Thus far, Atlanta have done very well, nothing lucky or flukey about how they've played.
I live in Atlanta and want the team to do well.
Tata has done a very good job so far, and the owner, Arthur Blank, has also backed the club by being willing to pay relatively good money for loan players like Martinez or young DP players like Almiron or Villalba.
They've "built" the new team in a way wholly different to the standard procedure alluded to by Y2J, although I would add the comment that Adrian Heath and his tremendously outdated tactics might be as responsible for Minnesota's early struggles as their being built around an essentially NASL roster.
Going to South America for young, fast, skillful players around whom to build a team has resulted in an incredibly exciting playing style.
The one worry about Atlanta is that their playing style is very high-energy, with aggressive pressing in certain parts of the pitch and lightning quick transitions from multiple players.
It's modern soccer and very attractive to watch, but MLS referees tend to be very tolerant of what amounts to low post basketball defending, hands all over, all the time, and the tremendous travel distances will also make maintaining such a playing style difficult as the season progresses...