The Five Stripes are finally back in Atlanta. Did you miss them? Have you remembered?
Maybe you have, if you checked out shortly after Atlanta United’s last home match, a thrilling 3-2 victory over Orlando City. If you stuck around for the ride of seven weeks’ worth of road losses, bore draws, and bye weeks… maybe not so much.
Atlanta seemed to have a bit more urgency about them as things kicked off in Toronto on Saturday to close out the away stretch, but still found themselves trailing for the majority of the second half all the way to the eleventh minute of the minimum six given for stoppage time. The Five Stripes got their break thanks to a penalty drawn by Luke Brennan, and Latte Lath was able to finally end his goalscoring drought which has plauged him since the end of March with a strike that goalkeeper Sean Johnson seemed to have saved before nudging itself inside the post on the opposite side of the goal.
It’s a draw for Atlanta against one of the few sides below them in the table, doing little to inspire hope for the remaining thirteen MLS matches other than Latte Lath potentially opening the goalscoring floodgates. Will being back in the Benz for three consecutive home matches before Leagues Cup get this side out of a five match winless run?
They’ll again miss the services of Stian Gregersen, who gets closer to returning by the day. Derrick Williams, Josh Cohen, and of course Jay Fortune join in the injury report and will miss the Five Stripes’ return home. We’ll also expect to see Brad Guzan back between the sticks after Jayden Hibbert filled in on Saturday as the main man recovered from a fractured cheekbone, despite the youngster’s promising showing.
Chicago is another struggling team of late, having won just one of their last five and losing in their last three matches. The Fire took care of Atlanta back on May 10th at Soldier Field, winning 2-1 after an own goal leveled the match for Atlanta.
We’ll see if Atlanta United’s homecoming can create some magic on a Wednesday night, with kickoff set for 7:40 PM ET. Streaming can be found on Apple TV with a subscription to MLS Season Pass. Radio coverage is provided in English on 92.9 The Game and in Spanish on La Mejor.
Atlanta United’s Lineup:
Chicago Fire’s Lineup:
How to Watch:
Venue: Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta, Georgia
Kickoff Time: Wednesday, July 16th, 7:40 PM ET
Available TV/Streaming: Apple TV (with MLS Season Pass Subscription)
Available Radio: 92.9 The Game, La Mejor 1600/1460/1130 AM
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I do like this Brennan kid, would like to see him deliver some X’s to LL. But if you’re gonna yank LL every game at minute 70, well…
He was whipping in some dimes
We might actually win more games if we keep playing the kids, because they actually make runs into space, and have the grit to just fight in the ugly situations. They’re more iffy on defense, but hey we can’t get much worse defensively than we’ve already been.
Preach it
Team has a shit coach, with shit players and shit goalie…you expect nothing but shit from this team. Why is guzan on the field..besides the goal from #59..he slow and soft, like Abram, Lennon…this is a negative passing no one looks up field..its uninspiring football, from B team players. We will win no games. Just start the younger players, at least you will have energy. #20 need to start instead of #59
considering Miranchuk contributed to both goals, I would disagree with this assessment from this match.
Thinking on the 2nd goal some more, I’ll give some grace for it, because it’s what we’re asking for. That was on Reilly for not marking the open man at the top of the box, and Morales for making too aggressive of a tackle and getting played. Inexperience caused that goal, but it is what it is.
I’ve kinda cooled down on the anti Deila rhetoric as I think this is just a collection of misfit players, but boy did Deila kill the momentum with the triple sub.
I was thinking the exact same thing.
And there’s the defense we’ve come to know. The soft butter to an attacker’s knife.
Too easy. You knew it was coming.
Why can’t our players do that? Probably because they never get into the open space to receive the ball in the first place.
about freaking time someone scored. Good shot by Miranchuk, good job by Almiron to make the selfless run that gave him time and space.
Miranchuk taking that long to decide to run and get involved in the play was not great. That it took a moment of hard work by a single player (Slisz) and a single brilliant shot in a low chance situation shows how much this team underperforms.
But what do I know I guess.
Hahaha once in awhile he pulls a rabbit out of the hat.
There were a ton of us with this same impeccable timing…just ask Henry lmao
Miranchuk is just a disaster of a signing. If the idea was for him to drive our attack, it was a bad idea.
well this didn’t age well.
