Risers and Fallers: Pedro Amador thrives in midfield, Enea Mihaj’s marking woes and more from Matchday 2

I don’t know about y’all, but I am straight up not having a good time in the 2026 season.

Two games into the campaign and Atlanta United has zero points, zero goals, and a lot of issues to work out if it wants to avoid a repeat of last year. The team’s most recent 2-0 loss at San Jose Earthquakes only soured the vibes more as we witnessed a performance that was so bad Tata Martino himself called it “far from professional soccer.”

Just like every week, I am here to discuss my Risers and Fallers for the game. Let’s dive into it.

Risers

Pedro Amador

You heard it here first, folks: Pedro Amador is the Nagbe replacement.

I’m of course saying that very tongue-in-cheek, but I was honestly very impressed with how the Portuguese left back performed when deployed as a center midfielder in the second half. He found very good pockets of space moving forward, allowing him to progress the ball closer to the box. He was involved in creating some of the team’s best chances in the game.

Were you guys surprised to see Amador in that role? What if I told you that Tata sorta teased it weeks ago in a press conference?

“Pedro [Amador] what he has is much more technique to play. Pedro practically has a technique more of a midfielder than a fullback,” the Argentine manager said when I asked him to compare Amador to new left back signing, Elías Báez.

Wait a minute, Tata Martino converting a fullback to a No. 8? Where have I seen this before?

Tomás Jacob

This is a weird one, because I kinda want to include Tomás Jacob here as half of a Riser.

The team underwent a key shift in positioning when a group of subs entered the match late in the second half. This included Jacob moving from holding midfielder to right back. Up until this point, I had Jacob as the only riser in the game because he was the only one really doing much of anything in midfield. He was strong defensively and was even the one helping kickstart moves for the Five Stripes, showing good off-ball movement and forward passing.

However, he did not look very good at right back in this game. He was left in the dust at times defending in transition from that position, and his passing seemed to suffer as well.

Although the sample size is small, I like him much more at the No. 6 than at right back.

Alexey Miranchuk

While I have never been the biggest Alexey Miranchuk fan, I thought he was helpful when he entered this game.

I thought he did a good job of connecting play and helping the team find that next pass when entering the final third, something it had struggled to do earlier in the game. The Russian international’s passing range also helped the team take advantage of open space with his switches of play and threaten the opposing backline with a couple of through balls.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was solid enough that I’m including him here (partially also have him here because I struggled to find any other player that could remotely qualify as a Riser in this match).

Tata Martino has praised Miranchuk’s long-range passing and shooting, citing them as parts of his game that will be important as the team relies on him to score and assist. I hope we get to see him have a larger role in the home opener against Real Salt Lake this weekend, mostly to see how he connects with the other two designated players and whether it works better than whatever was being attempted last season.

Fallers

Enea Mihaj

Let’s get one thing clear: the entire backline was bad during this game. However, Enea Mihaj stood out as particularly poor.

For starters, I would argue he had a part in both goals San Jose scored. Sure, the first one is mostly on Lucas Hoyos for just giving the ball away, but Mihaj just completely loses track of Preston Judd as he runs into the box, allowing him to be completely open to head in the opener.

That wasn’t the first time Mihaj lost track of a runner, by the way. There was another play earlier in the game where he and three other Atlanta United players collectively lost track of DeJuan Jones inside the box, allowing him to get a shot off that was luckily way off target. Then there was another play in the first half where he inexplicably allowed a ball to roll past him and find Judd again for an easy shot on goal that was saved.

What makes this especially disappointing is that Mihaj was brought in last summer at an almost $1.4 million salary after the team shipped off two promising homegrown center backs, Noah Cobb and Efraín Morales. So far, it doesn’t feel like he’s much of a clear upgrade over either.

He has also been referenced as one of the leaders within the squad. When your leaders perform like that… well… let’s just say it’s not going to inspire much in the rest of the squad.

Miguel Almirón

Last season was supposed to be Miguel Almirón’s big homecoming, but we know how that turned out. Then, with Tata Martino returning to coach the team, 2026 felt like the year Atlanta United would figure things out and unlock the best version of Almirón again.

After two games of the season, the Paraguayan star has been less than impressive.

I thought he was very static in this game. It almost feels like Tata told him to reign in the free roaming and just stick to helping spring the attack when the ball gets forward. He would often hang around the halfway line and didn’t have a very active role in build up.

As I said in last week’s column, it’s becoming increasingly evident that Miggy is slowing down with age. He’s not winning the footraces anymore and he honestly looked tired for most of this game. It was disheartening to say the least.

But what really pushed me over the edge was this.

Remember how I said Mihaj was one of the leaders in the squad? Well, Miggy is the captain. He is THE leader. More than that, he is a designated player being paid a nearly $8 million salary. For that kind of money, you expect him to be so much better.

Hopefully playing four straight games with the home crowd on his side inspires him to new heights, because this has been a woeful start to the season for him so far.

Steven Alzate

I have tried so hard to keep an open mind about Steven Alzate being a good signing, but his performance in this game made it much harder to do so.

He lacked any sort of productive off-ball movement, contributing to the disconnects between the back and front of the team that forces the backline to lob balls forward in the hopes that the forwards can win the race to them (which they rarely do). I was also disturbed by the lack of vision he displayed in this game.

Let’s play a little game. Look at the below scenario from this game. Do you think Alzate:

A) Passed to Cooper Sanchez, who has acres of space in front of him.

B) Turned around and tried to find Elías Báez, who also has significant space to exploit.

C) Dribbles in a circle for 10 seconds before passing back.

If you chose option C, you guessed correctly. Want me to make it even worse? In the process of spinning (because that’s a good trick), Alzate had three forward passing options open up and took neither of them.

First, he had Saba making a brilliant supporting run toward the right half space, something he absolutely should have rewarded with a very simple pass. He also still had Sanchez open with loads of empty grass in front if him.

Okay, fine. Let’s play devil’s advocate here and say Alzate didn’t see Sanchez because the referee was in the way…

… the passing option is still wide open seconds later when he’s still twirling like a ballerina. No ref blocking his view this time.

Ten seconds of spinning. That’s precious time being gifted to opposition defenders so they can get back and easily neutralize attacking transitions. By the way, this wasn’t the only example of Alzate holding onto the ball too long and grinding attacks to a halt.

Tata Martino said last week that his biggest worry with the team is how it constructs attacks. Atlanta United’s midfield needs to be much quicker in moving the ball upfield to fashion better scoring chances.

What do you think of my picks? Let me know in the comments and drop your risers and fallers for this game, too!

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