ATLANTA, Georgia -- Early Sunday afternoon, Arthur Blank took a long stroll around his Buckhead neighborhood. This was the Atlanta Falcons (and now, Atlanta United) owner's first match-day walk, and he had a very specific goal in mind.
"I was trying to forget about how anxious I was," he said. He shrugged. "It didn't really work."
How could it? If a new season is like writing another chapter in a book, then a day like this one, the first real game in Atlanta's history, is more like a blank canvas, an unending expanse of white just waiting for swishes and swirls and colors.