ATLANTA UNITED IS BACK! The Five Stripes stepped into 2025 with a swagger, a little bit of a point to prove, and a quartet of attackers that would make most leagues the world over drool with envy. Montreal arrived in town on opening day greeted by a city that felt unstoppable, thanks to an offseason that blew the doors off MLS’s records. Was it all it was cracked up to be? Maybe a little dicey on defense but WE’RE CELEBRATING A WIN HERE IN ATLANTA AND A LATTE LATH BRACE! Here are the final whistle thoughts from Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
SLAM/LLAMAS
It was the attack we’ve all been waiting for. Saba Lobjanidze, Alexey Miranchuk, Emmanuel Latte Lath, and Miguel Almiron all took the pitch for the opening whistle and instantly showed their class. Miggy and Latte Lath were grasping first touches that were to die for, Saba Lobjanidze found himself in tons of space, and Alexey Miranchuk was free to be his naturally creative self.
And Latte Lath, by the way, we can talk about his speed but that guy’s got ups. What a phenomenal header to open his scoring account for Atlanta United.
Speed
We knew speed was going to be one of the biggest strengths for Atlanta United going into this season, but holy crap Latte Lath has the transmission of a Bugatti Veyron. That guy turned on the afterburners at one point against a defender and it wasn’t even close. Miguel Almiron, we already know what’s up with his speed, but he showed some classy touches that made people look silly. Saba did what Saba does, and Miranchuk finally had some space to breathe and provide the service he was brought in last year to provide.
Also, let’s not count out Latte Lath’s finishing. He has the wheels to make any team scared in transition but don’t sleep on him being a poacher in the box. That second goal finish was exactly what you want out of your $22 million man.
Defense
That Montreal goal was a mental lapse with no one covering the back post. It happens, but it’s certainly one of those mistakes Ronny Deila is going to look to tighten up between now and next week against Charlotte. And it wasn’t just the goal, Atlanta has some nervy minutes early in the second half. Montreal made some key subs at the half which ultimately provided some fresh legs, but it’s not an excuse for some of the space Montreal was allowed in their attack.
One of the notable points about Montreal coming into this week was their dedication to set pieces, and they showed in on their second goal. Some of their main offseason acquisitions are injured, so they were going to have to rely on young legs and training ground plays, and they did admittedly did well.
However…
It’d ultimately be Atlanta’s own fresh legs that won the game, though, when Edwin Mosquera entered the game and scored a banger off an assist from none other than Miguel Almiron. Let’s. Go.
Let us know below what you thought of Atlanta United’s first match of 2025!
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Agree with the comments on Edwards. He is not ready for prime time and spent most of the match lost in space.
For both goals conceded the ball travelled across the six-yard box. Any coach I have ever played for preached that the keeper makes any ball in the six-yard box his own. Catch or punch. Guzan watched them go over his head and didn’t move.
Question is whether we can score enough goals to cover Guzan’s mistakes.
Blaming those on Guzan feels harsh.
Goal 1) Maybe he could have read the cross over his head a little faster, but it was literally a free header on the back post – 4 of the good guys tied themselves up against a winger with a drop option while Hernandez was left to fend off 2 attackers. Klich sees that happening a little too late and while he tries to adjust his run to come help Hernandez, there’s no real chance at him getting there and for Hernandez to pickup the other runner.
Goal 2) Calling that a mistake on Guz is a bad take. He’s exactly where he needs to be to protect his near post from the header on the back post. It’s really unfortunate that Gregersen is unable to get to the back post header (partly because Hernandez is in his way) because it drops right to the feet of an attacker in the dead-center of the goal, surrounded by red and black shirts, for a simple tap-in. It’s a bit unlucky really. If Guzan had tried to position himself more centrally, we’d instead be talking about how bad it was that he got scored on from that back post header.
Hi! I did not think the quality was balanced. Almiron was moving toward the center because center was not working, and Almiron comes from EPL. Give him the number 10, and things will improve. Defense, however, was quite poor. Imagine facing a good opponent? And the guy who headed the first goal is really good!!
I still don´t see much of a coach. And a win is a win.
