John Sutcliffe is really committed to this Andres Guardado-to-Atlanta United rumor

If you've been living under a rock for the last month, you may have missed the first big Atlanta United Designated Player rumor. John Sutcliffe of ESPN Deportes reported way back in late May that United were pursuing Mexico national team star and sometimes captain,  Andres Guardado.

Since then we've seen the rumor escalate to being confirmed by Grant Wahl all the way to a specific contract offer by the club to the player. All the while, all parties (Atlanta United, Guardado, and PSV) have remained quiet on the issue. This makes it seem like a real possibility.

The latest from ESPN Deportes states that Guardado is close to joining Atlanta United who will be paying him up to $6 Million a year.

Today, Sutcliffe has doubled down on his proclamation that Guardado will be an Atlanta United player in March of 2017. He sent this tweet out late this afternoon:

El equipo donde @AGuardado18 jugará en la @MLS es el @ATLUTD #marzo2017 #fb pic.twitter.com/o1Lu8EhUF2

— John Sutcliffe (@espnsutcliffe) June 24, 2016

Basic translation says "The team Andres Guardado will play for in MLS is Atlanta United. Hashtag March 2017." -- At this point, we have no reason to not believe Sutcliffe.. He's one of the preeminent sources on the Mexico national team working for a respected outlet. All I know is, if this doesn't actually come to fruition, it's going to reflect really poorly on him as he's so adamant about it being a done deal.

Hopefully he's right and we see this saga concluded once the MLS Transfer Window opens on July 4th.