Mercedes-Benz Stadium – Atlanta, Ga. Thursday, Oct. 26 – 7 pm ESPN2 The Five Stripes missed out on 2nd place in the East and the valuable extra rest that comes with it, but they still managed to be the home seed for the knockout round and this week host the current national sentimental favorite Crew SC. United has announced that the full stadium will be open and currently some 60k tickets have been sold (depending on the source). Translation: For a first ever playoff game Atlanta should expect a raucous atmosphere! The biggest news is that Atlanta could be at near full strength. Almiron should return to the starting lineup, so if Michael Parkhurst is good to go only Greg Garza will be the only starter absent. (Pirez returns from suspension.) Sunday United played well but somewhat profligate in front of goal versus league leading Toronto. They'll need at least that plus some sharper defense to ensure they beat a Crew side that has played well of late (unbeaten in 10!) and Sunday looked like a team (modestly) energized by the regrettable "Will they or won't they move?" press. For MLS level ball Higuain and Kamara have proven an effective duo and some pundits think their teams' experience will more than counter the Atlanta home field/crowd advantage. Look for Atlanta to try to keep the ball wide and away from Higuain, hoping that Tito and Asad can press high and give Martinez more chances than Sunday.
Any new news on whether Parkhurst is playing? I don't like the idea of Larentowicz playing CB (I'd rather him be a back 4 protector), but realize he is the best candidate if Parkhurst is out.
Im. Plo. Ded. Congrats to the Crew for being the other team on the pitch when it happened, and good luck the rest of the way. Now that I know first hand how it can end, I'll never be able to enjoy a regular season again, because it can all be rendered meaningless in one match.
I'm just sick at heart. I'm sick. I feel like the whole season was for nothing. We went from being the league's flagship to just one of 21 teams that ain't gonna lift the MLS Cup this year with one of the worst... I can't wait for next year, but I swear I won't ever get this giddy about a regular season's exploits again.
If you really feel that the whole season was for nothing, something is seriously wrong. Atlanta set records in MLS and opened a great new stadium. Atlanta is now the team everyone in MLS wants to be! I hate that Atlanta lost, but I'm already looking towards next season!
Would you prefer if Toronto were crowned champions a month ago while Atlanta "celebrated" 4th place? I know many soccer purists hate the playoffs, but it's one of the things American sports leagues actually do better than the rest of the world. Aside from a pro/rel fight at the bottom of the table, there would be no late-season drama without it. TFC clinched 1st place on Oct 1st and we've known since August that they were a virtual lock to win it. The last 2 1/2 months of the season would have been meaningless for 21 out of 22 teams if not for the playoffs. Besides, it's not like we were #1 and got knocked out by a #6 seed. This was a 4 vs. 5 battle between teams that were only separated by 1 point in the final table. The Crew were hot at the end of the year and we limped into the playoffs. No wins in our last 5 games, including last night (2 losses and 3 draws). Plus, it's extremely rare for an expansion team in any league to do as well as Atlanta did this year. If anything was unfair, it was the fact that our team ran out of gas thanks to the compressed schedule of 8 games in 23 days in September; an anomaly we'll never see again. So, don't let this spoil your enjoyment of the regular season. It still matters, a LOT. It determines who makes the playoffs, who gets home field, who gets a bye, who get the tougher match-ups, etc. More importantly, it's FUN. Isn't that what it's all about? No matter how it ended, we had some glorious moments this year that I enjoyed more than any other pro sports team or league, ever. Personally, I can't wait for March to get here so we can start it all again.
No, not wanting a single table (IIRC, that goes better with pro/rel, which the US fanbase isn't ready for)- I made my peace with playoffs the minute ATL got a team. The USA isn't the only nation using them, so I stopped thinking of it as a bad thing related to us wanting more fans. It's finding out first hand as a fan (as opposed to knowing it academically all along) that the reg season exists only to decide who goes to the playoffs and who doesn't that hurts. I got distracted by how great we looked at times and I forgot that history doesn't care how shiny you are in the reg season if you're not lifting the Cup at the end of the tournament. I'd still love the team if we'd scraped in by the skin of our teeth or not at all, but I was given several months of reasons to be optimistic. I can't, either, but I won't place the level of emotional importance on the reg season that I did this year. I'll be optimistic, but I'll be cautiously so until we reach the MLS final and are up a goal late. I know we were only a point up on Columbus, but I really thought our attacking talent advantage would carry the day until the semis or conference final.