Columbus Crew SC (8-9-1, 25 points) vs. Atlanta United FC (7-7-3, 24 points) Saturday, July 1, 7:30 p.m., MAPFRE Stadium, Fox Sports Southeast Here's to hoping roster rotation works and we see a fairly full-strength squad on Saturday in Columbus. About a week ago... (ok, like two weeks), Columbus put up a good effort and could have easily stolen points in Atlanta. Columbus has struggled to put two wins in a row together all season and haven't been altogether great at home, but not terrible on the road either. Atlanta is coming off an Open Cup loss, but one that only used four starters, Since April, Atlanta has not won outside the state of Georgia, and have only picked up one point. I'm not saying this is a must-win, but as we pass the midway point in the season, we can't afford to continue to surrender points on the road, especially to conference foes. Columbus is averaging the lowest attendance of the season (13,444) but should have a decent crowd on a holiday weekend. Who's the Starting XI? Did anyone impress from the Open Cup? Can we steal a point in Ohio?
Walkes gets the start again tonight. Clearly Tata sees something in him that isn't there in Bloom or Ambrose. Wish I could see it. Doing this match with radio on and TV sound down, as I loathe Alan Green as an announcer that much. C'mon Atlanta!
15' in and it's an up and down affair. Each team with 1 quality opportunity and apart from the bulk of the play being in Columbus' final third no team has an edge. AU defence still poor on picking up men on the break.
21' and Crew more assertive. Atlanta's high press now fading and the team isn't retaining possession. Something about the formation looks ill for Atlanta.
1-0 Atlanta! Tito with the breakaway! Atlanta scores first? Check. Now let's see if we can get #2 before yielding an equalizer.
Martinez blows a great counter attacking opportunity! Didn't even put it on goal, sadly. Prior to that Atlanta wasted another corner kick. Can we concede those as goal kicks instead?
HT 1-0 Biggest issues are defensive marking on transition play and, likely connected, the first pass after regaining possession. AU with several steals but most quickly surrendered back to CSC. Press has been okay but they need to work at holding the ball better.
53' and Crew dominating possession thus far in half #2. Atlanta'Atlanta's problems building from the back continue.
84' and the game has been reduced to the expected scrambling. Neither team has had clean, productive possession the past 10 minutes.
FT 2-0 Workmanlike win for AUFC that showed some manic but ultimately effective defensive display. Higuain with little to work with as Atlanta did a nice job limiting passing lanes. Offense was meh, comparably speaking, but it's a big step for the team to win this kind of game. Hopefully the work tonight won't have too bad an impact on the team for Tuesday.
It seemed like an easy win really. We didn't play very well overall, but yet seemed to control the game and it never felt like we were in much trouble of losing. With our front 4 healthy, I think that is what might become closer to the norm as the season goes along. I would be very surprised if we don't come away with another win on Jul 4th.