  The $sl(2)$ affine Toda model coupled to matter (ATM) is shown to describe
various features, such as the spectrum and string tension, of the low-energy
effective Lagrangian of QCD$_{2}$ (one flavor and $N$ colors). The
corresponding string tension is computed when the dynamical quarks are in the
{\sl fundamental} representation of SU(N) and in the {\sl adjoint}
representation of SU(2).
