Training Ground Notebook: A World Cup in the Room
- Jason Longshore
- 9 minutes ago
- 6 min read
There was a moment in Friday's Atlanta United availability that captured everything about where this club is right now. Tata Martino was walking through his assessment of a thirteen-match season so far that has produced eleven points. He acknowledged the team's struggles without flinching, offered what he genuinely believes is evidence of progress, and then, almost in the same breath, was answering questions about Paraguay's opening World Cup match against the United States. Miguel Almirón, spoke earlier, describing training two and three times a day with his physio, working toward something he has chased for ten years.
The World Cup is in this building. It has been for months. On Sunday, when Atlanta United hosts Columbus Crew, it will be in the stadium too.
Almirón: "Preparing Like It's the Last One"
Miguel Almirón has not played since sustaining a knee injury against Chattanooga. The initial timeline suggested a week or two away. It stretched much longer. He was candid about why.
"I just had some small knee irritation and a bone bruise," he said. "It was bothering me for a little bit. But I also did not want to risk it."
Tata addressed the mental side of recovery explicitly when asked about his star player's status. He referenced a coaching mentor who taught him that injuries are conquered twice: first in the body, then in the mind. With a World Cup on the line, the mental weight is heavier than usual.
"When you have a World Cup ahead, the mental side plays an even more important role," Martino said. "We have handled this with great care."
By Friday, the care appears to have paid off. Tata confirmed that Almirón is available for minutes against Columbus, describing him as "much more comfortable, much calmer, much more confident." For Almirón, those minutes are not just about fitness. They are about feeling like a player again before he boards a flight to join Paraguay's squad Monday night.
His framing of what this World Cup means was striking in its simplicity. He prepares for every tournament as if it will be his last. That is not resignation. It is the discipline of someone who has waited a very long time for something and refuses to take it for granted.
"The national team has been fighting for this opportunity for sixteen years," he said. "Personally, I have been working toward this goal for ten years. There is going to be a lot of emotion in that moment, not just for me, but for my family and for all the Paraguayan fans."
He was asked whether he and Tata have talked about the World Cup experience. The answer revealed something about the relationship between player and coach that goes well beyond tactics. Tata coached the Paraguay side that reached the quarterfinals in 2010, the team Almirón grew up watching. He described Martino as a father figure, someone who has been helping him since 2017 and whose only wish for him now is that he gets to live the experience fully.
"He wants me to be able to experience everything that this moment brings," Almirón said. "For that, I will always be very grateful to him."
Tata on Atlanta: Evolution Without Evidence
Martino's assessment of where Atlanta United stands is the kind of answer that requires you to hold two things at once. Eleven points from thirteen matches is genuinely difficult to defend. He did not try to.
But he was also specific about what he believes he has seen develop, even if the results have not yet reflected it. He pointed to the final fifteen minutes of the first half and all forty-five minutes of the second half in the most recent league match as evidence of a team beginning to take shape. He compared the current version of Atlanta to early-season performances against Cincinnati and San José, matches where the team could not control the game at all.
"That is where I sustain there is an evolution in the play," he said. "But it is very hard to explain that when we have eleven points."
The other thing he pointed to was the young players who have developed at the club. Several young players have forced their way into the rotation this season, and Martino views that as a genuine positive regardless of the points tally.
On the cup loss, he was direct in taking responsibility for what happened tactically. When asked whether the team's spirit and character in the first half concerned him, he refused to separate that question from his own decision-making.
"I cannot do a separate analysis," he said. "When a team is not prepared for the kind of modification I tried to implement, and we were in an adverse situation three minutes in, a high degree of confusion is logical. There was a specific and fairly significant error by the coach."
That kind of accountability is not always common. He was not performing contrition. He was just being precise.
The Roster Conversation Starts Monday
Martino confirmed that Atlanta's incoming president, Mauricio Culebro, is still finishing his work at Tigres and will not be fully embedded with the club until that situation resolves. Conversations about the second half of the season's roster have not meaningfully begun yet. That changes when the team wakes up Monday morning.
Three players are in uncertain situations. MatÃas Galarza's loan conditions make exercising the purchase option essentially impossible under the current structure. Doing so would require designating him as a franchise player, a slot Atlanta does not have available. Martino was clear that the club wants to find another way but was equally clear about the difficulty.
"The conditions as originally structured are impossible for us," he said.
Juan Berrocal's situation is similar. His loan is ending, the option clause creates a similar roster mathematics problem, and the club is now in a different kind of negotiation than the one originally planned.
Tomás Jacob and ElÃas Báez, both under twenty-two, had the kind of first half of the season you would expect from young players learning MLS. Good stretches, difficult ones, inconsistency that mirrors the team around them. Martino's view is that the five-week break, combined with what they absorbed in the first half of the year, sets them up for a more settled second half.
Tata on the World Cup Field
Asked how he sees Latin American sides in this tournament, Martino was measured and specific in a way that revealed how closely he has been watching. He views the United States and Mexico as well-prepared, with the meaningful advantage of home environment. He called Argentina one of the primary candidates, Brazil similarly, with the added factor of having one of the best coaches in the world. He spoke warmly about Canada and Panamá as products of long-term, stable processes.
On Paraguay, he was not speaking as a neutral observer. He attended a qualifying match in Asunción last year, watched the crowd, watched the players, and said what he saw reminded him of 2010. He believes this Paraguay side has done the work and that players like Almirón, who have chased this for so long, will bring something to the tournament that goes beyond the tactical.
"Those are the kinds of things that point to a very positive World Cup for Paraguay," he said.
He declined to make a prediction for the opening match between Paraguay and the United States. He said he has completely lost the ability to do that. Whether or not that is true, it was probably the right answer for a man who will be watching his own player suit up for one side.
His answer on Pep Guardiola stepping down from Manchester City was brief and genuinely good. Nobody takes a job expecting it to last forever. Maradona stopped playing. Pelé stopped playing. Eventually, even Messi will stop, "though we Argentines like to resist that idea as long as possible."
Sunday against Columbus is the last match before the World Cup break. When Almirón walks off that field, he will switch gears entirely, just as he put it, and go become a Paraguayan. The man who helped him get there will be on his way back to Atlanta to start a mid-season training camp and said he would be watching the opening match of the tournament from a plane. That is a strange and specific kind of love for the game.
The game never stops.