Strong start propels Real Salt Lake past Atlanta United

Sergi Solans, Aiden Hezarkhani, and Zavier Gozo each scored a goal in the first half, Morgan Guilavogui added an assist in his first MLS start and Real Salt Lake spoiled Atlanta United's 2026 home opener with a 3-2 win on Saturday.

After losing its season opener, Salt Lake (2-1-0, 6 points) has now won two matches in a row.

Atlanta (0-3-0, 0 points) saw its season-opening goalless stretch end thanks to a brace from Alexey Miranchuk, but ultimately dropped its third straight match to open the campaign.

Atlanta United enjoyed some positive spells of possession throughout the opening stages of the evening as they sought to set the tone in front of a home crowd.

It was RSL, though, that opened the scoring in the 23rd minute on a counter-attacking sequence. Guilavogui threaded a ball ahead to Solans, who outran Atlanta defender Juan Berrocal and fired it past Lucas Hoyos for a 1-0 lead. It was Solans' first goal in MLS.

Hezarkhani made it 2-0 in the 27th minute, as he created space for himself in the scoring area and beat a lunging Hoyos for his second goal of the season.

Zavier Gozo added to RSL's lead in the 40th minute, ripping a well-placed effort inside the far post for his first goal of the season to increase the margin to 3-1.

Miranchuk had a pair of goals for Atlanta United, scoring in the 38th and 74th minutes after they were held scoreless for 217 minutes to open the 2026 campaign..

Atlanta ended the night with four shots on goal, with Rafael Santos stopping two of them in the win. Hoyos recorded a pair of saves on RSL's five shots on target.

Atlanta United has now been outscored 7-2 in their first three matches of the season.

Matias Galarza, who signed with Atlanta on Monday on loan from Argentine first-division club River Plate, made his MLS debut in the 59th minute.

--Field Level Media