When Atlanta United and San Jose Earthquakes play soccer matches, they’re never normal. This iteration, however, while probably the tamest of their meetings, consisted of some of the worst soccer Atlanta United has played. The squad at least seemed to be on the same page in week one against Cincinnati, but tonight they failed to combine a whole lot of anything. I’m so tired of having to write out articles that point out negatives instead of positives, but there simply wasn’t a lot of positive in this one. Here are the week two reactions from San Jose.
Same lineup
One of the questions coming into this match included folks asking if Alexey Miranchuk’s lack of playing time in the opener was due to a lingering injury. He came out this week and stated he’s 100% healthy, and then Tata Martino rolled out the same exact lineup from week one. Consistency is certainly a big factor in soccer match-to-match, but the implication is that 11 guys who played together last week should play at least marginally better this week. That just didn’t happen.
Atlanta spent the first 20 minutes of the match getting peppered before finally seeing the opposition third of the pitch. Then they had a couple of half-chances (more like quarter chances) before a very bad giveaway by Lucas Hoyos led directly to San Jose’s opening goal. But the question remains, Tata Martino stated all three of Atlanta’s current DPs could coexist on the pitch. This match didn’t really do the argument for or against that any favors: it was just bad overall.
First half
Am I being harsh? No. The first half out on the west coast was absolutely atrocious. This team regressed from week one and it’s truly on everyone. It may not be fair to heavily blame Tata here considering how utterly difficult it is to not let the feelings of 2025 creep into this season, but Atlanta United did not play professional level soccer this evening. As nice as it’d be to say last year is long gone, this looked remarkably, and eerily, similar.
Unfortunately, this match did nothing to build anticipation for Atlanta United’s home opener next weekend, and that’s without writing about the second half yet.
Second half
After the halftime whistle, it’s easy to hope and pray for a wonderful locker room talk that reinvigorates the team into coming out with their hair on fire. That didn’t happen.
It wasn’t really until Miranchuk and Muyumba entered about 20 minutes in that Atlanta United even looked somewhat different. Then they almost immediately gave up the second goal, which was thankfully called back for offside, but the threat of the San Jose newcomer Timo Werner was always lurking. The cycle of Atlanta creating something minor continued for a few minutes until Timo Werner did come calling, with an assist to push San Jose’s lead to two.
Unfortunately, Atlanta United genuinely looked lost tonight. The DP’s didn’t perform like DP’s, newcomers showed flashes of decent play coupled with plenty of mistakes, and everyone was disjointed. This match is simply one to just forget. Entirely.
Let us down below what you thought of this one.
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We’ve certainly not looked good the 1st two games. I figured it would take a little while for Tata to figure out his roster and fully implement his system. I didn’t expect an immediate return to what were the last time Tata was here.
I’m willing to give it 8 more games of SSDD with no improvement before I throw in the towel on the year. I think Tata will be evaluating the roster before the first window opens, and we might start to see a little more clearly then who he thinks fits and who doesn’t.
10 games should be enough to know what we might be able to do this year, but I don’t think two games is enough.
Our 3 DPs:
Miranchuk is coming back from an injury, so the team is just bringing him back with kid gloves. The other two, no excuses.
There isn’t another team in MLS (or the USL for that matter) who would start Hoyos at GK. There, I said it.
The first game, okay, fine shaking off the rust. He was tragic on Saturday. Zero reason to play him over what we saw from Hibbert last year. Plus, Hibbert is young with possible upside to develop. Hoyos is past his prime coming back from an ACL injury.
When SJ had the ball, they looked composed and connected a lot of passes. When we had the ball, we looked like we had 2 left feet and quickly gave the ball away.
How do a group of players who have made a career out of playing soccer look like this was their first time on the field?
Well, it was SJ that wouldn’t let us move the ball and we didn’t have the quality to play past them. SJ was everywhere and we were not.
They were able to press us and all we could do was hoof and hope. I’m pretty sure it was about the 12th minute before we connected a pass in the attacking third.
We looked better in the second half, but I’m not sure how much of that was adjustments and subs vs SJ being more conservative with a lead.
They literally practice the press, constantly, and I’d assume a team that wants possession practices this more than those who prefer to counter. Unless that’s changed. Either way, fine, they pressed us. But anytime we had a chance to pass it to one of the other 10 players on our team we found their team instead. Or we tripped over the ball, or left it behind us…it was like watching an 8YO AYSO match.
Needs:
GK – Hibbert is on the bench!
RB – Move Thomas there and Muyamba to CDM until Fortune returns.
CAM – Put Miggy central.
CF – LL is not your solution! BUY A NEW ONE.
I will say there were a few plays that looked very shaky with Muyumba as CDM, much worse than with Jacob there. So I don’t know that it’s the solution. I’m pretty much on board for everything else though.
Yikes, the 3 DPs were frighteningly bad. Not sure how our scouting department operates, but something feels broken.
Scouting has been a problem, for years. Yet, Jonathan Spector continues to lead International recruiting. Spector has been in this job for years. Had no other jobs before landing this gig. How’s he working out?
he’s still pissed from when Miggy manhandled him in 2018, dribbled out of his press and ran down the field and scored a banger.
We regressed from a 2-0 loss. The sad thing is the players seemed listless and disjointed just like last year, but it’s only game 2 and Tata was supposed to fix the lack of a game plan and player engagement. Perhaps RD was right and the players are soft.
and then they say its just a game
Ughhhh that was nasty ugly . perhaps as bad as it was odds are good we will show a bit better on next one but not optimistic
I just don’t get it. I know there are other bad teams but they don’t have the same level of support or commitment from the owners. We spend, spend, spend and no matter how much we throw at the problem, we don’t get any better, and oftentimes, we seem to find a new, lower floor.
Remember when we complained about Pity and how he looked just average instead of the SA player of the year? Or Barco’s inconsistency? Or Almada’s hero ball? Or GG only scoring when we wasn’t injured? Guys. I would KILL for players like that right now. We have zero difference makers and some of them laugh all the way to the bank. I’m sick of having no expectations for anyone, but they show us no reason to have them.
I tried hard to find anything remotely positive to say… and I got nothing.
That was flat out atrocious in every aspect and I’ve seen nothing yet to be positive about.
We suck.
Same shit, different day. Are we actually a WORSE squad than last year?
I truly don’t see any sort of light at the end of the tunnel. |
I said it last season, they should have gutted this roster and truly started from scratch again.
I don’t know about worse, but for sure this looked like pretty much every game from last year.
Totally my opinion of course so i apologize in advance to the haters : I dont think we are worse than last year but maybe. Gutting roster sounds good. I think maybe / hoping that this is a team transformation with predominant use of existing player roster that has placed us in an ugly duckling phase. I blv this is second season San Jose has been under Arena.
Personally not a big fan of Arena ( never liked how he handled Beasley in world cup years ago ) but he is a respectable successful experienced coach who came with the wisdom and a single season prepared for this game.
We simply are not any good – yet. Need time. There are players not producing that have very high expectations some of the lack of production appears to be as fundamental as ball movement level.
Someone please figure out how rid ourselves of all three DPs and Hoyos.
Probably shouldn’t be surprised. Disappointed but not surprised. This team played poorly last year in part due to RD and, as we have witnessed the past two games, even more due to the personnel. None of the replacements over the winter were clear upgrades over those who left, so we’re seeing more of the same.
Almiron and LL just aren’t good enough. Missing Thiago and GG more than ever.
Chris Henderson is a big disappointment. This team is no fun.