Atlanta United has its first win streak since October after a dramatic 3-2 comeback win over Orlando City SC on Wednesday night in Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
The Five Stripes improve to 17 points in 16 games and a 4-7-5 record, which leaves them in 12th place, five points away from a wild card slot in the Eastern Conference.
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Head Coach Ronny Deila mostly put out the same lineup that beat FC Cincinnati 4-2 on Sunday, with just one change: Ronald Hernandez started as the left wing back in place of Pedro Amador.
It was a poor start for Atlanta United as Orlando’s intense pressure wreaked all sorts of havoc to the team’s build up. The visitors took advantage of this to cash in early as Cesar Araujo blasted a shot to the near post to open the scoring after just four minutes.
Alexey Miranchuk answered for Atlanta in the 19th minute after blasting in a loose ball inside the box for his second goal of the season.
The Lions roared back in the 32nd minute after Ramiro Enrique rounded Derrick Williams to steal the ball and finish 1-on-1 against Brad Guzan. The Five Stripes were behind again 2-1.
The Five Stripes fought back throughout the second half, but were constantly foiled by Orlando’s stout defense. The tide really changed in the 77th minute when Araujo was sent off with a straight red card after apparently making contact with referee Filip Dujic.
It didn’t take long for the Five Stripes to take advantage of being a man up as Bartosz Slisz blasted a first-time shot off the far post to level it for Atlanta in the 83rd minute. That was his second goal in two games.
Jamal Thiare put the cherry on the sundae as he tapped home after a beautiful lobbed through ball by Miranchuk was brought down by Saba Lobjanidze and nudged into the path of the 32-year-old Senegalese striker in stoppage time.
What. A. Game. Although it had a bit more drama than Atlanta fans may have hoped for, the Five Stripes have their win streak heading into a six-game away stretch.
What did you think of the match? Let us know in the comments below!
Pretty dominant second half. Love the heart being shown. Slisz getting angry and playing hard. Alexi has looked night and day the last 2 matches.
Looking forward to an away game against a team who always gives us trouble with their press. Latte Lath will get 2 in NY.
Think 3 in the back is the way to go for this team and this look seems to have created some improved movement and execution in the final third. The goals conceded…esp the second…a bit of same old atl. But stuff does happen and less critical when scoring. The red turned the course of the game but so be it. Some improvements and good to see fortunes bounce the atl way
Nice to see the hard work and effort rewarded in the end for 2 games in a row. I’m not gonna pull a Garth here, but I think we might have taken a couple of baby steps in the right direction now.
That wasn’t as pretty or tactically sound as the overall performance on Sunday, but we won and it was a ton of fun to watch. How many games have we watched down a goal or two and there’s been no real shift as subs come on and the clock winds down. We just continue without much semblance of an attack and seemingly accept our fate. Last night, you could see a real fire from our squad. Even before the Orlando Red Card(s), you could sense we had them on the back foot, and then after the sendoffs, they were just in full on desperation mode and we put the hammer down and didn’t look back.
These could be coincidental outliers, but it does feel like we could be turning a corner. We’ve kind of settled on a formation and generally a preferred starting IX (at least of who is available). We’ve had some success and can build on that. These games weren’t perfect, and there’s things to improve (also maybe some roster moves this summer to address underlying issues). If nothing else, we’ve won two in a row and scored 7 in those games, and there’s some optimism back.
I realize we don’t have a decent 3rd striker to back it up, no MLS teams do, but every now and then I feel we should run Thiare and LL as dual strikers with Miggy at the 10. Bench Miranchuk or Slisz as needed, continue giving minutes to Fortune, start Amador, find a new winger in summer window.
I don’t know about benching Alexei at this point. Miggy is giving me Moreno vibes – lots of dribbling to no where , unforced turnovers , drifting into other people’s space
I love Miggy, but the Moreno comparison is probably the best I’ve seen thus far. Certainly not enough of the 17-18 Miggy in him any longer. Getting old is a bitch, kids.
looks like someone did not watch the past two matches to say we need to bench Miranchuk or Slisz. Those are the two players that we won the last two matches.
