Atlanta United at 10: From the Stands to the Sideline, Ten Favorite Photos
- Sofia Cupertino
- 3 days ago
- 7 min read
Since October 2022, I’ve had the incredible opportunity to go from being a young fan in the stands to a photographer on the sideline, capturing the moments I once only dreamed of experiencing. Over the past few years, I’ve been privileged to photograph countless goal celebrations, crowd chants, supporter marches, wins, losses, and all the perfectly imperfect moments in between.
I couldn’t have asked for a more fitting role. As the photographer for the SDH Network, I’ve had the chance to document Atlanta United matches in every form, whether it’s an eight-goal thriller or a scoreless draw. No matter the result, I’m always finding new ways to see the game through my camera, and I fall more in love with soccer every single day.
Through all the blur of the last few seasons, the opportunity to photograph my favorite team has never been something I take for granted. For this feature, I’ve selected 10 photos that represent some of my favorite moments so far.
It was almost impossible to choose, but these images stood out as some of the most meaningful I’ve captured to this point, in no particular order.
This photo was an immediate choice for me. Jamal Thiare, an opposing keeper, a goal that never should have happened. I think we can all viscerally remember this moment.
I was positioned to the left of the goal, already packing up my camera for the night, assuming the match was over. What I didn’t expect was to hear the crowd erupt behind me as the clock hit 97 minutes.
The goal happened faster than I could even process. Suddenly, players were vaulting over the boards in front of me, shouting, grabbing hands with fans in the suites beside me. I remember springing up from my stool, knocking it over as I sprinted to capture the madness unfolding just a few feet away.
It remains one of the most exciting photos I’ve ever taken. I even texted my family at the match to look for me in the replay, somewhere in the middle of the celebration, camera in hand.
I’ll never forget Thiare’s goal that night, or the unforgettable scene that followed.
The biggest upset in MLS history.
To go from an underwhelming season to knocking out the number one projected team in the league, and Lionel Messi, of course, and then winning a match we were never expected to win, I think this photo is one of the most special I have ever captured.
Nobody thought we could do it, so we did.
This match was such an unforgettable night for me. I will never forget how I felt in the stands at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in 2018 when Atlanta won MLS Cup, and I will never forget how I felt gripping my camera with shaking hands as Bartosz Slisz launched into the air and sent the ball into the back of the net in this 2024 playoff match.
It remains one of my favorite photos to this day because it belongs so completely to that moment. I will never be able to recreate the sheer emotion captured here. The silence from the Miami fans, paired with the roar of our traveling supporters as the ball hit the net just a few feet away, is something I will cherish forever.
Just a few days before the final match of the 2025 season, I was called up to shoot for the team as a freelancer. My job for the night was simple: capture Brad Guzan hitting the Golden Spike.
What a pinch-me moment this was.
Any long-time supporter of Atlanta United knows how important Brad has been to this organization, and how meaningful it was to see a captain give so many years to this club. To go from watching him on TV in 2017 to standing below him as he hit the spike for the final time before retirement was something I will never forget.
Being able to memorialize those last moments with the club, forever, was an incredibly special opportunity for me.
This photo, especially, makes me even more excited for the future of my work, both with SDH and with Atlanta United. I am deeply grateful that the team trusted me with such a precious moment, and I hope that gratitude is reflected in the images themselves.
Talking about special, emotional moments, this photo was taken during my very first match shooting at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. I was 17 years old, a high school senior with a rented camera I had picked up just the day before.
At the time, I had no idea these would be among the last photos ever taken of Josef Martínez in an Atlanta United jersey. This image carries a lot of weight for me. The tear running down his face is a detail I don’t think many captured at the end of that season. It feels bittersweet.
This photo marks a turning point, both in my photography journey and in Atlanta United’s story. Not long after it was taken, the club parted ways with Martínez. At the same time, I was finishing high school, starting college, and growing as a photographer with SDH in the year that followed.
It’s hard to believe how much has changed since then. Even though it was one of my first photos of the team, it remains one of my favorites to this day.
I think the emotion in this photo speaks for itself. This is one of my favorite photos I have ever taken, not just of Atlanta United, but of anything. I love the composition, the lighting, the emotion, everything about it.
This image is important to me because it shows how much my photography has grown over the years I’ve been shooting the team. It was also one of those moments where I held my breath behind the viewfinder, unsure whether I was going to get run over by the entire team during the celebration.
I love when players jump the walls like this. It always feels more special for us photographers down there because we get to capture the action while truly being in it.
I had to include this photo because, at the time, it was the only moment a player had ever come directly to me to celebrate for a photo. After his goal in this match, he ran over to my side of the field, which is usually just me and maybe one other photographer, and pulled his shirt down to reveal a message about his home neighborhood.
Any photo of Thiago during his time here feels especially meaningful now. He was such a special player, and from the sidelines, I always felt like I could count on him to bring excitement to a match.
This photo came during our 2025 matchup with Miami, and it was one I intentionally sought out away from the immediate action. As a fan of the game, any opportunity to photograph Lionel Messi is exciting.
I wanted to find a way to capture both number 10s on the field, showcasing each of them in their respective elements while contrasting the jerseys and the numbers. The moment lined up perfectly. Miguel Almiron and Messi were positioned at just the right angle, allowing me to frame something that felt quietly special between the two teams.
Artistically, I love how this photo turned out. It remains one of my favorite composed images because it shows the match in a different way, one that doesn’t rely on a goal or a tackle, but instead on presence and symbolism.
Getting to photograph the greatest player of all time alongside an Atlanta United legend was absolutely a pinch-me moment.
Saba Time!
This was the birth of the “Saba Time” celebration from Saba Lobjanidze, and it just so happened to happen for the very first time at home, right into my lens, at the end of 2023. I like to joke that Saba sought me out, because he ran straight up to my camera and celebrated with a finger to his wrist for the first time.
This photo, along with another shot of him celebrating into my lens in 2024, are some of my favorites I have ever taken. It was so hard to choose just one. I love that I was able to capture a unique angle of the celebration before it became known by its iconic name.
It remains one of my favorite player celebrations of the past few years. I feel honored that he chose my camera lens in that moment, because it helped spark a fun theme of players coming directly to me to share their goal celebrations.
I didn’t realize how many of my favorite photos on this list came from the 2024 playoff run, but both as a fan and as a photographer, it was a picture-perfect story.
This image was taken during the decisive match against Miami at home in November 2024. Miami had won the first match, and Atlanta United needed a victory to keep the season alive. Derrick Williams delivered with a gorgeous header that helped push the Five Stripes through.
I think this photo perfectly captures the pure emotion of those weeks, when we all sat on the edge of our seats, watching to see how far this team could go after beating the odds just to get there.
This image will always represent the excitement of that playoff run for me, and I love being able to capture moments like this, showing the raw emotion of the game up close.
This photo is another all-time favorite of mine. As a photographer on the sidelines, every match is a toss-up of opportunities to capture the action. I usually position myself on the side with fewer people, which can lead to some really unique celebrations. The downside is that I sometimes miss the biggest team moments, like this one.
This image is one of my favorites because of how unintentionally perfect it was. There are only a few precious seconds after the ball hits the back of the net, and in that instant, I have to make a crucial decision. Do I focus on the ball, the goal scorer, the net, the crowd, or the fire?
For this photo, I chose to focus on the team. The only problem was that they went the other way.
Luckily, everything lined up perfectly. Between the flames and Almada leaping at just the right moment, this photo will always feel like a one-of-a-kind reminder of how to make these moments my own.
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