Playing in front of a home crowd for the first time in nearly 100 days, Atlanta United made sure a slow start against Red Bull New York didn’t get in the way of their first win in over three months.
Thanks to Tristan Muyumba’s golazo and Fafa Picault’s deflected header off a touch by goalkeeper Ethan Horvath, Atlanta walked off the pitch a 2-1 winner, in front of an announced crowd of 38,469 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
It was far from a perfect match. But it’s three points for Atlanta, its first victory since May 2’s 3-1 win over CF Montréal. And it served as a palate cleanser after a bitter 3-2 loss to the Philadelphia Union on August 2, a match where it led 2-0 despite playing with 10 men.
“Tonight was also a difficult game because we played against a really good team, but we fought to the end, and when you fight for each other and you give everything, sometimes you get a reward. So we are glad,” Muyumba said in the locker room after the match.
“Hard work” finally pays off
Coming out of the World Cup break, Atlanta United put out a decently encouraging performance against Supporters’ Shield-leading Nashville SC before a 1-0 loss.
Six days later, they showed resilience to fight back from 2-0 down to draw Charlotte FC 2-2. After a big step back in a 4-1 loss to the New England Revolution, they struck for two goals after Enea Mihaj’s sending-off in Chester before the Union stormed back.
On Saturday, while it looked increasingly likely that Emil Forsberg’s sixth-minute goal would stand up, Atlanta broke through.
“We’re in a difficult spot in the standings, but the players are still trying,” Tata Martino said through an interpreter. “They’re still working hard for it. And not only did we need it, but I think the players deserved it for the work that we do.”
Martino praised Muyumba, who missed a clear chance at goal in the 27th minute but recovered to score a blistering equalizer, similar to the goal he scored against the Union two weeks prior.
“We’re happy, because Tristan now has (three) goals on the season. So it’s something that’s important for the team, that midfielders are getting into attacking positions,” Martino said.
“Step by step”
It will be a quick turnaround for Atlanta United, who travel to face Minnesota United on Wednesday. They’ll return home for a Sunday night match against Sporting Kansas City, the only team below them in the standings.
While Saturday marked a weight off Atlanta’s shoulders, the focus is building on it and potentially stringing a couple of wins together — without looking too far ahead, Muyumba noted.
“Tonight we got a good result, but now we have to recover for the next game and be ready, because it’s coming soon,” Muyumba said.
“We will see on Wednesday if this game helped us, but … we need to go step by step. We have another game on Wednesday, and then let’s think about it and we will see for the rest.”
Today I learned that Miguel Almiron is fifth in the league for expected goal creation. This makes me somewhat more optimistic about the bump of bringing in a striker capable of finishing chances.
I caught the broadcast the commentators spent most of the time heaping praise on RBNY and slagging ATL, talking about the win probability being overly kind to the home side, and on and on it got to be a little sad and comical. Winning matches the hard way is a good sign going forward, important that the mentality changes before adding new signings. Other than the lapse on the first goal I thought defensively we looked better than we have in quite some time, and Junior Alonso looked the business.
I don’t recall NY doing a lot that deserved praise, but tbf, I think we earned some scorn for much of the match when we looked every bit the cellar dwellers we are at the moment. Pleasantly surprised we pulled it out though.
Maybe so, but RBNY at their best are still very “MLS”, high on running and passing, low on creativity and technique. Now, our passing out of the back was, most of the time, abymsal. That and plenty of turnovers in midfield, a better team would’ve scored 4 goals. RBNY is the kind of team a well-drilled Tata squad with the right signings will have for lunch every day of the week and come back for seconds
MLS has no benefit to praise or highlight AUFC right now…we aren’t Messi, we aren’t Miami, we don’t have a HUGE european player and we aren’t playing well. Even as other teams get their highlights, we got nothing by MLS this weekend.
They’re high on all these big names right now bring additional viewers to the league.