It was not the most auspicious start to an interview.



“I don’t trust people,” said Josef Martínez about five minutes in. “Trust isn’t something you give away. It’s earned.”



Luckily, Miguel Almirón, Martínez’s partner in the attack and someone he has come to trust deeply, joined us at the table.



Atlanta United had just finished a training session on a typically hot mid-July morning, and Almirón had been delayed by a quick discussion with a few of his coaches. On a big-screen TV in a lounge at the training center, University of Georgia graduate John Isner was battling Canadian Milos Raonic in a Wimbledon quarterfinal.



“I remember you,” said Almirón as he sat down, his comfort—and the difference in approach from that of his teammate—evident from the start. I had asked him a question as part of a scrum after the Orlando City match two weeks earlier;...