It wasn’t a home run, but Atlanta United managed a point from its visit to the Big Apple after a 1-1 draw against New York City FC.
The result puts the Five Stripes sixth in the Eastern Conference with 10 points and a 3-2-1 record.
With Giorgos Giakoumakis and Xande Silva declared out ahead of the match, Gonzalo Pineda called in Jamal Thiare, fresh off a brace, and Tyler Wolff to fill their spots in the starting lineup. Noah Cobb got his third consecutive start at right center back after helping the Five Stripes earn a clean sheet against Chicago Fire last week.
The hosts dictated the play in the opening minutes of the game while Atlanta United absorbed pressure and struggled to break out of its own half. However, the Five Stripes eventually grew into the match and began to put significant pressure on NYCFC’s backline. Atlanta led the xG battle in the first half 2.1-1.5 and outshot the hosts 13-11.
Despite gaining ground, Atlanta buried itself in frequent mistakes and bad giveaways. One of these happened close to Atlanta’s box and resulted in Tristan Muyumba conceding a penalty which Santiago Rodriguez converted to give the Pidgeons a 1-0 lead before the half. Things weren’t looking good for the Five Stripes who looked set to take another road loss.
The second half didn’t look very encouraging at first. NYCFC caught up to the Five Stripes and even surpassed them in shots. Things looked pretty bleak for Atlanta United until Edwin Mosquera used his pace to get on a long ball to the right side before sending in a beautiful cross to Jamal Thiare who scored his third goal in two games.
Despite frantic back-and-forth action between the two sides, neither was able to get the edge and they were forced to split the points after a 1-1 draw.
It wasn’t a terrible point on the road, but it wasn’t pretty. This team might have been missing two starters, but it had several chances to score and comfortably win the game.
Atlanta United now returns home to try and extend its unbeaten streak against the Philadelphia Union on Sunday.
What did you think of the match? Let us know in the comments and fill out your player ratings below.
[…] Thiare goal snatches 1-1 draw at New York City FC […]
I thought it was a great away tie. I hate playing in that stadium.
What’s our injury list looking like for this weekend? Injuries are piling up, though thankfully no season ending ones yet.
Doesn’t sound good. The MLS availability report is usually released the day before the match. So I think updates from the training ground will give us an early indication of what to expect this weekend. Fingers crossed.
Doug Roberson said GG and Gregersen were not seen during the morning training session this morning, so that might not be a good sign
Oh no…. So starting to look like:
Out – GG
Out – Thiare
Out – Gregerson
Out – Williams
Out – Xande?
I am thinking Gregersen will not be available this week, but if GG is able to train at some point this week I would think he would be available as a super sub for 15-20 min
I sure do hope so.
So he would be maybe listed as questionable, maybe Xande as well?
I looked at the MLS availability report from last week for reference, and honestly, I think we’ve been lucky up to this point. Last week 11 teams had 5 or more players OUT or QUESTIONABLE – another 3 teams had 4 players missing. That is about half the league with 4 or more players missing including teams above us in the tables and Philadelphia who we play this weekend.
We need to show that we “know what it takes to win in this league”, and start winning against teams ahead of us in the tables. 3 points this weekend or I’m disappointed.
Agree with your comment about knowing what it takes to win. But expecting 3 points against a really good philly side, with our two main CB’s and main striker all out (or playing limited minutes) is a tall ask.
I will be disappointed with a loss. Expecting a tie. And having super positive thoughts with a win.
The team + Pineda haven’t quite shown me that we should expect wins in these situations yet. Hoping that changes though.
“The team + Pineda haven’t quite shown me that we should expect win”
I agree there. Sad.
And also agree
“Hoping that changes”
Agreed, but also they haven’t show me that they can’t win in these situations either. So I’m looking at these next 2 games as an indicator of the character of this team. We know they don’t quit until the game is over, that was obvious last year; but can we perform from the start when at a disadvantage? That’s the question.
Great observation, and great question to look at. I know I’ll be cheering for the W.
FWIW, not likely to happen but in these kinds of situations I’d consider an alternative like a 3-4-2-1, even with the thinness at central back…less stretching…a little more compact…still some vertical threat.
