Atlanta United vs. FC Cincinnati Mercedes Benz Stadium – Atlanta March 7 - 7:00 PM ET Fox Sports South AJC.com United page here. MLSsoccer.com preview here. ATLUTD.com home page here. (Preview not up at time of press) FC Cincy preview here. And so we begin day 1 of Adam Jahn era... If we can possibly put the shock and panic of losing Josef aside for a spell we might recall that a) such is the nature of sports and sometimes teams go through this, and b) Atlanta's roster is still pretty good and, blessedly, the Eastern Conference is (presumably) fairly weak this year. The playoffs remain imminently possible, and if that's the case the team should make every effort to be there. So, that being said... Let's do this! FCC set near records for defensive futility last season giving up more than 2 goals per match. They worked hard in the off-season to address this, knowing the side can't progress up the table without doing better at preventing goals. So of course they started 2020 by shipping three to a RBNY few pundits expect to challenge for honors this year. Gone is Fenando Adi and an anemically slow offensive approach, and the back line is slightly retooled with Swedish International Tom Petterson at the helm. The remaining names won't mean much to casual MLS fans, and Atlanta fans aren't assured to see for Stripes players Greg Garza and Brandon Vasquez, but the key names to note for Saturday will be Danny Royer and Jurgen Locadia as goal scoring threats, Yuya Kubo as the man expected to test Atlanta's right flank (with or without Escobar), and Haris Medunjanin trying to shepherd the Cincy midfield. The style of play should look like an attempt to replicate Atlanta's ideal, albeit with less dynamic ball handlers and a disjointed (or blatantly obvious) attack strategy. Against Atlanta the latter will likely be something aggressive from the midfield line forward, attempting to keep Hyndman pinned deep and test Atlanta's evolving defensive lineup. For Atlanta the first thing to note is that the players have enjoyed having the full week to prepare for this and to have a bona fide home game*. Guzan has said the team is anxious to play in front of the 17's again and to continue their development as a side. For now all indications are the lineup will be much like last week but with Jahn up front and a sub for Escobar. The game will be a test to see how well it can employ their conventional Plan A attack without its lynchpin. As I've said elsewhere the twist will come in seeing Pity and Barco make more runs OFF of Jahn then trying to make space for him to run into like Josef. If it works Atlanta will boss possession and creep the midfield and defenders forward so that Jahn does less vertical running and there are more players available to help with passing options for Hyndman and Pity. Hopefully Mulraney and/or Lennon find alleys to exploit, giving defenders other options to consider as shooting threats. More importantly Pity and Barco both know they now need to step up, and will be rewarded if they do. Arguably this is the best team Atlanta could face coming off the Josef injury, especially at home. No inclement weather or beat up field to muddy the nature of the performance, and the opposing defense is still in its nascent infancy of development. If everyone in the crowd gets behind the team there's no reason it can't be a solid win for the home side. 3-1, Stripes. *= Convention says it's understandable if some fans wane in their support and stay quiet in a "wait and see" approach at how the team responds to the crisis, but now more than ever is when true fans stand and hold themselves to account. If we want to be not just a sizable fan base but something more renowned like the fabled fans of the Packers, Cubs, etc, then we should be even louder and prouder and show everyone that the team is indeed more than any one player, even Josef. We can inspire the team to play their best, and remind the staff (and prospective players!) why Atlanta is determined to win! Now we can make our own legends as a fanbase!
Adam Jahn nets a hat-trick and the entire city rejoices and builds a statute in his honor. You heard it here first. Seriously though, FCC is the perfect opponent for us to figure out what we are without JM7. I think we'll be fine and no need to go panic buying.
It's matchday, campers! Time to take out our angst on FCC and send them back to the land of Skyline Chili. And remember, get to the match early to account for extra wait we'll have in line while everyone struggles with their tickets now that we've gotten rid of those naggingly convenient badges!
HT: 1-0 Lawrence nicely feeds Pity, who breaks past 2 defenders to feed into the goal box where Barco bundles it home. Lawrence subbed off just before half with a head injury. Lennon started as right back then shifted to winger and that changed complexion of the attack on that side. Mulroney has also looked lively. Jahn seems a viable option and has really worked hard. Obviously not as fast as Josef but the offense has adapted and used him well on some interior passing.