NO idea WTF Guzan was doing on that goal. He backs away from the ball!
Morales isn’t clean on the ball, but at least he’s trying crap and he makes up for it by making good defensive actions.
Omar Gonzalez is still playing? God I hated him for the Nats.
that is a soft yellow
I don’t know why I’m still watching, but I’m seeing this empty space at the primary assist zone, and no one running into it, but a lot of standing around, and it’s driving me nuts.
Right?! I’ve been bitching about the lack of movement in the attacking third all season. Seems like all our opponents have 4, 5 or more crashing the box the whole match and when AU have possession, our guys stand there watching whoever is advancing the ball.
I’ll point to ELL’s goal that was pulled back on the weekend and the run in behind tonight that the keeper beat him to as outliers that should be the norm.
GREAT START GUYS!
I mean, I haven’t watched this team in weeks b/c they’re so bad and right away a freakin’ Olympico.
So I joined in late, 2 minutes in. How in the world are we already a goal down?
Corner kick (set piece). Death, Taxes, and giving up set piece goals
Olimpico. Of course it is.
Olympico. I wouldn’t even rlly call it that as the ball bounced right across the 6 yard box and into the next. Not good…
Sorta like hitting a worm-burner on a 100yd par 3 that happens to go in….not pretty but still technically a hole-in-one.
That’s an oddly accurate comparison
Wed games are always rough, but that is about as sparse as a first round club world cup match!
Same line-up and formation, so I expect same result with a tepid attack and a lack of movement / dynamism. Hope I’m wrong.
correction, Guzan is back in goal. So, one difference.
I would rather see Hibbert in goal. Chicago is better than Toronto and it would be good to see how he performs against a better attack. We need to know what we have in him anyway, and the end of a lost season is a good time to find out.
Same goes for the other youngsters. At least rotate them into the starting 11 to give some vets a periodic rest, or sub them in for more than the last couple minutes of a game.
I would assume Hibbert is in goal tonight. I can’t imagine Guzan being 100% after surgery last week. So Guzan will be “available” off the bench
well I stand corrected. Guzan is back in goal
Doesn’t want to get Wally Pipp’d I guess.
Praying for the win, expecting a draw, and will not be surprised by a loss. This season is shot, and what I truly want to see is effort and cohesion by the players, and reasonable tactics from Deila.
I saw that Atlanta has still not been paid for the Almada transfer. But considering Almada might be on the move again, we should get paid for that upcoming transfer as well. Also, Atlanta will probably run out the similar line up as Saturday.
Seems the owner of Botofogo is having cash flow issues, amongst other problems. I wonder what the alternative is for AU if Botofogo can’t/won’t pay the fee. Do we just lose out on the remaining money owed?
https://sports.yahoo.com/article/fifa-sanctions-botafogo-over-unpaid-154600484.html
I have no idea how this works, but I would think it should come out of the transfer fee Atletico is paying Botofogo?
I just hope there isn’t a scenario that leads to us not getting the remainder that is due. If nothing else, this might make it unlikely we are willing to deal with Botofogo again under current ownership.
I would assume FIFA will step in an force the ownership group to sell the team to meet the cash flow issue considering that same ownership owns a few other teams in UEFA
Not to get too optimistic, but I think we can win this one at home. Chicago isn’t amazing or anything. I won’t be shocked if we lose, of course. I just want to see some kind of signs of life. I kind of think the FO needs to decide on Deila returning for 2026 over the next few weeks. Either give him the vote of confidence and allow him the latitude to start investing minutes in young guys as we look to next season or pull the plug now. I honestly don’t even care which way they go with him at this point. I don’t think all of our failings are on Deila, the roster is kind of poorly constructed, but it’s also not void of talent. Even with our apparent flaws and managing some deficiencies in the roster construction (and compounded by in-season moves and injuries), we never seem to play better than the sum of our parts. Hopefully, Henderson and Co. have some smart moves lined up for the summer window. Something to give us some hope…
We need about 27 points to stand a chance of making the playoffs given how the East is shaping up. We have 7 home games, 6 winnable (would be pleasantly surprised to get points off the Crew). That still leaves 3 wins on the road. MTL and NE are our best shots so that looks like a stretch. I’m hoping we just bring in some promising U22s in the summer and focus on youth development.