Sure hope Almada gets his head straight. Ignored several wide open players in dangerous positions to try and try again to hit a long distance hero shot. Either move him to a league he wants to play in, or get him to be the assist machine he was last year. He’s playing so selfish, the others show open frustration with him.
Dear Atlantistas: I did watch your game – not all, because that weird NYC field makes me a bit sick. I tried to watch Miami too, but Tata dismantled the team to save for the big Libertadores game against Monterrey, and it made the game unwatchable.
Not trying to be popular, as always, in your game I saw quite a bit of ping pong. That is the result of two teams making a lot of basic errors, and yet being incapable of taking advantage of the other team´s errors (their penalty was a direct consequence of this disease). Your B players, like theirs, go through the motions, but they can´t play acute enough to get past the lines, and finalize properly.
This usually is a symptom of insufficient talent on the field. And I know you hate it when I say this, but there is not enough talent. I don´t know when the next window opens, but if Atlanta wants do go further that that very bsaic threshold of “making the playoffs”, it needs spend to add talent, and use the change to get a coach.
My Gremio has just won our state championship for the seventh time in a row, meaning Inter was busy doing something else. Nothing to celebrate, and I hope now the season will finally get going.
Best regards,and great eclipse, everyone!
i agree with much of what you say but would remind you that the front office dismantled the roster after tata left. the next couple of windows were mostly full of poor to average choices, and we are still digging out of that hole.
i would argue that this is the most talented roster we have had since 2018 (although not as talented as that one). between injuries and international duty (actually a sign that the roster is getting better), we have not been able to put the best xi on the field every week. but this is a team that now (when healthy and available) can actually compete most weeks.
we are not league contenders at this point, but at least heading in the right direction. our front four now – gg, saba, silva and almada – are exciting players. muyumba and slisz have shown signs of becoming a solid midfield, and our back line has a better mix of young talent and veterans than we’ve had in a long time.
and congrats on your gremio!
Unfortunately, MLS rules really don’t allow us to just go out and buy all the talent we could want or need. If they did, I think we would – the owner has deep pockets and is willing to reach into them for results. But the league mostly sews his pockets shut.
Every MLS team has the same problem we do, but not all of them would address it if they were able. The league knows this, so they restrict the activity of the teams that would spend to win in order to maintain a semblance of parity in the league for the owners who would not spend to win even if allowed. They could fix this by instituting a minimum floor to spend on player salaries, but too many cheap owners would be against it.
But this has all been said before, so complaining about the talent level for AU is a bit like tilting at windmills – talent can generally only be improved incrementally, year to year. The roster, IMHO, has above average talent for the league we are in, and we have improved the overall talent level from last year. But that talent level does not compare with top leagues that don’t have salary caps, and it never will until teams can spend what they want.
Second out of three road games without important starters. Lack of quality finish at times, but it’s still early in the season. Under those circumstances, happy with a point.
Our next two matches are at home and are against teams above us in the table. If we can get Giakoumakis back for the next fixture against Philadelphia and the following against Cincinnati, we could jump to near the top of the table.
Welp – just saw the news that Thiare and Williams are injured and out for a few weeks. That’s a LOT of missing starters to expect any neutral or positive results from our team for a while. Just sucks all around (being bitten by the injury bug so soon in the season)… prolonging my true assessment Pineda this season. He has all the pieces, but he ‘has an excuse’ if he doesn’t. Sigh.
well that sucks…and this week is probably one of those games where we need to be close to 100%
Yeah, that hurts. We have lost both starting CBs, our starting LW, our starting CF, and our backup CF.
I’d imagine we will see how Abram and Cobb do together. That leaves Morales as the only other CB on the roster. I hope Gregersen will be back soon to help shore up the defensive depth chart.
I hope Rios is ready to go because that attacking group with Almada as a False-9 and Etienne up top did not look encouraging. I would be open to Wolff playing a False-9 role or as the 9 in a poacher roll. He can do that and can press well from the center of the attacking group.
