On March 5, 2017, Atlanta United fell 2-1 to their New York Red Bulls in its inaugural match.
I wish I could say that it wasn’t foreshadowing of what would be to come between the two sides, but *gestures to the head-to-head series* it has: Atlanta has beaten the Red Bulls a grand total of three times across all competitions. The 3-0 win in the 2018 Eastern Conference Final’s first leg is, of course, the hallmark, and the 2-1 win last season was key to keep it in the playoff race. Maybe, just maybe, Atlanta’s getting a little bit of a handle on this series? We’ll see. (Of course, this could blow up in my face)
Priority number one for Atlanta, though: shaking off a 2-0 loss to Charlotte FC, a match where Charlotte scored twice in the second half to break a scoreless deadlock.
“Both games (against Montreal and Charlotte), it was not so good how we started the second half,” Saba Lobjanidze said after Thursday’s training session. “It’s the kind of thing we have to improve, so I think in the next game, we will improve.”
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The book on the New York Red Bulls
Dante Vanzeir is back in his native Belgium and JMi Tolkin was sold to Holstein Kiel in the Bundesliga, while Elias Manoel was…um…controversially traded to RSL and eventually forced a move to Botafogo. Meanwhile, veteran Cory Burke wasn’t brought back after 2 seasons with the team and Andrés Reyes was picked up by San Diego FC.
The big offseason signing, meanwhile, was Eric-Maxim Choupo-Moting, whose vast experience in Europe (and hopefully attacking prowess) can be the missing piece RBNY has been looking for. They also brought back Tim Parker and added the well-travelled Raheem Edwards while inking former Mainz 05 defender Alex Hack to their backline.
To be clear, though, this team will hinge on how Choupo-Moting and Emil Forsberg get on in the attack. (Sound familiar?) There’s still elements of the Energy Drink Soccer that this team is known for, but scoring 50 goals like they did last year — while not a small number, and with the caveat that this group did get to MLS Cup — won’t be enough to keep up with the better teams in the East.
Atlanta United injury report
We should see Pedro Amador make his season debut on Saturday after missing the last several weeks with a hamstring injury. Atlanta definitely misses his presence on the left side; Luis Abram was the pseudo-left back against Charlotte but was for all intents and purposes a third left back with Derrick Williams and Stian Gregersen.
Unfortunately, we won’t see Ronald Hernandez, still out with a quad injury, and Jamal Thiare, who picked up a quad injury of his own. That said, Brooks Lennon appears to be getting closer to a return.
Mateusz Klich will be a question mark as he recovers from flu symptoms. He didn’t train for a good portion of the week so it’s just a matter of getting his strength back.
Atlanta United predicted starting XI vs. Charlotte FC
Prediction: Atlanta United 1-0 New York Red Bulls
Call it a hunch: there won’t be many scoring opportunities in this one, but Atlanta nicks one to come away with a rare win in the all-time series.
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The only thing(s) I am going to say heading into this match are that this game against the Red Bulls will be the start of a very important stretch of home games that will either be a real confidence booster for the team, myself, and fellow 17s (or) start to be a cause for concern and instead be a confidence booster for the rest of MLS (if we don’t take care of business at home and win more games during this stretch vs. losing/games ending in a draw). Last year, we lost our season by not taking care of business during the extended home stand that we had because in seasons prior to last year we could for the most part at least count on the Benz offsetting our poor away match play. Let’s not have a repeat of poor performances at home for an extended stretch.
Agreed! Today is very important and in the MLS in particular, you have to win at home
Hopefully our defense can clean up some of the mistakes. Vamos Atlanta!
I think Doug Roberson said that Amador will be available this week, so I would not be surprised if Amador starts but gets subbed off around the 60th min mark
Is he still doing his podcast? I haven’t seen it yet this year.
no idea, it was off of his recent article about our fullbacks should be back soon. in the article he mentioned that Lennon should be back next week against Miami.
I saw that the AJV pulled the plug on it