ATL Standard

The play worked exactly as planned. A corner kick taken by Saba Lobjanidze was lifted into the box, resulting in a header goal from Stian Gregersen. Gregersen's finish in the 60th minute, his first career goal in MLS, equalized the match on July 20 against reigning MLS Cup champions Columbus Crew after the visitors scored the go-ahead goal in the first half.

The set piece play proved so effective that Atlanta United repeated it successfully. Gregersen secured another header on a Lobjanidze corner kick in the 76th minute to complete his brace. These two nearly identical goals earned three points for Atlanta United against the current third-place team in the Eastern Conference.

This marked the first professional brace for the 29-year-old center back who played eight years professionally in Europe before joining Atlanta United this past offseason. MLS recognized his accomplishment by naming Gregersen to the MLS Team of the Matchday announced Sunday afternoon.

“I feel it was a team goal," Gregersen said about scoring on a set piece. "Jay [Fortune] had amazing blocks for me, so I could get open and score. It was a fantastic serve from Saba [Lobjanidze] also. We planned to score like that, so it’s good that it worked.”

The play, drawn up by Atlanta's goalkeeper coach Liam Curran, worked flawlessly. This is the second consecutive match where interim head coach Rob Valentino credited a goal to Curran's design. The goalkeeper coach also devised the play that led to an early goal against New York City FC earlier this week.

That goal, finished by Daniel Ríos, became the fastest goal scored in club history.

"Liam's on fire right now," Valentino said Saturday. "On kickoff and set pieces. He's doing a good job."

For Curran's set piece play, Lobjanidze served corner kicks into the box twice resulting in goals and earning him assists on both occasions. This brings his total to seven assists this season for Atlanta United, leading the team with 11 assists since joining MLS in 2023.

According to MLS, with this performance Lobjanidze became only the sixth player in club history to record at least 20 goal contributions within their first 30 matches with Atlanta United. He joins an elite group including Josef Martínez, Giorgos Giakoumakis, Miguel Almirón, Héctor Villalba and Thiago Almada.

In recognition of his efforts, Lobjanidze was awarded a spot on the bench for MLS Team of the Matchday.

"We have to try," Lobjanidze said. "You cannot score at every corner. You’re here to try your best and I tried my best and so did the team.”