Four matches later, and the Five Stripes are finally back at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. How’d they do in the meantime, I hear you ask?
Weeeeeeeell…
Atlanta United (6-11-6, 11th in East) are sliding, and sliding fast. All four matches across MLS and U.S. Open Cup since that last gasp, unlikely 2-1 victory over Toronto in the Benz have not gone Atlanta’s way. At all. Four straight losses, including that Open Cup quarterfinal against USL Championship side Indy Eleven, failing to put a single shot on target over the weekend against Montreal, and not to mention an even further depleted roster with the impending exit of Caleb Wiley, have brought the team back to the really, really bleak times we’d rather be able to forget.
With the ability to hope reserved for the opening of the MLS transfer window (tomorrow, actually), today’s match against NYCFC feels… near meaningless. New York City FC (11-9-3, 5th in East) aren’t quite in the upper tier of teams in the Eastern Conference, but aren’t anything to glance over. Inconsistent results lately keep them in the thick of things, but the Pigeons still hold on to that fifth place position in the table. NYCFC and Atlanta battled to a 1-1 draw when the sides last met on April 6th at Yankee Stadium.
Now, they’ll play each other with a much different Atlanta lineup void of any Designated Players with the suspension of Stian Gregersen due to a red card picked up on Saturday. Noah Cobb will also be absent, playing internationally with the U.S. U-20 National Team, making for a makeshift defense tonight that is difficult to put trust in after recent results.
Like I said, bleak. But the game hasn’t been played just yet, and sports have a funny way of tending to surprise people. No promises though.
Kickoff from the Benz is set for your typical 7:40 PM ET start, with streaming coming from Apple TV with a subscription to MLS Season Pass. Radio coverage is provided in English on 92.9 The Game and in Spanish on La Mejor.
Before then, move on down to the match thread in the comments below to discuss the pre, during, and post-match happenings as Atlanta look to break out of their spiral in front of a home crowd.
Atlanta United’s Lineup:
NYCFC’s Lineup:
How to Watch:
Venue: Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta, Georgia
Kickoff Time: Wednesday, July 17th; 7:40 PM ET
Available TV/Streaming: Apple TV (with MLS Season Pass Subscription)
Available Radio: 92.9 The Game, La Mejor 1600/1460/1130 AM
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We cannot blame anyone directly – because they are all med-tier and bench players but the poor positioning, no concept of marking, and lack the skills at tackling, pressuring with out fouling, is our biggest issue.
Our mids – are really not good, they allow the opponents to get deep in our third, never trying to anticipate or intercept passed, just run along side without pressuring the player, causing no disruption in the opponents buildup. Then the defense are left to try and win the ball, when they them self are bad.
I believe if the coach will give proper instructions of the role of mids, we may get better results. We score but cannot hold a lead/win, that is because of poor positioning, and lack of tackling. This is happening in all positions, but most visible in the mids.
Team is a shambles. Flushing points down the toilet with stupid plays. If they don’t turn this around next season, they’ll have squandered some of the best support the league has ever seen. It’s like a textbook example of how to ruin a good thing.
That’s already squandered. World club my ass. We can’t even have enough talent to compete in mls rn
Idk how they managed to blow it so quickly, heinze being a dick really bought the club to its knees just 2 years after we won the cup
yeah, I don’t regret turning down those tickets.
I don’t know how we didn’t win. We had tons of good shots
Because this team has had an issue with mentality for the longest time. And luck.
Silva wtf how is he not scoring
Brennan don’t ever do that again, I don’t want to support a team that flops for penalties
Oh my god again how did he not even get a shot off?
How did we not score on that
Can the crowd not see lol?
This team is now a bunch of pedestrian players. They have no creativity. I have know idea why this coach keeps starting Rios.. he is useless, like #8, #11, #4. #13 and Guzman does not need to be in goal.
WE SUCK!!
Rios is a good distributor which is more any anyone else we have offers. His passing is really really good
Lennon absolutely ruined a great defensive game by him. Sucks to be him rn
One of the dumbest penalties you’ll ever see. And they rated Lennon over Escobar.
Insanity.
Escobar is way, way, way better!!!!
I had a bad feeling once we brought Fortune on.
I knew some sort of dumb crap by out team was going to happen.
Why is the crowd booing?
lol nvm on the fun part.
What sucks is it’s not like we switched off. We still had some great chances in the second half. They’re just not good enough
wtf are you doing lennon?
Damn he’s had such a good game too but it doesn’t matter because he directly gives up a goal
How have we been? Just got home and only saw the goals highlights. The first one was well worked but the finish was quite fluky. How have we been looking?
Relatively good. Our defense is a little leaky, but there hasn’t been any truly nail biting chances against. Meanwhile there seems to be some good chemistry in the attack so far
I JUST GOT HOME OH MY GOSH WE ARE ACTUALLY WINNING
I refuse to get my hopes up. For one thing, nyc is still carving up our defense, they just haven’t capitalized on it.
On the plus side, our offense seems to be clicking for now. Helps that Slisz and Muyumba are both involved and trying to create.
We should always wear these uniforms at home.
What is this feeling? Am I having fun watching Atlanta in 2024?