I was in DC today for work struggling with the TicketBastard app to get into DC United's 2-1 win, so I missed Atlanta's 2-1 win. Tickets on the phone suck. I can't get them to load half the time at my house, much less when 20,000-70,000 other people are using up all the data bandwidth. Bring back the STH cards! Good win, and great to see Barco and Emo getting on the scoreboard, with Pity on the assist. I'd be just as happy if some rando had scored, but getting Pity and Barco off to a hot start is really important now that Josef is down. Next task: get Jahn on the box score.
First time sitting in the supporters section. Fun time. My son enjoyed chucking cups when we scored. [Please don't call DFCS].
I missed the game unfortunately, and for some reason the game didn’t record... can someone give me the main takeaway. Is Wyke injured? Glad our boys won!
Best guess from our section - VAR was allowed to come into play under the suspicion for possible red card, and the tackle looked worthy of consideration. Once the ref looks at it, however, he's able to give just a yellow if deemed appropriate. We'll see what PRO says. FWIW if our thinking is correct I'd agree with the reaolution. As to the free kick I can only assume that since so much play had already taken place the card was offered in the same sense as "away from the action" fouls. Maybe after another long island I'll have a better answer.
Wycke had a collision of heads with a FCC player. (Big guy, to boot.) He was able to walk off but you could tell he wasn't fit to keep playing at that moment. Team played it safe. As to the performance - - Apart from a 20 minute spell in the 2nd half the Stripes commanded the match. How much of that lull was the 2-0 lead, or fatigue, or some attempt to slow the match I can't say but it definitely felt like they took the foot off the gas. - Jahn looked pretty good given his charge for the day. He's was faster than I anticipated and moved side to side well to play passes off of Pity, Barco, and Hyndman. In fact there were several neat passing plays that ultimately broke down but still showed good chemistry and intent. He worked to make himself available and fed his teammates well I think. - Hyndman looked as good as last week, so thus far that experiment is bearing fruit. He's more a threat in attack than Nagbe but needs to recover better defensively. - Mulraney was a mixed bag. Some flashes of neat skill and speed but also a couple less than perfect crosses. - Defense was fair. Biggest issue was picking up the crossing runs atop the Atlanta key where FCC would pass around and eventually found someone with a clean shot from 20-25 yards. That's how they scored. Surely some of this was down to all the new faces and people playing out of position but it's still a problem. Guzan was solid, as was Meza. - Rosetto subbed in for Pity late and played well save for an ill-advised tackle that rightly drew yellow. He has pace and at times looked like a more direct Pity. - Pity was strong tonight. His effort produced the first goal. Barco also worked his but off, he just needs to release the ball more often rather than dribble into traffic.
Glad you guys enjoyed it. Can't abide the cup-throwing because the folks in the premium seats will get the stewards on us for that, but if you're ever back there again let me know and we can raise a glass to both our teams.
Huge games against Club America then Sporting Kansas City then Club America then Chicago, all within days of each other. Normally, I’d say, let’s rotate the roster, but we don’t have that luxury... Will Wyke be back? Or are we entrusting in our young Campbell? With no other viable defensive options with Robinson, Escobar, Bello, and Castillo out injured. From the bench, I guess it would need to be either Larentowicz or Adams who fills in if necessary. More important than W’s, let’s hope we get out of there unscathed... personally, I wouldn’t care if we tanked the CCL and focused on MLS. But I’m sure the FO is going to keep their foot on the accelerator.
Injury report for CCL match is due Monday morning. Entirely possible the defense will be 1 first-stringer (Meza) playing out of position and 2 third-string defenders. On top of out offense already on Plan B.
My wife's first match was in the supporters section. Needless to say she was not amused by the golden beer showers. Normally she is a sport about those kind of things, but she will not sit with me if my tickets are in the SS. It didn't help that we scored 4 that day.
League stuff: Sporting is probably going to be pretty good this season. This may let us know who they're gonna be going forward (AFAIK they're healthy), and it'll be good to get a result. Not sure an ugly loss will say much about us, as we're so beat up right now.
No shit. We've had the injury bug for the last four or five MLS games since back to what- almost late September? We can't tank v. CA- they're at least as good as we are when we're healthy. We'll get run out of there 5 or 6-0 if we don't give it our best effort. Whoever's out there will have to play ball. If we were going to tank, we should have done it v. Motagua, where we can regulate the score.
Any chance we can postpone this stretch of games until the Coronavirus settles? Maybe get some guys back healthy? Wink, wink, wink...