Former Celtic striker Giorgos Giakoumakis scored his first hat-trick in a 4-1 home win for Atlanta City in the new season opener against New England Revolution.
The Giakoumakis hat-trick was watched by a crowd of 67,727 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. That iwas the third biggest in world football yesterday behind only Bayern Munich and Manchester United’s home attendances.
First @MLS hat trick for GG. Unstoppable. ⚡️ pic.twitter.com/RRxiWc3L1Q
— Atlanta United FC (@ATLUTD) March 10, 2024
Afterwards the former Celtic striker said to the club’s official website: “If you score four, five goals, you send a message. It’s good to do that because so far we haven’t shown anything offensively, we’re trying to figure out how we’re going to connect to each other again… so hopefully, that’s the start.
Sending a statement
“We talked about sending a statement, not only amongst us as a group but to the league that we want to make Mercedes-Benz Stadium a really difficult place to come and play this year,” Atlanta United goalkeeper Brad Guzan said.
“With the chances we created in the first half, the chances we created in the second half, it could’ve been more than four tonight. And that’s a good thing for us.”
Head coach Gonzalo Pineda praised Giakoumakis during his post-match press conference “Of course I’m very happy about him scoring three goals, but the team comes first. Very happy. It’s a good reward for everyone. A good night.”
Liel Abada
Giakoumakis this week was joined in the MLS by his former Celtic team-mate Liel Abada and that’s two top quality players we have lost that could and perhaps should have been doing a job for Celtic. Both would certainly make the current Celtic squad stronger.
