In its second season as a club in Major League Soccer, Atlanta United FC took the league by storm with an entertaining style of play, magnetic personalities and record-setting crowds. Behind a bold front office, the coaching of Gerardo "Tata" Martino, and the play of Miguel Almiron, Michael Parkhurst, Julian Gressel, Golden Boot-winner Josef Martinez and others, the Five Stripes won the MLS Cup and pushed the league into a new era.
As a reporter for the Orlando Sentinel's Pro Soccer USA, Mitchell Northam was there for it all, from a rainy preseason exhibition on a baseball field in Nashville, to the championship match and champagne-soaked celebration in Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
Revisit Atlanta United's 2018 season, its aftermath and other stories about soccer in the South -- like Debinha and the 2019 North Carolina Courage -- in this collection.