first time, which could make them even more dangerous despite how he ended the 2025 playoffs with a bit of a whimper.

The question for Atlanta is who picks up Evander when he drops into those deeper positions. It’s a genuine tactical problem that doesn’t really have an easy answer. For what it’s worth, if we continue to see Tomás Jacob playing primarily as a 6, he might be the lucky one, so the center back duo can deal with Denkey.

Now, I have to be real about where things stand before opening day. First, it’s MLS…anything can happen. Cincinnati is a team that’s been building under the same coach for four years, has proven star power in Evander and Denkey, an experienced defense anchored by Miles Robinson and others, and just won their Concacaf Champions Cup match 4-0.

Atlanta, on the other hand, is a team that’s roughly three months into a rebuild under a new (returning) head coach, with a roster that still needs some fine-tuning, and a group that’s still developing chemistry. The preseason has been encouraging, though. The vibes are high, and the players look like they actually enjoy being around each other for the first time in a while.

Regardless of the result, the hyped-up reactions Saturday night after the final whistle will be welcome as long as we’re talking about a team that looks competitive. Winning would be incredible, obviously, but what I really want to see is evidence that the identity Tata is trying to build actually shows up in a competitive match. I’d really like to see quick transitions, Miggy operating in dangerous spaces, and the team defending as a unit and not looking disjointed the way they did for most of 2025. If those things are there, this season would already be on a much better track than the last one.