After another loss at home over the weekend, Atlanta United traveled back north of the border to battle a similarly floundering Montreal squad. The ensuing 90 minutes actually turned out quite well for the Five Stripes, which is almost more infuriating considering their inability to actually win in front of their own fans. Either way, they’ve held off the playoff grim reaper for another week (or so) and left CF Montreal firmly in Wooden Spork territory. I want to be more excited than I am, I just need to see this much more often before my heart beats again. Anyway…here are the final whistle thoughts from the northern lands!
-kicks Powerade bottles- WHERE HAS THIS BEEN
I don’t even care that Montreal sucks, too. As a rabid and unbalanced sports fan, I expect Atlanta United Football Club, of the city of Atlanta, Georgia, to play like this against both Manchester City and Ibis Sport Club (look it up). There were some intriguing interchanges and patterns of play, and the passing was actually both performed and received well. Miguel Almiron hit possibly the slowest goal in the history of mankind and got involved on Embolo’s goal, while actually cooking a few defenders at times. Alexey Miranchuk moved laterally more in the buildup to the first goal than he has since arriving in Atlanta. Galoppo continued his streak of being unafraid to take shots, and was aptly rewarded. Do this more often, please.
Miami next
Hopefully the celebration is not short-lived, because despite the next match being in three days against Miami, we can always hang our hats on Atlanta vs Miami being anyone’s game. That being said, I can’t say I have a lot of hope that tonight’s 3-0 thrashing of the next worst team in the league gives Atlanta United much momentum against Lionel Messi. All I want is to see Atlanta’s squad put up a hell of a fight, whether it’s win, lose, or draw. The fans need something from this team as they go into the offseason, and the team displaying to the fans a newfound attitude would go a long way.
There’s not much else to say for this team, winning is the only thing that matters at this point. Doing less than that is just proving to yourself what the fans already know.
I forgot to mention the best thing shown during last nights match.
Hoyos’s haircut.
I didn’t get to watch the full game but saw the last 25 minutes and saw some of the highlights. While this was a game we absolutely should have won, what doesn’t translate are the issues that still plague this team because the other team was so bad and it didn’t accentuate ours.
However, sometimes you have to take what you can get and we got it. Couple things that are clear to me and have been for some time:
–your front 3 need to be more aggressive and make defenders slip up to give yourself an edge. If you can’t 1v1 take on a defender and be dynamic (kind of like Montreal’s RW did at the end to us), then you need to get them to make mistakes and then take advantage.
–Our midfield needs to be better about connecting passes. We did well, but it’s not going to go far against better teams.
–Get on the same page. At times it still looks decoupled. You saw a bit more coupling in this game, but again, against a bad team they look better than they are.
we bullied a bad team…which is what should happen. beyond that, we had some moments of real football break out! linebreaking passes that have been sorely lacking, composure out of the back (at times), switching fields effectively, playing thru the middle and down the flanks. the roster quality is clearly improved, and getting fortune back and into form is huge…but the real question is what we can do vs. the upper half of the table. fingers crossed that we can be a dependably mid-table quality team by season’s end!
Such a weird experience to watch, we maybe had more effort, but the other team was pretty horrible. We scored goals but it all looked like a training exercise. I’m not sure what we did was any different in this than in any other past performances, just luck and a bad opponent.
Not sure the result helps anything for the season – the loss to NY last weekend was the kicker. (Had we won that match at home we would be at the playoff line)
Right now, if we played exactly like we did against MTRL, I don’t think we win any of the final next 5 matches.
And finally, even after the sloppy goal, I’m still not sure about Embolo. I think people were too excited too soon given the floor for productivity was so low.
I watched this match! Unusual behavior on my part given this season’s…. results? Can I call them that? It seemed like there was a structure and strategy for moving the ball up the field that all the players KNEW about. It didn’t hurt that CFM behaved like AU playing at the Benz. Still read more like Chaos Ball than patient organized build up but it seems like familiarity and dare I say chemistry might be developing.
Embolo’s hold up play was efficient. Miranchuk looked fiesty. Not sold on Amaro. He missed a couple of passes that could have resulted in goals but at least he was in position to make those passes so…
Saturday will be telling. Hopefully we see more of this and more people cheering for AU than Messi.
Glad for the win – and would like to see this effort at home as well. However, it changes nothing. The season will end on November 7th – and hopefully, the team will immediately begin lining up the transfers need (both outgoing and incoming) to make the sprint season worth watching.