Atlanta, GA
Youth, served: Real Salt Lake pulls past Atlanta United to keep fast start
SANDY — Three games into the 2026 campaign and Real Salt Lake has a formula for success.
Spoiler alert: the kids are (still) all right.
Aiden Hezarkhani scored a goal for the second-straight week, rookie Sergi Solans added his first professional, and Real Salt Lake served its youth again en route to a 3-2 win over Atlanta United at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
Fellow teenager Zavier Gozo also scored for Real Salt Lake, the Utah native’s first of the season after his breakout four-goal, three-assist campaign last year to help his home side improve to 2-1-0.
Aleksei Miranchuk had a brace for Atlanta, which fell to 0-3 while being outscored 7-2 a year after struggling to a 5-16-13 campaign.
“It was a shootout,” RSL manager Pablo Mastroeni said. “This was one of those games that was super exciting. It’s a real credit to the group on both sides of the ball. I thought we were really deliberate … and defensively, we were great against a top attacking group.
“We knew it was going to be difficult. But the guys weathered the storm … and we challenged the group to dig deep, to defend our box, and manage the game the right way.”
Salt Lake, meanwhile, has won two of its first three matches — even with a shorthanded roster. The club lost Diego Luna (knee) and Victor Olatunji (eye) to injuries during the same training session before the season opener in Vancouver, and former U.S. international fullback DeAndre Yedlin picked up a hamstring injury last week.
But if adversity spawns opportunity, Real Salt Lake’s rising generation is taking advantage of either — or both. Give credit, too, to the veteran players for bringing along the youth that also include 17-year-old Luca Moisa — and not skip a beat.
“It’s like a brotherhood,” Mastroeni said. “There’s no guy that’s bigger than the team.”
Gozo and Morgan Guilavogui nearly connected for a goal just 49 seconds into the match, but the newly signed Designated Player making his first start saw his shot tipped over the cross bar.
Instead, Guilavogui gave the visitors the early lead midway through the first half, slipping a brilliant through ball behind the defense to Solans for the clinical finish in the 23rd minute.
Solans was selected with the 30th overall pick of the 2025 MLS SuperDraft by Salt Lake, who traded $50,000 in general allocation money to the LA Galaxy in select the Spanish native.
But instead of signing forthright with the club, Solans elected to return to collect for one more year and the 22-year-old alumnus of Spain’s Girona FC academy returned to UCLA and scored a team-high 16 goals with six assists in 19 matches en route to All-American second-team honors and a program record-breaking third hat trick in the Big Ten Tournament final.
“Sergi doesn’t necessarily have top-end speed,” Mastroeni said, “but he has top-end timing. When you threaten the back line, you don’t have to have the fastest speed. But you do have to have the right timing.
“You’ve got to make plays — and that’s what making plays looks like.”
Hezarkhani doubled the lead in the 27th minute, gaining possession of the ball in the final third with his chest off an angled touch from Solans before sliding a right-footed shot from the center of the box that put Salt Lake up 2-0.
It’s the second goal in as many matches for Hezarkhani, the 18-year-old academy alumnus who had six goals with four assists in 21 matches (19 starts) for Salt Lake’s third-division affiliate Real Monarchs a year ago.
Miranchuk pulled one back for the home side in the 38th minute, scoring Atlanta’s first goal of 2026 with one touch from Elias Baez from the center of the box to cut the deficit to 2-1.
But Gozo finished a counter initiated by Philip Quinton and Justen Glad with his left less than two minutes later to push Salt Lake back in front 3-1 at halftime.
After a series of second-half introductions including the halftime debut of Utah native and former Corner Canyon High standout Griffin Dillon for RSL, Miranchuk added another for Atlanta in the 74th minute to cut the deficit to 3-2.
But Rafael Cabral made two saves on 16 shots faced to help the visitors hold on for their second straight win.
Real Salt Lake returns home next Saturday, March 14 to host Austin FC (7:30 p.m. MDT, Apple TV) before a road trip to San Diego FC.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
The first round of the NFL draft is over, and the stage is set for the Atlanta Falcons to make their first pick in the second round. Will McFadden and Tori McElhaney dive into their favorite prospects still on the board, how the NFC South fared in the first round, and all of the other news and storylines that could affect the Falcons’ draft class. This podcast is presented by Microsoft Copilot — informing Atlanta Falcons scouting decisions with fast insights.
FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. — A.J. Terrell’s poker face was tested Friday night. It failed.
Falcons head coach Kevin Stefanski called Terrell shortly before Atlanta was set to pick with the 48th selection of the 2026 NFL Draft in Friday’s second round. Stefanski told his starting cornerback that the team was going to take his younger brother and fellow cornerback Avieon Terrell with the pick. Then he told A.J. to keep it quiet.
“I’m expecting my little bro’s phone to ring and my phone rings,” A.J. said. “I didn’t want to show too much emotion because he was standing right next to me. It was hard for me to hold my water for a minute.”
“Yeah,” Avieon said, “he tried to act like he didn’t know, but I know Bro, I read through him.”
The brothers starred at Westlake High School in Atlanta and at Clemson but have never been teammates due to their seven-year age difference. That will change now after the Falcons used their first pick of 2026 draft to reunite the two.
“I knew when that 47th pick went away, I was going to get that call from my hometown team, I felt it,” Avieon said. “Tears of joy. It means the world to me, just to be able to play with Bro. Me on one side, my brother on the other side, time to get to work. I’m just blessed.”
The Falcons took A.J. Terrell with the No. 16 pick of the 2020 draft, and he has started 93 games and intercepted six passes in Atlanta. He signed a four-year, $81 million extension with the team in 2024.
“It’s crazy right now,” A.J. said after grabbing his brother’s phone to talk to reporters at the family’s draft party in Atlanta. “I don’t even know how I’m feeling. Another surreal moment. Watching little bro play ball for years, just coaching him up, being the big bro, and now being able to strap up with him and go to work with him every day, playing on Sundays, right at the crib, can’t make it up, man. Just want to give all glory to God.”
Avieon Terrell was The Athletic draft expert Dane Brugler’s No. 4 cornerback and No. 27 prospect in the 2026 draft. He was considered a potential first-round pick until he ran a 4.64-second 40-yard dash at Clemson’s pro day while nursing a hamstring injury.
“We’re excited to get him at the point of the draft where we got him, didn’t think that Avieon was going to be there,” Falcons general manager Ian Cunningham said. “What a cool experience for him and his family. It was fun being able to call both of them and hear their excitement.”
During a midday strategy session Friday, Atlanta’s president of football Matt Ryan asked Cunningham which available players he would not trade off of. The top name on that list was Terrell, Cunningham said.
“He’s tough, competitive, scrappy, plays the ball, plays the way we want our guys to play,” Cunningham said.
Terrell had nine tackles for loss, eight forced fumbles and 23 passes defended in his final two seasons at Clemson.
“I’m a dog, a competitor,” he said. “I’m coming in to be a leader. I’m a very vocal leader. They are getting somebody who is very versatile, can do anything in the secondary.”
Avieon Terrell played both outside corner and nickel for the Tigers, which allows him to compete with Mike Hughes for the starting outside cornerback spot opposite his brother or provide insurance at nickel in case Billy Bowman is slow to recover from the Achilles tear that ended his 2025 season. The Falcons hosted Avieon Terrell on a top-30 visit during the pre-draft process.
“You can never have enough good corners,” Stefanski said. “I worked for Mike Zimmer and I have heard that many, many times.”
A.J. Terrell said he had imagined the idea of playing with his brother before the draft but did not think it was a realistic hope.
“I played the story in my head a few times,” he said. “I didn’t think it would happen, though. That was just me being a big bro, ‘What if, what if, what if.’”
When Avieon Terrell’s call finally came, “My heart dropped,” Avieon said.
“I looked right at A.J. and told him, ‘It’s time, bro.’ It feels amazing,” he said. “It means the world to me. I prayed for it last night.”
Fannie Mae forecloses on 68-unit apartment tower that features a recognizable peach sculpture.
The Peach apartment building in Atlanta, shown here on Friday, April 24, 2026, has recently entered foreclosure. (Jason Getz/AJC)
The Peach building acts as a landmark for anyone driving I-85 south into Atlanta.
But the well-known structure along Peachtree Street has had a tortuous history, including spending many years largely empty.
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The Peach apartment building is shown near the downtown connector. (Jason Getz/AJC)
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Zachary Hansen, a Georgia native, covers economic development and commercial real estate for the AJC. He’s been with the newspaper since 2018 and enjoys diving into complex stories that affect people’s lives.
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