Atlanta United needed a win to keep their faint playoff hopes alive, and got just that by sweating out a 2-1 win over the New York Red Bulls in their final home match of the regular season.
Rob Valentino made a few changes to his starting XI: Edwin Mosquera received the start on the left wing while Ronald Hernandez stepped in for the suspended Brooks Lennon. Jay Fortune moved into a three-man midfield as everything else remained unchanged.
Atlanta looked like the aggressor in the early stages, coming close to finding the opening goal but never quite coming up with the final ball. A potential flashpoint came in the 32nd minute as Jamal Thiare took a run in on goal but was taken down by John Toklin, but no DOGSO red card would be assessed as Tolkin’s resulting yellow card stood after a brief check.
In the 65th minute, though, a red card was eventually shown to the Red Bulls as Dylan Nealis’s challenge of Edwin Mosquera saw the right back’s studs go into Mosquera’s leg. Referee Ismir Pekmic gave Nealis his marching orders as the Red Bulls were reduced to 10 men.
Not long after, Jamal Thiare was taken down in the box and Pekmic pointed to the spot. After a brief scrum that saw two Red Bulls players plus RBNY head coach Sandro Schwarz and Atlanta’s Stian Gregersen booked — followed by a VAR check — Alexey Miranchuk stepped up and cooly struck the penalty past Carlos Coronel for the 1-0 lead.
The Red Bulls appeared to have leveled it in the 82nd minute as Elias Manoel scored with Brad Guzan pulled well off his line. But a VAR check showed the Red Bulls were offside by the slightest of margins.
New York appeared again to level it during an eleven-minute (!) stoppage time, but offside was called in the buildup. Tyler Wolff, though, put it to bed in the 97th minute with his first goal of the season as Atlanta fans would end up going home happy.
The Red Bulls added a goal to deny the clean sheet, but it was a consolation as Atlanta claimed three points.
Atlanta now has the international break standing between it and Decision Day as they head to Central Florida to face Orlando City on October 19. We’ll get into the playoff permutations and all that when the time comes, but the important part is that Atlanta is alive for at least one more match.
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Pretty solid performance. Walking out, we were perplexed as to why that team did not show up more often this year.
Also, Hernandez for Lennon was exactly what we needed. Limiting the number of backwards passes from Lennon that would have put us under unnecessary pressure from their press. Instead, we always looked to play forward first.
Also, really liked the interplay in the midfield. Looked like chemistry was building.
Before this season if you would have said the coach was putting in Hernandez instead of Lennon I would have shook my head. After this game, it’s clear he knew what he needed to do and looked solid. Lennon looks out of place these days, tons of backwards passes, and very little pressure. He used to be Mr. Reliable, now he’s Mr. Predictable.
i’m 99.9% certain the reason we lost as many games as we have this season is because the other team knew exactly how we played, due to predictability.
[…] Atlanta United keeps playoff hopes alive, top 10-man Red Bulls 2-1 […]
Guys, I’m stoked that we won. But what made my personal match experience so much better was switching to the home radio and listening to Mike Conti and Jason Longshore. They are hilarious.