On January 21, 2020, Atlanta United fans felt the knife twist. Again.
The team announced it had traded Julian Gressel. A starter in Atlanta United’s first competitive game against New York Red Bulls, a lethal right-sided player who scored 15 goals and supplied 35 assists in 3 years, and a charismatic voice at the training ground and in the locker room, Gressel was the last in a line of Atlanta United key players who’d been dispatched from the club during a hectic offseason. After Technical Director Carlos Bocanegra and club president Darren Eales ultimately decided to part with Gressel, Darlington Nagbe, Leandro Gonzalez Pirez and Tito Villalba — four key instruments to Tata Martino’s MLS Cup-wining side — the only certainty about Atlanta United in 2020 is that it’d feel different.