Good news: Atlanta United didn’t concede a goal. Bad news: It also didn’t score.
The Five Stripes’ trip to the nation’s capital on Fourth of July weekend should have been the perfect occasion to pull out some fireworks. Instead, it lethargically slumped to an uninspiring 0-0 draw against a struggling D.C. United.
The point bumps Atlanta to 13th in the East with 18 points in 20 games and a 4-10-6 record.
The lineup graphic posted by the club showed the team adopting the 3-5-2 shape it deployed in its most recent games, but on the field, it actually looked like a return to the 4-2-3-1 that the team used at the start of the season. Emmanuel Latte Lath started as the lone striker up top. Miguel Almiron and Saba Lobjanidze played on the wings while Alexey Miranchuk returned to the No. 10 spot in front of a Mateusz Klich/Will Reilly midfield pairing. Luis Abram and Efrain Morales were the center back pairing of choice, with Pedro Amador and Brooks Lennon on either side as fullbacks.
The Five Stripes kept most of the possession in the first half and were able to get into decent positions in the final third, but just couldn’t figure out what to do after that. Despite having almost 60% of the possession in the first half, Atlanta only registered one shot to D.C.’s four.
Although Atlanta United fought hard and managed six shots in the second 45, it only managed to put one on target. There was a stark lack of creativity from Alexey Miranchuk in his primary No. 10 role and very little movement off the ball, which made for a disappointing output in attack.
The one major positive from the game was on the backline. Efrain Morales had a standout performance, foiling the D.C. attack at every turn and denying Christian Benteke on several occasions. His contributions helped the team earn its second clean sheet of the season and just the first on the road.
What did you think of the match? Let us know in the comments below.
GL will be away from the team for awhile as he battles cancer. Apparently the prognosis is good.
https://www.atlutd.com/news/statement-from-atlanta-united-july-10
Get well, GL.
I normally wouldn’t care, but I have to wonder who thumbs down get-well wishes for someone who has cancer?
some people online are just bitter about life and wish ill on everybody
Online does bring out the worst in people. But sports has often drawn a lot of types who feel inadequate irl and use sports as an excuse for sad, abusive behavior…ironically the loudest are the ones who’ve never played competitive sports.
I’m hoping for the sake of humanity, that it was a down vote because it’s bad news, and unfortunate that the team will have another hurdle to deal with in this time of uncertainty. Not that it was in disagreement with well wishes of cancer. I really hope that is the case.
I’m happy to hear that the early prognosis sounds promising for his long term health.
Well, that’s certainly a glass half-full headline.
not that it matters at this point, but evidently Guzan had surgery for fractured cheekbone. But he will be available for the match this Saturday.
Respect for Brad for still being available after that, though at this point I wouldn’t mind giving Hibbert some MLS game experience.
well I wouldn’t be surprised if Hibbert starts and Guzan is on the bench as a just in case, or we will have to sign a short term goalie from the 2s
Not the prettiest display by either side, especially following some proper club wc matches, but glad to see a point on the road.
Why isn’t Cobb playing any? I thought he was our best homegrown player
Baffled by the decision to leave him out. Morales played well, but Cobb should also be getting minutes with the injuries.
Didnt Benteke eat Cobb’s lunch at some point last season? Could have been matchup specific. I like Cobb but he doesnt have the most imposing physique against certain forwards.
Yeah, I’d guess bad matchup was the reason to not play Cobb, but that assumption also assumes a level of competence in the coaching staff that I’m not entirely convinced we’ve seen.
Maybe that last part was a little unfair, but we are what our record says we are.
We’re lacking in so many areas it is hard to know where to start. Since the players are doing the same thing over and over, I have to assume that they are doing what they have been instructed to do. I feel like I am watching the 2020 DeBoer team all over again – boring, directionless and leaderless. Deila needs to go.
Remember when Josef would get pissed off when we played like crap? He called players out for treating Atlanta United as a stepping stone? We need someone with that kind of passion. The apparent ambivalence from top to bottom in this organization is affecting the fans. It’s getting critical and Garth better pull some magic out of his hat.
