The preseason is so...temperamental. On one hand, no one wants to draw mass conclusions from a friendly match where the very rules of the game are changed; on the other hand, humans tend to initially take everything in life at face value...like soccer scores.
Atlanta United lost 4-3 to Toluca in the second American Family Insurance Cup on Wednesday night, and at face value, that sounds bad. But the game provided the best insight into Gonzalo Pineda’s Five Stripes (for real Five Stripes again) of 2023 thus far and, more importantly, it was simply an enjoyable return to soccer for fans in Atlanta.