McCartney has had a rough start to this game
Why do our players already look like they’re dying
Oof, that was really poor by Hernandez. We’re lucky that wasn’t a goal
The header clear into the middle then missing the runner. Good on him to clear in the play after the save
Why does our really expensive turf field look horrible on tv?
Recently relaid to replace the natural grass from Copa games?
Yea I thought he was offsides
Is it still grass or did it go back to turf?
Turf
it went back to turf the moment the 2nd/final Copa match was played at the benz
Rios has good numbers with horrible eye test.
Wow, was not expecting that
at least I was correct about Atlanta going with the back 4 and McCarty in CM, but can’t believe they decided to go with Abram over Morales…
3 keepers make the gameday roster…boy, are we depleted.
Say what you will about team Management, but I’m at MBS and they’ve FINALLY and COMPLETELY since the crowd control issues. No lines. At all. VAMOS!!!!!
Hahaha
I’m waiting for the new DP signings before I renew my MLS season pass and watch—just meh over all of it. Plus I need to get groceries… priorities.
Interesting musical tarot: You Might Think, Heavy Metal, Flight of Icarus, Whiskey in the Jar, Love Rollercoaster, Nights on Broadway, Live Wire, Land of Confusion, God Is a Drinking Man.
I’m trying to decide if it’s worth even tuning in. Heck, I was struggling with the decision to even wear a jersey.
How to watch? With alcohol is probably best.
I was shocked to read in one of the other articles that Garth has never hired a coach. While I think it could be argued that our player acquisition strategy is setting the stage to be a more consistent team in the coming years, the lack of experience in hiring a coach makes me nervous.
Yup. It is basically the worry that Schmetzer was the real reason fof Seattle’s success (and not Pineda/Lagerway). Kind of like more and more evidence shows that Tata was the reason for ours.
Consistently aiming for home playoff spot.
I guess it is good we are using a search firm to help us then. At least he is not assuming he’s the smartest guy in the room and how hard can it really be, so I’ll do it on my own.
Atl lose tonight and end up losing 10 out of the next 13 games.
Looking at the schedule, I think we lose 5, maybe 6 of the 11 remaining regular season games. We should only expect ~3 wins, but I think we can eke out some draws here and there.
I’d wager more than 5 or 6, though 10 is my top number. The remainder are draws, maybe a win. If I were dropping a large amount on a bet, I’d say 8 loses, 3 draws and 2 wins. If no money were involved I’d stick with 10 losses because I do think it could be that bad.
Nycfc: L
Columbus: L
DC: W
SL: L
LAG: L
Charlotte: L
Nashville: L
Miami: L
Red Bulls: D
Philly: D
Montreal: L
Red Bulls: L
Orlando: L
Depends on who we hire as coach, what players we sign, and how quickly they can get here.
I am curious if we keep the 3 CBs tonight since Gregersen is not available and Cobb is away. So that leaves us with Abrams, Williams, and Morales. I am assuming we will switch back to a back 4 with Lennon, Williams, Morales, and Hernandez. Just to keep 1 CB on the bench
hopefully 4 with morales and williams in the middle like you say.
maybe we could try a 4 / 3 / 4 and see if anyone notices? improve our odds of scoring…
4-3-4 will be difficult considering, that would mean we do not field a GK…hahaha
But with a back 4, I think McCarty starts as a DCM and tuck between the 2 CBs as needed
I think the idea is that we field 4-3-4 *and* a GK, and yes that implies the impossibility you think it does.
The sad thing to me is that I’m not actually convinced that would be enough to win.
The sadness continues. I would gripe about Stian’s suspension considering neither of his yellow’s were actually yellow’s in my humble opinion, but I’m not sure how much it matters in a game that kinda just feels like a formality at the moment. A loss today almost guarantees a de-facto certainty that the season is over (we have 11 now… only 1 team with more than 11 losses last year even landed a play-in spot in post-season, and that was NYRB, which is the most NYRB thing ever).
Hopefully the rest of this year can be spent putting together the various missing pieces with the intent of them being somewhat long-term additions – a couple DPs that we can hang onto for 2-3 years and a vetted coach. If Garth is feeling super squirrely, maybe even a new Technical Director. It seems like we’ve been “rebuilding” for 3 years now, and I wonder if the reason we can’t seem to finish it is because we bring in one amazing piece at a time, and then they barely overlap with the next amazing piece before they ship off to somewhere else. We can’t build consistency with this group and it’s the rest of the valuable, consistently available, grind players that would make a phenomenal supporting cast (Lennon, Wiley, Slisz, Saba, Muyumba, Williams) the ones that suffer here.
Despite how awful we are, we are still –somehow– only 3 points out of 8th place. (Not that I give a shit about making it to the playoffs when we clearly have no chance of getting past the first round..)
Last year 43 points made it into the playoffs. We’d have to average about 1.73 ppg to get there. We’re at 1.04 ppg right now and showing no signs of improvement. Not going to happen.
We are also only 3 points out of dead last, staying out of the cellar ourselves only by a tiebreaker.
As much as I’m enjoying seeing Philly at the bottom of the table, it’s not much of a stretch to think that’ll be us by Sunday.