There’s nothing that beats a good, old-fashioned derby in Major League Soccer. And while Atlanta United-Charlotte FC is still fresh — Saturday’s matinee at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte is the seventh all-time meeting between the two sides — it’s produced some good moments.
Atlanta fans will remember the derby’s curtain-raiser in March 2022, where Jake Mulraney played the hero deep in second-half stoppage time as the Five Stripes fired the opening salvo. The Crown got revenge weeks later in a 1-0 win in the Queen City.
Since then, the comforts of home haven’t meant much: the away side has won each of the last four matches. Atlanta will hope that trend continues on Saturday as it looks to start a season with back-to-back wins for just the second time in club history.
“It’s about them running after us instead of (us) running after them,” Ronny Deila said on Thursday.
Part of that will be bottling up 6-foot-4 Patrick Agyemang, who scored 10 goals for Charlotte in a breakout campaign in 2024.
“You have to try to take away crosses,” Deila said. “It’s about being clear that we need to be very aggressive on the side, so we stop crosses. And then, inside the box, we need to be organized and aggressive.”
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The book on Charlotte FC
Agyemang’s presence will loom over the proceedings, but there’s one name that hasn’t been mentioned yet: Wilfried Zaha. The Ivorian international didn’t play in Charlotte’s 2-2 season-opening draw against the Seattle Sounders as he was in the U.K for the birth of his child. After his wife delivered a healthy baby girl, he joined the team in time to train on Thursday and will be available for selection.
Kristijan Kahlina, who single-handedly won Charlotte a number of matches in 2024, will be back between the sticks. He’s the defending Goalkeeper of the Year for a reason (he certainly received my vote) and Atlanta’s well-aware of the challenges he can pose.
Outside of Karol Swiderski, sold in the offseason, most everyone is back from last year’s group, too. And with a DP slot open, they could easily add another piece to help them push further up the East standings.
Of course, we’d be remiss to not mention the ties that bind the two clubs, as we’re two years on from the tragic death of former Atlanta and Charlotte man Anton Walkes.
Three things to watch
What can Latte Lath do for an encore?
Latte Lath couldn’t have started his MLS career off much better after a brace against CF Montréal, earning himself a spot on the Team of the Matchday and becoming the first Atlanta player to score at least twice on his debut. Saturday is another opportunity for him to develop that much-needed chemistry with his attacking mates, and getting himself a goal will further fuel that confidence. Maybe three goals? Who knows.
How much do we see of Zaha?
I suspect not much: given that he hasn’t trained much with the team this week and that jet lag will still be a bit of a concern, he’ll likely come in during the second half.
More of the same?
As mentioned, the away team has won each match in this derby since 2023: Caleb Wiley’s brace helped Atlanta to a 3-0 win at the Bank in 2023 before former Five Stripe Justin Meram bagged a double to help The Crown to a 3-1 win inside the Benz. Last season, Charlotte beat Atlanta on the road behind a pair of goals from Liel Abada before Jay Fortune struck for the lone tally in the return fixture in Charlotte.
BONUS: Does Miguel Almiron score agaist Charlotte FC?
He has to, right?
Atlanta United injury report
Pedro Amador returned to training this week but won’t be ready to play, but “hopefully” can make his season debut against the New York Red Bulls on March 8, per Deila. Derrick Williams, who was banged up last week and came on as a second-half substitute, is fully available.
Dom Chong Qui will be called up once again on a short-term agreement for depth purposes, Deila said. And we might see the 17-year-old make his MLS debut: Atlanta United announced Ronald Hernandez would miss the game due to a quad injury.
Atlanta United predicted starting XI vs. Charlotte FC
Prediction: Charlotte FC 1-2 Atlanta United
Charlotte FC gets theirs, but Atlanta finds a way to get a couple past Kahlina to leave town with three points on the afternoon.
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I’m guessing a 3-3 draw
looking forward to the double D (Dominik Debut)
It will be interesting to see how much Zaha might get. He has only played 86 minutes total between all Galatasaray & Lyon matches. Fresh legs? Lack of conditioning? Miggy played against him about 8 times in the EPL.
Sounds like Hernandez is injured.
Thoughts on replacement LB:
-Dom gets his debut
-Play Abram out wide, he’s done it before. I think he’s too slow to be super effective, but I think I prefer him on LB than CB anyway. That moves Cobb to next CB up in case of needing a Williams sub.
Or we switch to 3-5-2, and play saba and medwards as wingbacks:
LL – Almiron
Saba – Slisz – Miranchuk – Klich – Medwards
Abram – Williams – Gregersen
I like Cobb a lot better than Abram, but I don’t think Deila will switch that. I’m more ok with Abram in a back 3 or as a LB, when we’re not relying on him to be one of two defensive stalwarts.
I guess it will come down to whether or not Atlanta is ok with burning Chong Qui’s eligibility with this match or not. Are we allowed to do a short term deal with Wynne as well?
Yes, Wynne and Chong Qui have the same eligibility as players signed on 2s contracts.
Though now that I’m looking at it, I’m not sure that you’d want almiron remaining that high, or saba that low. You could swap them, but then also I don’t think you want almiron on the left cause you lose his shooting. 3-4-2-1 fixes almiron being too high, but not Saba having a lot of defensive requirements on a side where Abram is his next backup.
we could run a 3-4-3 so the front attacking formation could remain the same and we play Muyumba or Fortune in the LM position and shift Edward up to RM
I like that, but who’s coming out of center midfield?
I mention 3-4-3 in just an attacking formation and we defend as a 4-3-3 so Edwards would still be RB and Abrams or Cobb play LB when we don’t have the ball. And Fortune/Muyumba would replace Hernandez in our lineup
Miranchuk would still play the AMF position so we would replace Fortune/Muyumba for Hernandez
I had initially thought a 3-4-2-1 would be the ideal lineup and keep that midfield stacked up.
In 2018, miggy was the Cam in the 5 instead one of the 2 up top, wasn’t he? That works then, but now with miranchuk…
Actually, what if we did
LL – Miranchuk
Saba – Slisz – Almiron – Klich – Medwards
Abram – Williams – Gregersen
That actually sounds perfect to me.
Oh sorry, I was thinking regular season and didn’t notice you specified playoffs. yeah, I forgot that during the playoffs, they moved escobar to rwb, and gressel to cm.
Think we need 3 or 4 to win. Thankfully we’re perfectly capable of that
Just run it up!! Leave no doubt!!!!
I do wonder if it would be better to have Williams come on as a sub in the second half because I don’t know if he will be 90 min fit.
At this rate, we are running out of defenders to throw back there… He may just have to push through it. We will need as much veteran leadership back there as we can get considering our fullbacks are both a little green. He is just better at organizing than Gregersen and Cobb.
another double latte? fingers crossed. and one from miggy for good measure.