Minutes after his U.S. men's national soccer team's 1-0 win over Jamaica in the Finley Stadium friendly Friday night, coach Bruce Arena discussed moving on with momentum.
The U.S. team will not play another match until March 24, when it faces Honduras in a hexagonal qualifier for the 2018 World Cup in Russia. The Americans lost their first two qualifying matches to Mexico and Costa Rica in November, which magnified the importance of Friday's match and the weeks ahead.
"The biggest thing we're trying to do is form a team out of these players and for them to take a little pride in what they're doing," Arena said. "We've had two games where we haven't conceded a goal, which I think is a real positive. I would like to have scored a few more goals, but that usually comes a little later."
Chattanooga soccer officials are dealing with a much quicker turnaround, because on Saturday afternoon, Finley will host a friendly between Chattanooga FC and Atlanta United FC, an expansion team in Major League Soccer. Atlanta was awarded an MLS franchise in April 2014 and is scheduled to play home games this season at Georgia Tech's Bobby Dodd Stadium before moving into Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which is under construction.
Saturday's 3 p.m. exhibition will be Atlanta's first match as a team.
"What used to be somewhat of an anomaly for this city, where we would have a big soccer event, has now evolved into becoming somewhat of an expectation," Chattanooga FC general manager Sean McDaniel said. "That's good, because we want our city to experience these big events, and now it's a matter of not taking your foot off the gas. To be able to go back-to-back weekends with such high-profile matches has really set an expectation that we've always wanted for our city.
"I know this will be an awesome time again, because Chattanoogans love coming to great, fun soccer events at Finley Stadium."
McDaniel said neither club will arrive in earnest until Friday, with Atlanta scheduled to practice Friday night at Finley.
Among the Atlanta United players, according to the team website, are defender Greg Garza and forward Romario Williams. Garza was a reserve Friday night for the U.S. team, while Williams played for Jamaica.
When asked if Saturday's friendly would be akin to the Atlanta Braves playing their Double-A affiliates, McDaniel said, "That's a great point of reference, but one big difference is that we're still primarily an amateur team. It would be more like U.S.-Russia hockey in 1980, because this is what Atlanta's players do for a living, and we pay our players with peace, love and harmony."
CFC, which was founded in 2009, is a member of the Southeast Division in the National Premier Soccer League and is a four-time national runner-up, most recently in 2015.
More than 3,000 tickets and more than 1,000 CFC season-ticket packages have been sold for Saturday, McDaniel said, so the crowd won't quite match what took place Friday night, which was a rewarding experience for the U.S. team despite the chilly conditions. The announced crowd for that match was 17,903.
"Everyone had such a good attitude," U.S. midfielder Benny Feilhaber said. "Everybody was happy. It was smiles. We were playing for one another, and it really felt like the team was number one. With a group of guys that haven't played together, you see the actions we had and the ability we had to get better as the game progressed."
Said Jordan Morris, who scored the only goal: "The exposure to playing games like this will only help us in the long run."