Yeah, defense was atrocious. I’ve not been super convinced by Gregersen yet, and add that 3 of our 4 backline was backup, it’s a recipe for disaster (including Abram, who check out any of the stats J Sam Jones has brought up on him. Dude literally is a training come on defense)
On the coaching: we were better organized than last year; missing 3 starters on defense did not help; moving the ball much quicker than last year; a lot less back passing; not too happy on the substitution timing.
I am concerned about better opposition though; MLS keeps improving and there are some pretty good teams this year. We just have to see how it goes in the next 3 matches.
Welcome back, Marcelo! Give us a few games before you dismiss our coach’s ability, please. He is one actual game into his tenure, playing with 3 non-starters on the back line and 2 new Designated Players (one of whom has been here 2 weeks and played in only one friendly before this game.) I think the team’s pressing and ball movement he is instilling will be extremely effective in MLS.
Abram got caught out of position or not making tackles, and I think that cost us some, though I didn’t get good looks at the goals against. He can distribute great, but I think getting our first choice cb will make a huge difference.
I think Almiron drifting inside can work great, there were some times when he combined really well with others including miranchuk. There were times when there was wide open space on the right though that we couldn’t use because he had drifted inside, and I’d rather have him on the wing than miranchuk.. That said, though I’m normally kinda jaded on him, I think that’ll work perfectly with Lennon to maintain the width.
I get the sub timing rule, but I could’ve sworn a couple other players took as long without penalty.
I think Almiron drifted too far inside too often. Doing it every once in a while is okay. But doing it as much as he did harmed our ability to have space evenly throughout the attack. It also forced Miranchuk too far back and limited the space allowed to Saba and Latte Lath to run in behind. Hopefully couch figures that out.
Agree on Abram and also on Almiron. It’s tough because Almiron is obviously the guy we want with the ball, and he gets it more when he comes central. When he does so, I think we’re one player moving into his right side space away from creating very dangerous situations.
Yeah, this game I realized why I never rated Abram as a high level CB: his positioning is terrible when it matters. He’s like the anti-Parkie
Your point about Lennon is being overlooked, but I completely agree. If there is congestion I can see a quick pass back to Klich and then a wide pass to have Lennon chase and hit a cross back inside. Good point!
One of the criticisms I read of Miggy’s play in the PL was that he would often forget he has a right foot. I saw a little bit of that in the game, and might be part of the reason why he likes to drift into the middle so much.
It’s a nit to pick because I thought he played well, especially with handling the ball in traffic.
Some, interesting and chaotic thoughts:
I think the noise is due to the fact of the 300 level being open as opposed to covered with curtains that echo the noise. The Benz is a big stadium when it’s fully open. In general, I felt a good atmosphere in my section
The curtains actually absorb noise as any fabric will. 😀
Speaking as a professional sound engineer, I’m actually not sure which would make the sound louder.
Yes, curtains will absolutely absorb noise much more than hard seats will. But people will also absorb sound, arguably more so than curtains. The other thing to think of is that the curtains provide a relatively flat surface much closer than the stands to reflect the sound off of, albeit much of that will be absorbed because curtains. However, with the curtains not there, that’s a lot more space for the sound to travel, particularly with a lot of nooks and crannies than can cause sound waves to bounce around a lot up there and get “lost”.
The analogy I’m thinking is if you stand an empty field and scream, it won’t sound as loud to you as if you covered yourself in blanket and did the same thing. In the empty field, nothing will bounce back to you, where as in the blanket, even though it’ll absorb a lot of sound, it’ll still bounce back to you. Obviously not a perfect analogy to this situation (the difference in size between curtains and curtains isn’t nearly as much as a blanket igloo and a field miles wide) which is why I’m not actually sure which would be louder.
There were a couple of times where the crowd volume went up appreciably after the announcers stopped talking, so my assumption was that they turned down the crowd mikes during game play to allow the announcers to be better heard. The announcers frequently mentioned the atmosphere in a positive way, too.
But if people who were actually there at the game thought it was quieter than normal, I’ll take their word for it.
