Atlanta United vs. FC Cincinnati ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex Thurs., July 16 – 9:00 AM ET ESPN AJC.com United home page here. MLSsoccer.com preview here. ATLUTD.com home page here. FCC preview here. - Let's cut to the chase - It's a 9 AM match few of us will be able to watch, we're still upset at Saturday's result, and even as we know the context of the situation the games still have an aura of surreal nature. Plus some of us may be assuming that FCC is even worse than when Atlanta beat them 2-1 a few months ago. Whatever. The bottom line is Atlanta needs to win if they want to advance in the tournament and if they wish to remain near the top of the eastern conference standings. To do that they need to do what they couldn't do against RB:NY - Put the ball into the net. Cincy is still figuring out their identity, now with yet another manager at the helm (Jaap Stam). In their MLS is Back debut they put in an abysmal display against Columbus; The Atlanta to their Orlando. The 4-0 final score was at least duly earned, so it's unlikely the Lions have sharpened their defensive nous enough to thwart an Atlanta attack that at least created changes. Kendall Waston isn't the central defender he was 2 years ago, and their defensive wings (Gutman and Deplagne) struggled to track runs across the box. (Defender Greg Garza is out injured. I know you're all shocked.) This isn't aided by a midfield that defines the depth of Cincy's problems, that is the lack of an identity and inability to dictate game-flow. Bosnian Haris Medunjanin may yet prove an able pilot to run their midfield but at the moment he and his partners seemed to show difficulty grasping Stam's Dutch twist on the 4-3-3. Against Columbus they managed 38% possession (against a team that tends to play counter attacking ball) and just 6 shots total. Perhaps they're asking a bit much from Yuya Kubo and former Five Stripe Brandon Vasquez. Granted, several of us wish Vasquez was an option for Atlanta Saturday night, as Castro and Rossetto combined for only 2 shots - Castro's two bad mishits on crosses into the 6 yard box. Atlanta did manage 14 shots against a tight RB defense, controlled the game for long stretches and showed some growing confidence in reads among Pity, Bello, Lennon, and Escobar. The question for Atlanta is can they adapt their typical style looking to make aggressive runs after building from the back with either an inefficient striker or a much different type of player in Adam Jahn. Roberson feels Castro will get another start but have Barco as his new partner, while other changes behind them will be more about "fresh legs." The match against Cincy in week 2 was more about Atlanta reacting to the shock loss of Josef, now it's more about the months deep roster makeover as players like Meza and Bello look to establish their form. Yes, Atlanta's defense had lapses last time out but in those moments where the passing clicked and moved the ball forward you could see flashes of the side that wants to take the game to their opponent. - Side note: Had the chance to visit Lula Lake in northwest Georgia today. Beautiful waterfalls and a nice view of the Chattanooga valley. if you go plan for a decent hike and a chance to dip your feet in the middle of it, but also plan for a long-a** drive. Pity and Co. will feel upset they didn't score, but will likely be wise enough to put that behind them now and focus on getting the job done, knowing goals will come. 2-0, with possibly a third as FdB wants to get things back on track.
I hate it for Garza. When he's healthy, he's good. I can't remember if he was injury-prone before that ill-fated All-Star game or not. I assume he was.
That has always been Garza's detracting factor: injuries. I'll take an ugly 1-0 win, but I'm really hoping for like a 5-0 kind of morning. Hopefully, at least 2 in the first half because I can't get out of my 0900 Central Time work engagement.
Our midfield is not ready. Mulraney sent off midway through the first half. Luckily, I have work and will miss the rest of this debacle. Our tactics seem designed to keep our players as far away from the opposing goal as possible.
A man up and Jaap Stam still has the bus parked in front of the goal. WTF? I may as well go back to bed.
Frustrating, we finally come alive in the last two minutes only to have a penalty taken away via VAR. This is bullshit.
As they should be... Cincy was offside on Mulraney's second yellow card (Jake is still an idiot) and then they call our PK back because of a bogus offside.
Two yellows, one on a rash challenge and another for holding back a player that got behind him. Idiot.
Ugh, Cincinnati isn't even interested in make this a game yet the ref continuously rewards them and penalizes us. We need a goal.
Pity is obviously not a morning person, he can't seem to stay on his feet even when no one is near him.
We were lethargic, but Jaap Stam and Victor Rivas did everything but take the air out of the ball to kill this match. F'ing A.
10 cards issued, 3 shots on goal. Whatever this formation/strategy is that DeBoer is attempting is failing miserably. Cincinnati is the worst team in the league. We should beat them with 10 men every day of the week. Now that we're out of the tournament, hopefully he'll try something different for Round 3. This has been abysmal negative soccer even with 11 men on the field. We have Jahn, who is a prototypical target forward. I don't think he touched the ball once. It's hard to prove your worth when nobody will pass you the ball.
Well, if we had any sort of answer for it, teams would stop doing it. But we don't have the look of a team who can create a goal, so expect the rest of the schedule to look the same until Atlanta changes the game plan.
For all intents and purposes, yes. I believe in order to qualify we'd need to see the following: - Hope there aren't 4 other 3rd place finishers among other groups with more than 3 points and (I'm guessing) a +2 or better goal differential. - ATL beats Crew FC. - RB beats Crew and FCC, leaving a 3 way tie behind RB. This would also need to be done by goal margins that allows Atlanta to finish above at least one other of the participants (likely FCC) because the tie-breaker is goal differential. - If Crew beats or draws RB then it's pandemonium. At the least that means a minimum of 2 teams will have at least 4 or 6 points, possibly 3 if FCC shocks RB. ... Atlanta can end up with the same 3 pts as Cincy (or Crew or RB) and finish above them based on goal differential, the question is whether or not that will be good enough among 3rd place teams. We'll know a lot more after tonight's games. At this point I'm less concerned about advancing and more concerned about simply restoring pride and hope among the Stripe's players. Going 0-0-3 would not only really hurt with regard to regular season standings (such as it is) but would really cause questions among the players. As such I'd rather they beat Columbus but not advance just so they can focus on getting their house in order. (Welcome aboard Jurgen Damm!)
Presumably one or both of Barco and Pity will be gone come January, and no matter what trophies are awarded this year they'll come with asterisks attached. I'd love for Atlanta to claim some but won't cry if they don't. 2020 is essentially a throw away year, or better yet a launching pad for 2021. Next season will at least offer a more full and proper schedule, if not outright normalcy. Damm will be available and had some time to brood in and Josef will be (*knock on wood*) healthy. So everything I'm hoping for the team this year will be with an eye toward 2021.
Maybe that ref is from Cincy or something. It certainly sounded like he had it in for us. I don't know that we can take anything from this at all, except that we don't have Josef. Cincy didn't look good, either, and I think Stam's plan was to keep players from tiring out too quickly, even with all the subs. He gambled that we didn't have any scoring capability and he turned out to be right, especially after Mulraney's idiotic actions. Nobody's match fit. All that happened is, they were just a bit less abysmal with 11 players than we were with ten. Fair enough. I've been wrong before, but I really don't see this season continuing to conclusion anyway. Let's just do something different this last game and go home as healthy as we are now.