The path to becoming a professional soccer player is not an easy one. Atlanta United’s Mikey Ambrose will tell you so. He admits he couldn’t have done it without some inspiring forces along the way and he carries a deep appreciation for those who’ve helped him – and he wears tattoos on his body to show it. Not only does he use them for daily motivation, they act as everlasting tributes.
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” it reads in elegant cursive along the inside of his left bicep. It’s a bible verse Ambrose has repeated to himself many times, through childhood, his college days and even now as a pro. He says the Lord told him he was going to make him a professional soccer player. As he prepared for each day, each training, each match, he used the phrase for motivation, promising himself he would get the words tattooed on his body if he turned pro. And the day he signed his first contract, he did just that.
On his right arm lies another familiar phrase for Ambrose, one taking him back to his earliest days on the field. “On my Academy team growing up, our saying was ‘busca la forma’ meaning find a way to win, find a way to survive, find a way to take care of your family.” Next to the Spanish expression, on Ambrose and his Academy teammates, are the initials J.P. and the number 10, honoring a good friend from the team who passed away.
Tying the tribute together and perhaps the most eye-catching of all is the intricate feather that nearly stretches the full length of his forearm. The end of the feather breaks off into a flock of birds which he says symbolizes “Find a way to fly. ‘Busca la forma,’ even with a broken feather.”
If you flip over his arm, you’ll find a word written in the native Zimbabwe language Ndebele. “Abanewethu” meaning “brothers”. Anyone who’s been through the college journey knows that you grow quite close to people, opening up to them more than ever before. For Mikey Ambrose and his buddies – one of them from Zimbabwe – the tight bond they developed was already permanent. They just decided to put it in ink.
Those are his three pieces of body art for now, but Ambrose says there’s more to come very soon. For him tattoos run deeper than ink, intertwined with mind and body, attached to his heart.
© 2026 Atlanta United FC
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