Atlanta United have benefitted from sold-out crowds for every one of their matches at the Bobby Dodd Stadium to date.
For Mikey Lopez, it’s on NYCFC to match the energy generated by this fervent support and to ensure that their quality shines through.
Lopez played the full 90’ in the 3-0 victory over Orlando City on Sunday – his first Regular Season start for more than a year.
The Texan will be hoping to be involved again when NYCFC sign off on this four-game road stretch.
Mikey told NYCFC.com: “It was a long time since I’d been on the field with my teammates. It felt really good, I feel so blessed that coach showed his confidence in me and put me in the lineup this past Sunday.
“We’ve just got to work hard and stick to our gameplan. You got to learn Atlanta’s strengths and their weaknesses and try to exploit them as much as possible.
“I think we’ve got to try and replicate the same performance as the one we showed against them at home.
“They’re good at home and it’s a pretty big stadium with a lot of fans. They’ll have a lot of energy from their fans – we’ve got to match that and then hopefully our soccer will be better than theirs.”
Mikey’s performance alongside Alex Ring in the midfield engine room against Orlando laid the foundations for the victory on Sunday.
Having missed the start of this campaign due to ankle surgery, he’s eager to make up for lost time and is grateful for every opportunity that comes his way.
“It’s been a testing first half of the year from the surgery and all the recovery and therapy and just getting back to training and working my butt off to get here," he reflected.
“I’m thankful that I was able to recover as quickly and as well as I did. It was just a blessing I was able to get back here and play another game.
“It was a little frustrating start to the road trip, but all that matters is that we ended on a high note and got the three points and four [points] out of nine.
“It’s OK, it’s decent and we also beat a conference team. Winning this game was all we were focused on and we’ve just got to look forward.”