Not sure if it is a new feature or not, but noticed Apple TV settings while watching the game, next to Closed Caption, had an “enhance dialogue” option. The commentary seemed crazy loud already and couldn’t hear much else. Crowd did seem quite, except for the one guy with the megaphone. Not a good look when you only hear one guy chanting.
There is also an option to play local radio broadcast instead of the booth, which won’t be forgotten anytime Twellman is on the mic this year.
Good to know. Was my first time watching an AppleTV broadcast. My wife has an Apple iPad, which happened to have an AppleTV link built in. I’ll look for the enhanced dialogue and local broadcast options the next time an ATLU game is available outside the premium MLS pass.
Point #3 here is critical. We are 3 starters down on the backline. Idk that Lennon is much better defensively than Edwards, but probably at least a little bit. We know his strength attacking would be better. But ultimately, it seems like Amador will likely be back in before Lennon, so once Hernandez is freed up from taking duty on left, Edwards will go back to the bench as (much needed) depth. Then we end up with Amador-Williams-Stian-Hernandez for a bit.
Abram is a serviceable replacement for Stian/Gregersen, but ideally we would have him depth as well, with Cobb being our 5th man for closeouts.
Until we are fully staffed again back there, we will really rely on SLAM to put us in the win column.
I like the Williams – Cobb partnership.
Agreed on the makeshift backline. Edwards will continue to improve as his fitness improves. This was his first time starting at this level, and he ran out of gas. If he can catch up with the pace of play for a full 90 minutes, he could be a starter for several MLS clubs. Deila seems to be happy with what he got from Edwards based on the post-match press conference and wants to see him build on this experience to reach his potential by midseason.
Plugging in Lennon and Amador (once healthy) will be significant improvements for us on both sides of the ball.
The only thing Abram has over Cobb, in my opinion, is that Abram is more natural on the left side of a centerback pairing than Cobb who is naturally right-sided. I see Cobb as our first CB off of the bench behind Williams and Gregersen.
it did feel like a lot of the players just ran out of gas yesterday, I was kind of wishing Deila would use the subs a bit earlier
Edwards biggest issue was trying to be too aggressive with his forward passing. That will be fixed with more experience
I think Lennon will fit better at RB if we consistently have Almiron drifting into the attacking mid area because our right side for a good chunk of the match was nonexistent.
Abrams is definitely too slow to cover as a left back when needed. As I recall, there were a couple of instances where he was just plainly beat on speed. This also happens when he plays in the Peruvian team and Peru has probably the worst defense in CONMEBOL.
I agree on the noise level. Very quiet and passive. In our section (240) nobody was clapping or chanting except us. None of the STH of past years were there; mostly all new fans who thought this was classical music concert. A lot of very late arrivals thinking this was a baseball game. Other than that, we enjoyed the match and technical skill displayed by our attackers, specially in the first half. Too bad their GK is good; I think he saved at least 2 or 3 goals.
I was in 117 and also thought it was really quiet
I’ll take the W on the opener! Latte Lath is legit! Need some work on positioning and off the ball movement in the attack, but ‘SLAM’ is gonna be fun to watch this season once they start clicking… and they are going to cook!
Defense showed lots of errors for our new coach to digest and address. Onward and upward. Vamos ATL!
Totally agree—it’s just the first game! We can’t expect postseason quality all around. In my eyes it was a great first game.
Any word on why Thiare wasn’t allowed on? If it was the timing then say something so Miggy stays on the pitch.
Yup, that was it. Miggy took a tad too long with his victory lap apparently. I disagree but whatever
Is it an injury style rule with an explicitly written delay in the oncoming player entering, or is it discretionary?
explicit rule. Players have to exit the field within some amount of time. It was why Bartosz was pushing Miggy to get off quicker
I don’t think you can disagree with a clock.
It seems like these sorts of rules need an additional clock visible in stadium just to avoid unnecessary frustration.
This issue is more about consistency by the officials. Hard to disagree with Thiare’s delayed entrance, but we can scrutinize other substitutions to see whether they deserved the same delay.
When does the clock start?
Might be an area of greater focus this season with the refs, maybe especially towards the end of a match. I think they have 10 seconds to get off the pitch and I think it’s fair to say Miggy took longer than that.