Great win. We have beaten two top teams back-to-back. Again, AU played like they wanted it. Despite the mistake Williams was a rock at the back.
Guzan should have saved the first, it was far enough out that the player was not blocking his view. Don’t agree with the comments below.
He’s big, he’s tall
He can’t see the ball
Brad Guzan, Brad Guzan.
Guzan has single handedly kept us in far too many games this year for any pitch forks to be out
Agreed
Yeah, he’ll let one in from time to time that you think he should probably be able to get to, but he’s still at least an average MLS keeper on totality, and he brings a veteran presence and leadership to the squad. I don’t know how far his voice carries up the field, but he’s constantly yelling and giving instructions. Our season has mostly sucked so far (hopefully this is a turning point and not an aberration), but Guz is far from the top of the least of reasons why we’ve been bad.
Rating some of the players, because that seems to be what we do:
LL – dude needs to move around and make the defense guess. He’s not getting service, and that issue lies elsewhere, but I can’t stand strikers who just sit next to the CB waiting for the ball. Miggy moved around, LL needed to do the same.
Miggy – I still don’t know what to think. On one hand, he’s the strongest 10 we have, but a 10 still needs a supporting cast to remain strong. Maybe it’s the sum of parts around him. He moves around, he gets on the ball, but his finishing still seems to be lacking.
Alexie – Much better game from him and better control of the ball. Goal + assist, this is what you expect our of your DP’s.
Fortune – looked a bit more lost in this game vs. CIN and I couldn’t figure out why. This game was a lot of control + passing though, none of which was dangerous. did they just forget the dangerous part?
Slisz – dude has heart, you can see it, but his passing still needs work. I want to see him take more control in that CDM, he doesn’t play like other CDMs and it shows. Glad he got a goal, that’s a confidence booster, and confidence is something even the commentators kept saying this team lacks. I see it now.
CB’s – better, not bad, one sloppy miscue gave up an easy goal, but we can’t build up out of the back if there is no midfield to support. It showed more in this game vs. CIN how much our midfield needs more work and it makes the CB’s work harder/look worse.
Edwards – calling him out specifically because again, the commentators were seeing this too…he needs his confidence boost too to push that ball up the field and get it into dangerous spaces. He was a back line passer until the end of the game (which is when we started looking dangerous). If he’s going to be on the field, he needs to show why the other team should be concerned about it.
Saba – good game, but that 3-5-2 won’t work on all teams. Because of ORL’s form, Saba had to do a lot more running back and forth between defense and getting up in the attack. This is the Saba we all know and love, and glad to see his grit.
Hernandez – one game he looks good, another he looks lost. His crosses? Horrible. Floater time machines letting the team have a smoke and pancake while waiting for it to drop. Clearly he’s not a LB/LWB, and i’m sure we were letting Amador rest then sub, but it’s clear Amador is the person for that role. We need a better LB/LWB sub option.
Klich – Well, just watch this game because you should see what he brings to the pitch. I’m not fully sold on him, but I know what he brings and this game hopefully showed others what he brings. He go so far under ORL’s skin they will be scratching that itch for weeks.
Amador – He hasn’t been the Amador we saw at the end of last season, but he’s getting there. He is much more comfortable on the ball and moving it around and challenging defenses, that’s what he needs to do more of. We don’t have any other good LB/LWB options so until we get reinforcements, that’ll always be a weak spot in our lineup.
Jamal – back to back games with a goal, that’s what you want to see from your CF sub. He’s figured out how to move around and make the defense question things. I don’t know why he’d need to teach LL a few things, but maybe Jamal understands this league & play a bit better and they can learn from each other but Jamal has figured it out, LL needs to return to form. Glad to see him getting the goals though…goals bring confidence.
