Personally I hate RB because their press sometimes breeds dirty play and they caused injuries to Atlanta players in '17 and '18, and I hate the f*** out of the global franchising approach that Red Bull and City Football Group run. I think that s*** is bad for global football and want every team to be their own thing. That's a bloodlust issue for me.
Fair enough. I agree that both those teams go over the top with the corporate stuff. I guess I'm satisfied that we eliminated both in each of our postseason matchups and have won a league title while neither of them have done that. As far as I'm concerned, RB will never be able to get revenge on us for the 2018 conference finals unless they knock us out of the playoffs. Likewise with us and Columbus. We can beat them into the turf the next ten times we play them, but the one we needed most (so far) was the 2017 opening round. Again, that's the nature of a playoff league, IMO. I'd rather beat a team that plays on a Pre-K pitch, and we did that, too, in 2018.
Post mortem thoughts: - Articles in the AJC say FdB likes what the 3-4-3 offers Atlanta. If so they had better sharpen reading defensive assignments because against a team like RB:NY Atlanta's D looked pedestrian. If that was due more to fitness than proper reads and communication that's acceptable but also suggests it will be fixed. Will watch and see. - FdB also liked the chances created by the crosses even if the end result wasn't a shot on target. The question then becomes whether or not the likes of Castro or Rossetto can be an operable central striker if they're playing for the cross, versus shifting to a ground attack and through balls that might make better use of the duo. (And Barco) - I thought Lennon generally got better as the game went along. I think he can ably fill the Gressel role but he and Escobar will need to figure out if they can work together in a 3-4-3. A lot of that is gameday strategy but they need to communicate with the coaching staff when the results aren't there. - FdB and Guzan both sang Adams praises so clearly I missed something. Not that he was really bad but I don't recall going "Great play Mo!" either. More importantly I know how Remedi tracks back to help in transition but didn't see as much of that from Mo. Maybe he was being effective in other ways.
Here's the thing, though: you know what you're going to get with Red Bull. Every time, the same thing. Why not play a strategy suited to defeat that?
That isn't necessarily going to work against someone who does what they're comfortable doing. It hasn't been all downs. We played well enough to win that time in 2019 they scored late in stoppage time to secure a point. We lost the first match ever to them in part because we lost a man to a sendoff. And we played them off the park the one time they deviated from their usual selves in the 2018 Conference final first leg. Seriously, we don't have anyone who can put the ball in the net regularly, period, let alone at or near the level JM7 does. With him, it's probably a different game. Jokingly, we're the scissors. There's way more paper in MLS than rocks (NYRB), so we do what we do and hope the paper covers the rocks in the postseason before they get to us. RB aren't going to win a league title beating us and losing to other, lesser teams. We're not going to lose much if they can't beat someone else to get to us. The nature of a playoff league, again.
Watching this NYCFC v Orlando game, and Orlando looks good. I was worried when they hired Oscar Pareja. He was essentially performing magic at FC Dallas, consistently over-performing with an under-talented team. I didn't watch any Tijuana games, but he's apparently brought his strong tactical acumen to Orlando.