We’ll see how it goes but these next two go from being must-win home matches to must-salvage home matches.
i would imagine, best case scenario would be for us to pull off a tie for the next two home matches with the hope that most of the injured players come back healthy by then
considering neither philly nor cinci have lost yet on the road (combined 7 games between them), and we’re not at full strength, that’s a tough order. fingers crossed.
I thought Guz, Mosquera, Thiare, and Saba stood out in this one. Wolff and Muyumba struggled. Everyone else fell in the middle.
A lot of chances to take 3 points, but taking 1 point on the road down 3 starters is certainly a solid result to be pleased with.
Hard to read too much into this one for me. On top of variable excuses, I think this match’s analysis will just show confirmation bias for this team’s current potential.
Considering the next 4, it would have been nice to have capitalized 3 points, but a road point, is okay – not great.
Moving on, we now have to start showing we can win against teams ahead of us in the tables – (lucky for us, the next 2 are at home).
8 points in the next 4 to show we are better than last year.
Based on our play I was happy with the point Based on our opponent, not picking up 3 points was a little disappointing. This is not a NYCFC team of years past and didn’t really see any true difference makers on the field for them. It seemed like a great opportunity to pick up an elusive W away from home.
Well said. I’m trying to stay positive (or at least neutralize my negativity), but a great team would have beaten NYCFC in that match. Opportunity lost for sure.
Ughhhh. This game had so many of the emotions from the Dalles 2-2 game last year. Yes we get a away point. But there were many missed opportunities. All in all, my final feeling is just a bit meh and a bit of “if you can’t win, don’t lose” mentality but we really could’ve won.
I hate to look at stats but we had such a high XG and the penalty they got boosted theirs significantly. I believe it was their only shot on target. I don’t know how to feel but a road point is a road point I suppose…
As others have said, Guz MOTM. That ball to trigger the counter was perfection, as was the crazy save off the bar.
We got unlucky to not have a 2nd, but tbf NYC could have had another as well.
All in all, a good performance; I’m encouraged every time I see this team play.
That assist to the assist was perfection. I really doubted the man at the start of the season but he has really proved all of the haters wrong. I also thought Mosquera had an amazing assist as well.
Ugh. Almost. OK. WTF. Sigh. OMG! Sigh. Phew. OK.
That pretty much sums up the game.
Hope GG, Silva, Gregerson, and Thiare (he didn’t look great when he subbed out) heal up quickly!
Was Thiare hurt? Is that why he was subbed?
He definitely looked gassed, like that last run was basically everything left in the tank. He did have the trainers come look at something earlier in the match. The swap for Etienne seemed like a real “this needs to happen now” move, for whatever reason.
We really can’t afford to be down 3 strikers, so hopefully it’s just precautionary.
In stoppage time Williams was moved to the 9 so we had a big target, which honestly is a pretty good last-ditch play from Pineda and shows he’s willing to take some real risks to get a result on the road. That said, it’s hard to believe that this early in the season we’re swapping the backup striker for Etienne; just a really sad state of affairs.
Williams moved to forward at the end because he was injured. No master class by Pineda.
More importantly, hopefully Williams is not seriously hurt.
Away draw. We’re improving at least. Still feels like a missed opportunity.
Agreed, this was a winnable game. Especially in the first half several chances went wanting, and Etienne needed to drive the header on frame as he likely had Frees beat.
I’ll definitely take points on the road anytime, but I feel like they’ll be missing those two point later in the season.
Etienne, this may have been his last chance to show he’s worth something and he blew it.
The real issue now is we don’t really have the depth to not play him. Xande is the obvious 4th option at striker as he played that position for two seasons, but he’s out for who knows how long. At this point the only person on the team who’s played striker is Etienne. And Almada has proven time and again he’s not a good choice as a false 9.
Maybe put him and Firmino up top in a 4-4-2? Idk, it’s bad if Thiare and Rios are both out next week.
Etienne tried waaaay too hard to make something happen in his limited minutes. There were at least two or three times he tried to dribble through several people like he was on a video game. It didn’t work out well.
At this point, anything we get out of Etienne is a bonus. One of the biggest bust in team history. That said, he looked sort of OK.