Atlanta United returned to action against Houston Dynamo on Saturday after a tumultuous two weeks that saw the firing of head coach Gonzalo Pineda, rumors of Giorgos Giakoumakis on his way out to Cruz Azul, and the managerial reins taken by interim gaffer Rob Valentino. The subsequent 90 minutes in the Benz were a back and forth affair that saw Houston strike first. Atlanta answered back relatively quickly to draw at 1-1 and then go ahead by a goal, before Houston struck late to pull back a 2-2 draw. Here are your final whistle thoughts!
The dust
While it’s clear the team has some fine-tuning and old habits that need to be remedied sooner than later, Rob Valentino definitely put out the best squad possible to get off on the right track. While the first few minutes were definitely less than ideal as Houston went up 1-0, Atlanta battled back and never lost focus…until the tying goal in the 89th minute courtesy of Latif Blessing. However, they shook at least some of the proverbial dust off from a rough stretch of two months and gave a fight.
The team needs some work – for sure – but considering the lineup changes, coaching changes, injuries, call-ups, and every other variable Atlanta United had against them (Almada was gassed), this isn’t the end of the world. It doesn’t get easier, though, and the Five Stripes have to start banking these points at home.
The midfield
I would never dare to try and dive into an interim coach’s tactics during his first few games taking over midseason, so let’s establish this as a simple observation (and mostly one from the first half, as it changed in the second). Atlanta’s midfield seemed tasked with creating numerical superiority on the wings, but it didn’t seem to translate in the way it was intended. At times there was a massive bubble in the center of the pitch, occupied only by Houston players. The noticeable problem was, for example, if there was build up on the right wing, the third midfielder that was occupying space out wide on the left seemed slow to drop back into the center.
This probably wouldn’t be a conversation had Atlanta tried some big switches across the pitch, but more often than not the result was either a stalled attack or a turnover. The squad seemed a bit more compact in the second half, and had much more joy hitting the spine of Houston’s midfield in build-up play.
Luke Brennan
It was just an inspired performance from the young winger. He played with confidence and without fear, and was the direct cause of three or four yellows on Houston (including one very cynical one where he was shoved hard to the ground). Noah Cobb deserves a shout here, too, as he’s consistently been a standout defender for Atlanta in a season of ups and downs, but Brennan came on cold after an early injury to Edwin Mosquera and immediately began feasting.
Atlanta United is going to need their depth to play with that kind of attitude to help dig out of the lower portions of the Eastern Conference, and Brennan was a perfect example tonight. He’s unlucky to have not scored the game winner, but I’ll take that kind of passion all day, every day.
Let us know your thoughts on the game down in the comments below!
Thank goodness for San Jose.
Once again, four homegrown players contributed meaningful minutes to this match, especially Luke Brennan.
The most important takeaway from this match and the remaining matches ahead of the summer window is that everyone is auditioning for their job. This is a great opportunity for the young guys to show they deserve a more prominent role under the next manager. When Wolff is healthy enough to play, we will have 6 homegrown players on this roster who can all reasonably help this team win.
My guess for this summer’s window roster strategy will be that we will move the players who are ready to go and who can bring in a big return (Giakoumakis & Almada) and we will try to move on from players who are no longer part of the future of this club (Sosa & Ibarra, and maybe Hernandez & Abram). The players we will add will essentially be on trial with us on loans or short-term deals to show whether they will be part of the club under the next manager.
Westburg and Rios are out of contract at the end of this season. Guzan, Hernandez, Dax, and Thiare are the senior roster players on options this season. Abram, Cohen, Lennon, Mosquera, Silva, and Williams are all guaranteed through 2025.
This winter, we could have 2-3 DP spots, 2-3 U-22 spots, and loads of cap space to work with to build the squad our new manager needs to succeed early. Hibbert, Torres, and Gordon will all join the team from the 2s and Javi Armas and Matthew Edwards may also get promotions and Will Reilly and Nigel Prince could return from college. That is a lot of young, cheap depth that allows us to spend more on prime-age talent.
Depending on the money, I think both Hernandez and Abram stick around. Left footed CBs are always in need and a FB capable of playing both the left and right side of the field
$450k for Hernandez isn’t bad at all. Nearly $900k for Abram is a bit more challenging considering Williams and Gregersen are our preferred pair and Cobb and Morales have played so well.
Definitely, I know a lot of fans are not fans of Hernandez, but he is decent depth piece. Abram might be a better LCB in a 3 CB setting than 2 CB setting, so I guess his future might depend on who our future head coach is
Hard to say. There were a lot of wingers on the roster who were ahead of him. Silva and Saba, and Mosquera and Wolff may have been seen as further along while they were prioritizing minutes for Brennan in MLS NEXT Pro. I’m proud of him for making the most of his moment.
If he’d scored that late game winner my heart would have exploded
Not to split hairs over this since the person you seem to be most criticizing is already gone (and rightfully so), but Brennan was also behind Wiley being pushed up to LW (arguably also rightfully so?).