Completely off topic, but Atlanta United had a booth at the Peachtree Road Race Expo, so I went over to check what they were up to. They said they were raffling 4 tickets to an upcoming match. I told them I already had tickets. They had a bunch of branded card holders you can stick to the back of your phone. As I reached for one, they told me that I still had to sign up for the raffle if I wanted one. I declined. That’s how they’re treating fans these days. I doubt that card holder cost them $1, but they weren’t going to let me have it (free advertising for them) without getting my info, which they already have.
I was there and commented similar on Reddit. What a fall this franchise has taken. Just a shit presentation and effort. Used to go there and get koozies out hats or whatever. But worse, nobody cared. They just walked in by. Yesterday’s papers.
exactly. There was no one else at their table, which was oddly tucked back under a couple tents, all of which was inside a huge tent hosting the Expo. pathetic
Just an f.y.i per the “mlsstore.com”:
https://www.mlsstore.com/en/atlanta-united-fc/atlanta-united-fc-keyscaper-insignia-magnetic-credit-card-wallet/t-36560130+p-808835660578411+z-9-3879320007
$35? what a ripoff
Can’t imagine that’s the same one. Of do, that’s the biggest rip-off in history. I mean it is anyway. But the ones at the expo were shit.
And everything else was shit too. They can put any put price at all in them.
I might pay 35 cents for that, which is probably more than each one costs to produce.
I thought we should have picked him up this year. Even as a super sub. He would be amazing. And cheap (comparatively spealing)
Just give Garth another 2-3 windows. Then we will really and truly be back, BABY!
Ridiculous. I guess we need to give Garth another 2-3 windows.
It bothers me that we still have this coach. Like why? What does he need to be let go? Bad record? Check?
dude has been on the job for about 5 months now. never understood why soccer coaches get no time to build their system
In my firm, a new employee would get a review after 3 months and after the sixth month we could tell whether it was a keeper or needed to go. Personally, 5 months should be enough to begin to show a hint of improvement; do you see any?
I would be happy to see him go too, but I got to admit, it’s not exactly a one-to-one because for the most part his job is to guide people; he’s not the one on the field shanking the ball or passing the ball to the other team. I’d think it’s more akin to hiring a ceo or at least a higher executive position, and how many of those have you seen get hired at a company and tank for years before they finally get kicked out?
I imagine they’re also having to look at whether it’s just they’ve got the wrong players, whether any of the players that matter are bought in to the coach’s plan, whether the coach has the right support group around them, etc.
so does a new employee at your firm control over 20 people the moment they start and try to retrain all other employees so it fits the new employee’s system? that must be a rough life.
I think our issues always were player identification, and now that we finally got that person in Chris Henderson, we need to see how Henderson will build this team. I am not a fan of people keep blaming GL since he was originally brought in to be the team president (handle just the business side), but basically once he arrived, our team was being mishandled by Boca.
Definitely don’t need more player that like to pass towards our own goal…
Well, new staff often includes project manager level positions who direct anywhere between 5 to 20 people. We don’t look for a new project manager to “retrain” the staff under him/her but to provide guidance and insure consistency of quality. The staff is already trained to a professional level and know what to do. They have the skill and self determination to execute the tasks assigned to them. 6 months is a long time to judge someone’s “people management” skills. There are several first year MLS coaches whose teams are doing very well or their teams have shown improvement. I really don’t buy our players suck. Our roster compares very well on a player by player basis to the top 5 or 6 teams in our division, maybe even the top 4.
Yeah, I think we have good players. The fact a lot of them get national team call-ups proves, in my mind at least, that they aren’t bad at soccer.
I do question the fit, and the coaching staff’s ability to utilize each player to their strengths – and tactics.
DC United is a bad team, and we could barely get a shot on goal against them, despite what I think (tell me if I’m wrong) was a decided advantage in talent.
If you have a clear talent advantage, but can’t come close to scoring, you were out-coached, and badly.
If this is the system we can expect to see more of, hard pass, no thanks.