Alas, when a dozen of your players are missing, you’re going to suck.
Atlanta United suffered another big loss on Saturday as it fell 4-0 to Inter Miami at Chase Stadium in its final away match of 2025.
With 12 absences due to international call-ups and injuries, Ronny Deila was forced to make a plethora of changes to his starting XI. The back three featured Pedro Amador as an LCB next to Juan Berrocal and Stian Gregersen. Dominik Chong Qui and Leo Afonso flanked them as wingbacks and the midfield line consisted of Cooper Sanchez, Steven Alzate and Tristan Muyumba. Finally, Jamal Thiare and Emmanuel Latte Lath led the line in a strike partnership.
Surprisingly, this heavily rotated Atlanta United held up decently against a mostly full-strength Inter Miami. Jayden Hibbert put up an impressive display of quality saves in the first half and the backline stayed strong despite Stian Gregersen’s early exit in the 17th minute due to injury.
That was until Tristan Muyumba had an awful giveaway building out from the back, which allowed Baltasar Rodriguez to get Lionel Messi onto his magical left foot, which released a curling shot into the top corner to open the scoring in the 38th minute.
Jordi Alba doubled the Herons’ lead in the second half after rushing to get on the end of a long ball played by Messi. The Spanish left back, who announced his retirement from professional soccer earlier this week, caught Hibbert off his line and chipped it in for 2-0.
It didn’t take long for Luis Suarez to make it 3-0 with a jaw-dropping volley from distance that gave Hibbert no chance.
Finally, Messi got his brace in the 87th minute after getting on the end of a Jordi Alba delivery behind the entire Atlanta backline for his 26th goal of the season.
I suppose a positive to take away from this is that Hibbert continues to prove himself a capable goalkeeper at the MLS level. He had a couple of good saves on some of Messi’s shots and had an overall solid performance despite conceding four goals. Juan Berrocal and Sal Mazzaferro looked good at the back, while Cooper Sanchez and Dominik Chong Qui performed about as well as you would expect for a couple of seventeen-year-olds.
Atlanta United will host D.C. United on Decision Day in a game that will very likely determine the winner of the Wooden Spoon, given to the worst team in the regular season. This matchup on October 18 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium will be the last game of the Five Stripes’ 2025 campaign.
[…] United ended a dismal 2025 season — and the decorated career of Brad Guzan — with a 1-1 draw against D.C. United at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. As Guzan said afterwards, Saturday was a microcosm of […]
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Now that LAG won a game, our last game is really the game to claim the wooden spoon. Whoever loses is officially last place in all of MLS. Luckily (or unluckily?) we only need a tie to avoid the spoon.
If we lose and Galaxy lose, wouldn’t we be tied for last place? This being the most representative outcome of the year as it would mean that we couldn’t even manage to win the wooden spoon.
There’s tiebreakers if you get same points, and the first one is most wins, where we (or DC) lose at 5 wins to LAG’s 6.
Normally the tiebreakers are used for playoff position, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t count here.
True. I guess it would apply for draft positioning, so we would technically have the wooden spoon. Though still would feel like a cop out to truly having the worst points total.
I will say, reading the short summary of who scored and assisted their goals… can’t be upset at all. Three world class players involved in their goals.
There is one clear reason for this result….
MLS
I’m not going to pile on the coach, Muyumba, Amador, Thiere, ELL, or any of them for this match. It clearly should not have been played.
tbf, it’s a rescheduled game. This was supposed to be played a few months ago, but Miami advanced in the Club World Cup, so this game had to be postponed.
I would definitely be quite frustrated at the circumstances if we were still playing for anything at all.
But given where our season has gone, I cant help but point out how it didnt feel like that much of a step down from our “first choice” (which is an oxymoron) 11.
I can only speak to the first 3 goals as I turned that game off very quickly. Hibbert did well, but there he was stretched to learn something from this game.
No comment on the lay-up given to Jamal, or the 5 minutes of driving the ball that stopped and never returned. We had 5 centerbacks and 3 DM’s and 2 strikers on the field. That’s a recipe for “we’ll just remain in our half the entire game”.
This has to be on Deila.
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[…] Inter Miami thrashes Atlanta United 4-0 […]
Being on the Spoon.
Sorry “Bring”