This has been one lengthly response, but i’ll end with this. One of the commentators on the broadcast (ATV) kept saying it all game – atlanta lacks confidence and I agree. Deila and team need to review that broadcast and pick up on some of what he was saying because it was spot on. He called something out, atlanta shifted and played like that, and magic happened. It was like he predicted what was happening, what needed to happen, and it happened. I don’t usually care about the commentators, but this was like a real-time TED talk. Pay attention to him and maybe hire him…he has figured it out.
A lot of good points but I saw a few things a little differently.
-Miggy – Was dropping so deep it made it hard for him to be effective from that position. Also seems slightly off.
-Fortune – I remember him playing some dangerous balls and it felt like we just couldn’t get on the end of them. Thought he had a good game.
-Saba – I thought he looked better once we went to 4 at the back. Before it seemed like he was running to run but had no options and was isolated.
I saw those too, so you’re not alone.
Headed to NYC right now and staying for game, let’s keep this rolling!
first goal was on guz. second was a howler by dw. but that first goal of ours was some of the best build up play i’ve seen in a while. and the fact that we answered … twice … then finished is unprecedented for this team. signs of hope!
I thought that first was on Guz as well…maybe a younger, quicker keeper would’ve saved it…BUT…I think VAR missed the call. Orlando player offsides when the ball played (not the issue), however he impeded Guz’s view (the issue) – watch replay – he had to duck to get out of the way of the shot and there was one view from Guz’s angle they stopped showing – he couldn’t see the shot because of the Orlando player and by the time he did, just too late.
It was a good shot and I’m not sour grapes about it cuz I think it evened out with the [possible] handball in the dying minutes – I couldn’t really get a good view of it but it looked mighty suspicious in our box…I think the ref was just ready for that mess to end…
Anywho- Vamos!
Same formation (kind of) but man did Orlando make us keep the ball. That was a huge difference in this one, and it almost worked for the opposition. Great to see us work through it and make the comeback. Miranchuk had another great match. getting the other team to lose their cool like that is a great sign.
I know there’s lots to analyze and question, but just take a moment and appreciate this sport. Football, soccer, whatever you call it—it’s matches like this that make it the best game in the world. What a moment!
We need SG back as our ball playing defender and 99 is not the deep lying playmaker. That needs to change ASAP he should anchor only. Also I think we should scrap the 3-5-2/5-3-2 setup and go to a traditional 4-4-2 setup
YES!!!
I think the red card was because Araujo grabbed Klich by the throat after Klich shoved him from behind. It was impossible to tell from the broadcast though – just a terrible job by the director and commentators. They neither showed nor said what was happening.
No idea why Pareja got a red.
well it looked Deila and Pareja were yelling at each other, but it looked like maybe Pareja made contact with the 4th official during the verbal confrontation, which is probably a no no.
this ^ … contact with 4th as well as verbal abuse i think. wouldn’t be surprised to see him get a match added.
and i don’t know which broadcast everyone was on (i was on apple) but the announcers said the red was for grabbing klich by the throat. they acknowledged the foul from klich was stupid but that araujo’s response was terrible and deserving of the red.
The “alignment” with Apple’s commentators and video production is always disjointed, missing active play for shots of the coaches, tracking the wrong player as the commentators wax poetic about another. We too had no idea who the red card was called on for a lengthy spell. The camera was tracking Schlegel instead of Araujo. Also they declared Thíare man of the match yet replayed Slizs’eses goal. Personally I think Klich should be MOTM for his topnotch shithousery.
Two games in a row that were exciting and fun to watch with spells of quick, progressive passing! I’m not sure what to do with all these feelings!
We didn’t see what happened live, but the video board was showing the ref grabbing his throat and saying the same thing. I don’t remember a replay of it at the stadium. Watched it on ATV later, and they had a couple of shots of it.
But nothing about Pareja. We saw two white shirts yelling at each other, but that was it.
As my wife stated, “Unleash the Slisz!”