Nothing like the cup to lift spirits, am I right?
While Atlanta United is severely underperforming its MLS expectations, the team continues its journey in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup with a Round of 16 visit to USL Championship leader Charleston Battery.
With most other titles and CONCACAF Champions Cup qualification methods seeming further out of sight with each point dropped, this could be the Five Stripes’ best chance for silverware in 2024. Look on the bright side: all the team has to do is win four more matches in the tournament to raise the cup once more! Easy peasy.
Players to Watch
The Battery’s Nick Markanich claimed the honor of USL Player of the Month in April. Here’s a look at why:
Markanich is the Battery’s top scorer in 2024 with 12 goals and four assists in 12 games. His ability to score from distance means Atlanta United can’t afford him space to shoot around the box. The 24-year-old is a goalscoring machine that leads the league in stats like non-penalty goals and shots on target per 90 minutes, so the Five Stripes will have to watch him closely.
Another player that will keep Atlanta United’s hands full is striker Matt “MD” Myers. The 23-year-old has 9 goals and an assist across all competitions this season and has found himself combining in interesting ways with Markanich to find the back of the net. Although not the tallest at 6’0, he can head the ball very well and he knows where to be to get on the end of crosses and put away second balls.
The History
Although Charleston plays in a different league, the Five Stripes have an extensive history with the South Carolina club. The clubs have played each other three times in Open Cup and twice in the Carolina Challenge Cup. Atlanta won four of those meetings and tied one, outscoring the Battery 11-4. The last match between the two was a 3-1 win for the Georgia side on June 13, 2019. Atlanta United would go on to lift the trophy that year.
Availability Reports
Charleston Battery
Not provided
Atlanta United
Out:
- Giorgos Giakoumakis – hamstring
- Thiago Almada – calf
- Derrick Williams – calf
- Tyler Wolff – knee
- Noah Cobb – ankle
Predicted Lineups*
*Player stats only reflect their stats in U.S. Open Cup
Charleston Battery Predicted XI
Atlanta United Predicted XI
Score Predictions
Jackson: 2-2 Charleston on penalties
Tommy: 2-1 Atlanta
Sydney: 3-2 Charleston after extra time
Calum: 3-2 Charleston
Henry: 3-1 Atlanta
Grey: 2-2 Charleston on penalties
Tyler: 2-0 Atlanta
Your turn! Give us your thoughts and predictions in the comments below.
We are facing the current top USL team while missing 2 DPs and starting a heavily-rotated squad. A loss would not only not shock me, it would not even surprise me.
We don’t actually know how much Pineda will rotate. Bad teams often go all in on USOC matches to cover up their failures in MLS. Recentish examples would be Sporting KC in 2022 (made it to the semi-finals) and Houston (won it) in 2018. Houston played a heavily rotated squad in MLS matches to keep their best players fresh for USOC. Given the depth of negative fan comments towards Pineda, I don’t know what he’ll do but the lineup above could be wildly wrong. Pineda might feel that he HAS to win this match and play better players. He’s sure not going to make the case to not fire him if he loses tonight.
We were heavily rotated, turned out. It was not a lineup for a coach who was worried a loss might cost his job.
We still couldn’t score. The kids played well on defense, and Cohen bailed us out in PKs.
We were never going to play Almada and GG in this type of game.
But I do hope we see some talent sprinkled in. My guess is we’ll start some kids on the wings and hopefully have Saba/Silva available for the second 45 if needed.
At this point, I think the Cupset would be if Atlanta wins…
Should be a great opportunity to see if USL Championship is an appropriate level for Mosquera or if thats still too high.
[…] Match Preview: Charleston Battery vs Atlanta United […]
We need a win. Badly.
The info above about Cobb having an ankle injury is literally the only information I can find on this. I don’t do Twitter/X by choice. So does that mean that it’s not horrible injury that will keep him out for the rest of the season? I ask because he reacted exactly like Miles did when he tore his ACL a couple of years ago.
I guess there are no temporary 4 day contracts either. That’s too bad because this is really an ideal match to make use of one of those.
Pineda gave a brief update to the press yesterday. Cobb has an ankle injury (probably a sprain) that caused him a lot of discomfort. Ankles are tricky with the severity of the sprain causing a wide range of recovery times. Cobb could bounce back by next month or it could be something longer. I can say from having multiple nasty ankle injuries that one bad one significantly weakens the ankle to the point that it is easy to re-injure it in recovery or soon after.
The 4-day contracts were announced this morning. Gordon, Williams, Edwards, and Carleton all got called up for tonight’s match.
Thanks for the reply! Glad to see some use of the 4 day contracts, so glad I asked.