"You're Here for a Reason": Cameron Dunbar's Long Road to Left Side Leadership at Atlanta United 2

For Cameron Dunbar, inspiration was just a few feet away.

When Douglas Costa arrived at the LA Galaxy in 2022, his locker was placed right next to Dunbar’s. Before the Brazilian winger had even stepped into the locker room, Dunbar had already taken a picture of the empty locker beside him.

"I took it on my phone and took a picture of his locker next to mine," Dunbar said. "He wasn't even in yet.”

Dunbar admired everything about Costa’s game, from his explosiveness and speed to the way he controlled the ball and created chances in tight spaces. He joked that he was probably Costa’s “number one fan,” taking every opportunity to watch and learn from the Brazilian Winger.

Costa’s influence came at an important stage of Dunbar’s career, giving him an early example of what it takes to be a dynamic, creative attacker at the highest level. Watching Costa’s approach, from his confidence on the ball to his ability to beat defenders with speed and skill, helped shape the player Dunbar wanted to become.

Now years later, Dunbar continues to build on those lessons with Atlanta United 2. While still growing his own game, he has also become a valuable presence within the group, using his experience to help push the next generation of players forward.

Dunbar has been a star so far this season for Atlanta United 2 in MLS Next Pro. (photo: Sofia Cupertino for the SDH Network)

The Deep End

Dunbar did not come up through a soccer family with a plan. He came up playing flag football and little league baseball, the son of a former baseball player, before his parents put him in soccer around age six. He liked it mostly because he got to run.

Something changed around age nine.

"It was like a switch flipped to where it was something that I felt that I wanted to do," Dunbar said.

By the time he stepped into the LA Galaxy academy, he had been playing for a local club, not a national pipeline. The jump was immediate and physical.

"It was like getting thrown into the deep end," Dunbar said. "Players are at another level. They're playing with youth national teams. It's a high intensity every single day. I remember there would be times I would wake up and I'd be like, I do not want to go to training today."

He stayed in it anyway, and the academy gave him something beyond a playing style. It gave him a group of teammates who struggled alongside him from age eleven and twelve, some of whom he still crosses paths with in MLS today. From the academy he moved up to the second team, before the first-team staff gave him his professional debut, a Southern California kid representing the community that raised him.

"It's a special feeling," Dunbar said. "Being able to represent your community, represent kind of the kids that we all have the same dream. I was fortunate enough to do it with some of my teammates from the academy, which made it even more special."

Every Stop Adds Something

Dunbar's work on and off the ball has been excellent for Jose Silva and Atlanta United 2. (photo: Sofia Cupertino for the SDH Network)

From the Galaxy, Dunbar's path took him to Minnesota United, then to Orange County SC in the USL Championship for three seasons, before he arrived in Atlanta. Each stop looked different on the outside. Internally, he treats them as one continuous education.

Minnesota meant his first real time away from his family, a full environment change from Los Angeles to Minneapolis. He leaned on teammates who welcomed him quickly and made the adjustment to a new staff and a new city easier.

"I think it's good to find helpful pieces," Dunbar said. "You just have to be like a sponge and take in as much information as you can from veteran players, be open to taking advice from coaches, and just work hard, give your best, be confident every single day you step into the office, because you're there for a reason."

Orange County brought its own test. His first season there, the club went through three head coaches, which meant adjusting to one system, then another, then another, while trying to figure out his own role inside each one.

"It wasn't easy a lot of the time," Dunbar said. "Very up and down seasons. But again, it helped me so much, being able to kind of add things to my game, really learn to reflect on minutes. What did I do wrong in this position? What do I need to add to be a positive piece on the field?"

That habit, reviewing film and hunting for small details rather than dwelling on results, is the piece he says carried him from USL Championship rotation minutes to a featured role on Atlanta's left side.

The Sponge

For Dunbar, there are so many great footballers who shaped the way he plays the game.

Cristiano Ronaldo was the first, back when Dunbar was a kid watching him play winger for Manchester United. Then came Raheem Sterling at Liverpool and later Manchester City, whose movement off the ball Dunbar still studies. Then Douglas Costa, whose dribbling looked impossible to a young Dunbar watching from the sideline, before the two became teammates at the Galaxy.

Lionel Messi is on the list, unsurprisingly. So, more unexpectedly, is Busquets, whose scanning and passing angles fascinate Dunbar more than any highlight reel move.

The moment that sharpened all of it happened well before any of these players became teammates or influences from a distance. In fifth grade, Dunbar got a chance to train at Manchester City's academy.

"I thought I was good, kind of playing at the level that I was at," Dunbar said. "But when I got there, it was like there was just a whole another side of the game that I wasn't even aware of. I think that really motivated me to improve and to want to be better than what I was."

Left Side, Same Wavelength

Under head Coach Jose Silva, Dunbar fits perfectly into his vision for how the team should attack lines up closely with his own instincts: be creative, find the moment to make something happen, whether that is a through ball, a run to open space for a teammate, or driving directly at a back line to commit defenders.

"I try to be sort of like another voice for him on the field and another set of eyes," Dunbar said. "I feel like the formation that we have is very effective. We have guys that are in good positions, and when we're able to move as a unit and we're all firing on the same cylinder, it's dangerous."

Much of that danger runs through his partnership on the left with teammate Dominik Chong Qui, a relationship that has visibly deepened over recent weeks as the two have learned to read each other's runs.

"What I tell him all the time is like, you can just run and I will find you," Dunbar said. "He's fast, he's strong, he's able to break the line with his speed, and he draws in defenders, which helps me find space to operate in that half space. And then if we flip it, vice versa, and he's inside, it's good because he can make the run and then I'll find him again. He's basically unstoppable on that channel."

Dunbar describes the team's identity in similar terms: a group that wants to impose itself rather than let opponents dictate, pressing high to make life uncomfortable, then turning aggressive and relentless once it has the ball, circulating when the moment calls for patience and going for the kill when it senses an opening.

"You're Here for a Reason"

At 23, with stops at four clubs already behind him, Dunbar has become one of the players academy prospects look to on Atlanta United 2. He does not describe leadership as a title. He describes it as a standard he tries to set through his own extra work in the gym and on the training field, and through what he tells the younger guys once they step onto it with him.

"I want them to be successful," Dunbar said. "I want them to play at their best level whenever they're on the field, because that helps all of us. Let them know that there's no pressure, just play freely, confidently, because once again, you're here for a reason. The coach believes in you. We believe in you, and we're going to support you on the field."

He is careful to note that the role runs in both directions. Being trusted as a vocal presence for José, he said, only works because the environment feeds itself, from the coaching staff down to the players, everyone pushing in the same direction.

After a result at Huntsville that did not go the way Atlanta United 2 wanted, the team returns home to face NYCFC's second team with ten regular season games left and a playoff push in front of it. Dunbar is not interested in overhauling anything. He wants to sharpen what is already there.

"We feel that we're performing pretty well as a group," Dunbar said. "It's just fixing up little details, hammering out those wrinkles and taking a step in the right direction. So that by the time those knockout games come, we're ready, we're all locked in, and we're like a unit that's all moving in the same direction."