Pedro Amador’s days with Atlanta United have come to an end, with Israeli club Hapoel Be’er Sheva announcing via social media on Wednesday that it had signed the left back to a four-year deal. Atlanta United has yet to confirm the transfer on their end.
“I am very excited to join the national champions,” Amador said in a statement released by Hapoel Be’er Sheva. “I have heard a lot about the club, the city, and the fans. I am aware of our goals for the season, and together we will do everything to achieve them. I wish the team great success in tonight’s important match.”
Amador joins a club that won its sixth first-division title in 2025-26 with a 18-3-5 record, meaning it has qualified for the UEFA Champions League qualifying state.
This move shouldn’t be a surprise to Atlanta fans. The signing of Elías Báez was a clear signal that Amador wasn’t in Tata Martino’s plans, with Amador’s last appearance coming in Atlanta’s U.S. Open Cup quarterfinal loss to Orlando City on May 19. On top of that, his contract was set to end at the end of the 2026 season, with the club holding an option for 2027.
All the best to Amador in his new endeavors.
Pedro started off really well when he first arrived, and fell off in the 2025 season. He is a good back up/sometimes starting piece, but he was not amazing in the position last year or so far this year – generally the perception of what a really good player is has fallen as the team has regressed.
I will never understand Tata’s beef with Pedro🤔😒 (other than making him look foolish in the playoffs🫠)
Thank you for one of my best Atlanta United memories – the scrappy Rob V team taking out top seed Messi Miami (and Tata). Pedro’s perfect cross to the Slizzer for a header was probably the loudest I ever yelled in my own house. Pedro had several great assists that post season.
On a related note aren’t we glad we got rid of Rob V who snuck a group of misfit toys into the midrounds of the playoffs with just guts and enthusiasm ? Two years and two coaches and two GMs how many millions of dollars of crappy players and we are simply the worst.
In his short 2024 season with us, he had 8 assists just crossing them in and putting them on target. His crosses to Slisz and Williams in the playoffs were *chefs kiss*
Amador was a lot like Muyumba. Okay, but almost certainly overpaid. But because he was actually “okay” he felt like something of a savior when he arrived, just for putting crosses on target.
Until MLS removes a significant portion of the salary cap mechanisms, depth (especially in the back) has to be super cheap. (This begs the question of trading away your Noah Cobbs and Efrain Moraleses for GAM but that’s another matter.)
I thought he was relatively cheap though? Only players paid less than him on our team were the homegrowns, Hernandez, Cayman, Sergio, and Fafa.
Out of all the 66 left backs in the league (with 30 teams), he was the 37th highest paid, and 14 or more of the players below him are homegrowns so their salary is kept almost artificially low. I don’t know if that’s still considered too high for a backup LB though.
(source: mlsplayers.org mls player salaries)
I guess maybe one thing from this though, is that we had 3 LBs on the team, which is a lot for such a non-critical position. I think maybe he could have been useful as a LW, but I guess the lineups never made sense for that?
Amador doesn’t have the one on-one dribbling skills Tata wants in a winger.
Amador isn’t a winger, he is a fullback…
He knows, he was responding to my last point of how we had too many LBs, and I posited a theoretical that maybe he could’ve been moved to a winger instead.
I hope we have some sort of plan for depth because we’re losing quite a bit of it. He was one of the better LB’s we’ve seen, and better than what i’ve seen out of Baez so far.
He’s definitely not even a top 3 AUFC left back, and maybe not even top 5. Go back and look at his 2025 season. He doesn’t score well in hardly any metric. He was a non-factor. And some of the lack of attacking stats isn’t all on him, but he still only had 1 G and 0 A in almost 2100 minutes. Baez is already on 1 G and 2 A in just 1300 minutes. Baez is also far more active winning duals and winning tackles. He’s more aggressive which comes with some bad, but let’s not pretend like Amador wasn’t getting routinely cooked on 1v1s last season, either. Baez at just 21 (almost 22) also has some hopefully untapped potential. At 27 (almost 28), Amador pretty much is what he is.
He might manage to make top 5, but only because we’ve haven’t had that many LBs in our short history. That said, I think some of us have forgotten what it was like having Greg Garza, George Bello, Andrew Gutman, and Caleb Wiley. I think Amador was phenomenal that first half season, but the year after was pretty atrocious. I remember he was the source of a lot of defensive gaffes, much more than Gutman was, or even Baez this year (which is saying something). At least Baez hasn’t passed directly to the other team right in front of the box. Yet.
Fullbacks are supposed to be a high scoring position. Fullbacks are typically more defensive-minded with the occasional pushing high with an overlapping run by a winger to make a cross into the box when necessary. I think that fits Amador to a T
just shut this team down for a year or two and start from scratch…we already barely have any depth at FB, so now we have only 1 true LB…i would say we should switch to a 3 CB back line with wingbacks, but we don’t even have depth at CB to be able to play that way…
Fair, embrace the wooden spoon and play a 2-3-5 with this roster. We wouldn’t win many games but maybe it would be more fun to watch.
hahaha, considering out currently roster construction, we could run out a 0-0-10 and I would not be sure we would still score a goal…
Great, losing another quality depth player (who arguably should have been starting). Back to usual AUFC summer business