Now to your point, how did Pineda not once think “can it really get worse than Mosquera?”
Where Im going with this is, with Pineda gone, I cant help but ask who the hell brought in Mosquera and is responsible for paying him 500k to barely seem capable of dribbling a ball.
Now that Pineda is gone, we have to start asking the difficult questions about Boca. Because for all the good moves we seem to have made since the analytics department era, the team as a whole outside of the always promising homegrown pipeline seems mediocre at best.
If injuries and player availability werent excuses for Pineda, they cant be excuses for Boca either.
And please forgive what may come across as an argumentative tone and the extracurricular commentary. Im just very discouraged by the current reality of our team. Maybe it was blind optimism in recent years, but I’ve always felt we were one good transfer window away. Now all we have to look forward to is our promising homegrown pipeline, which is something we need to tap into to avoid being ran off the field by a mediocre Houston at home.
I agree with your analysis. Other teams seem to have made better choices with U22 slots. I also think, in spite that a lot folks here disagree, that our roster is not as good as we think. Watched a lot of other teams, who were also missing key players, and my impression is we just have a very average team at best. Our defense is actually below average. Our table standings are a pretty good indication of our status IMO
I just cant wrap my head around how you were so hyper critical of Pineda but refuse to even open the can of worms with Boca.
To renew or not. I probably will, but start giving my tickets to some charitable organization, like Just People or similar
I wish we could use a Catan inspired 3:1 port for our 3 u22s in exchange for an extra DP.
This may be a great summer window to have most of our U22 spots open. With the Olympics showcasing top U-23 talent from around the world, we could potentially find a few guys who we can afford and who can contribute meaningful depth to the squad.
While there obviously is still work to do for the team one of the biggest things that I was hoping for in the changing of from Pineda to Valentino was accountability by the players and for the most part saw that the whole game……almost every time Houston touched the ball an Atlanta United player was coming to meet the ball instead of sitting back off their man & switches were happening where when one man was beat (or) the ball was changing direction, then someone else stepped up to try and win the ball back forcing Houston to have to work to get the ball back (or) progress their current possession further down the field in an effort to score on us. There also was more of a team approach on scoring goals instead of playing individual soccer and trying to dribble through multiple defenders repeatedly. While a win would have been the ultimate prize the end result of a tie is not too bad considering the alternative and as poorly as this season has went for us especially in April & May there is the potential starting next week for us to possibly start to creep back into the playoff picture since DC United lost yesterday. At the end of the day while a top 4 spot and home field advantage is probably for the most part out of the picture this season…if we can handle our business @ DC United next week & close the deal with a win and get some help from other teams, don’t look now, but we very well could be anywhere from the 8th-10th seed with some very important rematches still on deck against Phi & Nashville among other teams and possibly get 3 points against each of them instead of ties like earlier in the season. The bottom line is in sports all you have to do is give yourself a chance and get into the playoffs and anything can happen. I’ll be interested to see how the team hopefully uses the Houston match as momentum to fine tune areas of needed improvement, continue to work towards breaking old habits from the Pineda era, & continue to grow throughout the remainder of the season.
Both ATL goals came off of terrible play from the defense. Not creativity from the offense.
Sure. Okay. But if the two goals against were those plays, no one would credit the offense for creating them.
My biggest issue: why would a team that has been bent on “possession” not hold on to the ball and control the game the last 5 minutes? We had numerous instances were we could have just played the ball sideways or back and hold the ball during the last minutes (still holding the lead). Instead we foolishly kept making compromising passes or launching the ball forward, just to give it back to Houston. Very silly how we gave away 2 more points.
I chalk it up to the inexperience that was on the field in those minutes.
Dax, Guzz and Williams were still on the field
Yes, but Guzz and Williams are not in a position to keep our young midfielders + Almada from trying stupid things and pressing forward
I think Atlanta will have to use a couple of short term signing this coming week. We can’t possibly keep two goalies on the bench again with 2 more matches in less than a week. Not ideal, but maybe Wolff can play some limited min the next 2 matches
I’d like to see Matias Gallardo get a chance with the first team.
Gallardo is supposedly an “attacking midfielder”. Is he actually a DM? The reason I am asking is that he has 0 goals and 0 assists in 16 career MNP matches. Those totals seem, uh, “kind of low”, to be polite, for an AM. I don’t watch the 2s, so I gotta ask… Is he better than the stats suggest?
If assists were measured like they are in hockey, he’d have flashier stats to show.
I’ve only seen him play a couple of times but was impressed with his vision making penetrating passes, granted it was against open cup teams…
Gordon would be a great call-up. I don’t think we need more depth at fullback or CB so I think we will save our limited call-ups for Edwards until later in the season.
Why would the team start @banking points at home” now?
Started our new “not beaten at home” streak
Baby steps