A late night due to the 9:40 ET kickoff in the Denver area left us unable to do a full recap of Atlanta United’s 3-1 loss to the Colorado Rapids.
That said, here’s an abbreviated account. After Darren Yapi put the hosts ahead 1-0 in the 18th minute, Atlanta quickly pulled level a couple of minutes later through an Alexey Miranchuk goal from just outside the box. Not much else went right, though. Rafael Navarro struck for a second-half brace, scoring in the 64th minute to give the Rapids the lead before icing the match away from the spot in the 71st.
Also, Tristan Muyumba, a second-half substitute, had a clear look at making it interesting late on a nice feed from Luke Brennan, but it deflected off the foot of Miranchuk in front of goal. That essentially sums up the 2025 Atlanta United season.
With that said, we leave it to you to rate the players, so fill out the form below or click here. (Note: it doesn’t include Nyk Sessock, who entered with just minutes remaining in second-half stoppage time.)
2 things stood out to me:
I have a feeling Lennon is out for the rest of the season. It looks like he knew exactly what happened (guessing broken collarbone).
Alzate looks the part. Berrocal the jury is still out but so far not a fan. Reilly isn’t getting better and Brennan needs to be our left wing starter. Miggy needs to not be in a winger role. Togashi needs first team minutes, in place of LL.
Again, give the youngins their minutes. We’re losing 3-1 with our core starters, on fluke goals/penalties. How much worse would the youngins be at this moment? We’re not making playoffs, let’s be real.
I want to be mad, I want to have an alternate take, I want to call for change, I want to have a positive opinion, I want to make sense of things, I want to explain why I still care … but the match ends and, nah….I got nothin.
That pretty much sums up the year – I’ll go to the matches, and cheer on the team, but I’ll do so knowing the season is shite and that the only thing keeping us from the wooden spoon is that LA Galaxy are even worse than we are.
We should put max effort into winning any trophy – including the wooden spoon. It will make our MLS Cup victory next year extra cool with the worst to first narrative right ?!
#DeilaOut
Could you please find out and report any details about Lennon’s late shoulder injury? It’s the right shoulder, not the one he injured late last year. Unlike his detractors who love to blame Lennon regularly (and often erroneously) for everything under the sun, I like his hard work and commitment to the team. He played hard in Colorado, made many strong runs, even late in the game down the right side when others were flagging. He sent in a quality cross which Latte Lath couldn’t manage to put on frame. Some fans love to diss him about his crosses while lauding others for theirs. It’s easy to be negative to the extreme (sometimes in all the wrong places) when the team is not getting good results, but I prefer a more balance reaction from fans who love this team and want to continue supporting and encouraging the players.
I mostly agree with you, despite being a Lennon detractor, lately he’s been ok. My problem with his crosses is that they seem to consistently go where our team isn’t, that is usually back post. I don’t know if that’s a fault of the team for not predicting that better or of him for not seeing where our players are and sending the crosses there.
Far post crosses can be less likely for the goalkeeper and some of the taller defenders to get to while focusing to the near side from which the ball is played. But you’re right that those looping crosses are ineffective if runners can’t be counted on to make that back post run. We don’t have a tall striker anymore (like Gio) to win a flighted ball in the middle of the box. There’s Thiare, who’s taller than Latte Lath, but his headers are not always terribly accurate. Latte Lath can jump pretty high for a guy of his stature, but again, not too accurate with his headers.
Besides the fact the system is inefficient in a way that taxes that position in particular, very hard to dismiss the venue. That kind of exertion at altitude is hard…a team training in that environment has measurable physiological o2 advantage… still probably a prudent choice for CO to default to a less open style. All that to say…hard to judge the performances too harshly…the first goal conceded was decent quality…the second goal off a mistake that’s understandable and not too uncommon in that situation. The third…that was the worst. Anyway…agree Lennon deserves more baseline respect given what he’s asked to do and the kind of minutes he plays over the season. The crosses are often not good, though.
We need to talk about Deila’s substitutions. I have to think he and his coaching staff are more knowledgeable than me, but I cant for the life of me figure out how they came to the conclusion that pulling Saba off to go 3 at the back was a good decision.
Other than a singular well taken sequence from Colorado, we were in total control of the last 25 minutes of the first half.
Should have been an Alzate for Reilly straight swap at 60’. Alzate looks incredibly tidy on the ball, yet the team had achieved a level of dysfunction that it became difficult to evaluate him by the time he came on.
Even still, Brennan made the most of his limited opportunities and how unlucky were we not to score a second.
If Deila really wanted Saba out, it should have been a straight swap with Brennan. Although I would not be opposed to having pulled Almiron for Brennan and flipped sides with Saba.
If we need to assess Berrocal, we should rotate him with Greg or Mihaj, or do a like for like change instead of a formation change.
Slizs and Miranchuk continue to perfom well among the dysfunction elsewhere.
Last but not least:
He’s big, He’s tall,
He’s no longer a wall.
Brad Guzan, Brad Guzan
I’ll defend Delia’s decision to switch to 3back. COL had some dangerous chances, and part of that was having lots of runners to mark. I would need to watch that atrocity again to really analyze it, but in the moment I thought the sub was justified. Part of the problem was that Armas immediately changed his formation the second we changed ours, so our adjustment was rendered ineffective.
Just rewatched the first 15 mins of the second half. Colorado did make some adjustments to play almost like a 4-2-4, making them very dangerous with direct balls and from the half spaces.
I can understand the need to make a change, but they were still very susceptible to the counter, and we just needed a bit more composure to punish them when we got the ball back.
I think Alzate would have been a tremendous help.
Switching to 3 CBs made it harder for us to bypass the first layer of their press, and we had one less player in attack in the few instances that we did.
I see what you are saying. I still think the change that was made was the wrong one.
Oh I agree that the change did not work out at all. All I’m defending is the idea to go to 3 at the back, not the way it was executed. I completely agree with all of your analysis of the situation.
One of the main things I’ve seen missing with this team, and would be especially important when you lose a man upfield to go 3CB, is a pattern of passing from the CB to the CM that allows the ball to progress upfield instead of immediately hitting a dead end. I think the way I normally see it is the CB passes to a CM who checks back, who of course has pressure on his back making it difficult to turn upfield. He one-time passes to the other CM to his left or right, who is facing upfield and therefore can progress the ball.
Our CMs seem to never do this, often like Slisz checking back and Muyumba ball watching or something similar. When Alzate came on however, he seemed prepared for this, and made himself open for Slisz to offload to, but Slisz never did probably because he’s not used to it.
All I have to say (well, I have a lot to say, but not the energy) is that I think I’ve seen all I need to of Berrocal.
Ok, I lied, I have more to say. Why are we still trotting out the same tired and failing lineup with hungrier players riding the bench? Brennan, Hibbert, and Togashi should have all been out there. Alzate I guess isn’t up to fitness yet, but I’m a little shocked that he’s still less than 30 minutes fit 2 games in. I’m almost at the point of slinging tomatoes at my TV when they show Deila.