What a weird and interesting day turned night for Atlanta United. Mercedes Benz Stadium held the first ever meeting between Atlanta United and new expansion side Inter Miami CF on Wednesday night. Both teams are underachieving to this point in the season and were looking to get a win in Atlanta.
The big story coming into the game was the transfer of Atlanta United star and Designated Player Gonzalo “Pity” Martínez. A fee believed to be in the region of 18 million dollars was agreed between Atlanta United and Saudi Arabian club Al-Nassr. Atlanta United are expected to go after a DP to replace Pity before the end of the window, but for the game against Miami and the foreseeable, future they’re forced to play without their star man.
The team sheets were a little different than normal for both teams. Atlanta’s of course was without Pity Martinez, but Barco seemingly was a direct swap as he started for the first time since his injury. Atlanta also swapped some players around with Cubo Torres, Emerson Hyndman, Edgar Castillo, and Franco Escobar all starting when none of them started against Orlando. For Miami they decided to go with Agudelo up top instead of Julian Carranza, Jay Chapman in midfield instead of Wil Trapp, and former Atlanta United player Brek Shea started as well in the midfield.
Without Pity Martinez some would expect Atlanta to struggle offensively. It looked as though that may not be the case as Brooks Lennon put a spectacular, Julian Gresssel-esque cross into the box towards Cubo Torres who somehow fired his shot over the crossbar. From that moment on, Atlanta lacked any sort of creativity and was only able to create one shot on target the whole game. Miami wasn’t too different, however they created 3 shots on target and actually looked threatening on the counterattack.
The game as a whole was a pretty dull affair. Part of that could be down to the fact that there were 39 fouls committed in the game. It seemed you could almost guarantee that every single attack would start with a foul. These fouls in the middle of the field really slowed down the game. This in turn seemed to play in the hands of Miami who had less possession and as I said earlier, found their success through counter attacks. A goalless draw is a little interesting given both these teams pride themselves on attacking play.
For Miami, to go into Atlanta as the team at the bottom of MLS, get a result, and arguably be the better team, it could be considered a success. They would hope they can be more clinical then they were, as a few chances probably should’ve turned into goals.
For Atlanta, it’s a very disappointing display because of everything mentioned above. They played against the worst team in MLS, could only get a tie, and were able to only get one shot on target. However, for me, the most worrying part of the game today was on the defensive end. I know this kind of sounds crazy given how much Atlanta United struggled offensively today. But the defensive problem of giving teams not that many chances but giving them really good ones has carried over from the 3-1 loss against Orlando. In that loss Orlando had three goals on only three shots on target. Today Miami had some REALLY good chances that probably should’ve been goals. This was a trend that we saw in the MLS Is Back Tournament with Atlanta as well. Falling asleep on defense to allow a free header off a corner kick or a striker to be played through one on one with Brad Guzan. Now, it is important to point out that this sort of problem isn’t quite as prominent when the team is better on the attacking end.
About that attacking problem. I honestly think it’s pretty simple. One, Josef Martinez (arguably the best player in the MLS) is still out injured. Two, there is little to no creativity in the final third. Is Josef Martinez being out injured a good enough reason for how much Atlanta’s offense is struggling? No, but it can’t be overstated how important Josef Martinez is. Now for the second and most important part of Atlanta’s struggles, the lack of creativity. Not having your star attacking midfielder in Pity Martinez doesn’t help in this department, but the problem lies deeper than that.
When watching the game today you can see there’s almost no one on Atlanta that makes any sort of runs behind the defense. I lost count of how many times Ezequiel Barco ran past two or three defenders, actually driving towards the Miami backline, and had absolutely no one to pass to. The two times I can vividly remember him having an actual chance to pass through the Miami backline is when right-back Franco Escobar made runs in and behind. It’s a little worrying from an Atlanta standpoint that your right-back is making the most dangerous runs. Those two times Barco was inches off of completing absolutely absurd passes that would’ve created great chances on goal. Why are these incomplete passes important? It shows what we already know. Barco is capable of creating for the Atlanta offense. So even without Pity Martinez being the creator, they have someone who can be just as good if not better. If what I just said is true, then the problem lies in the other players off the ball and their contributions to the attack more so than the creativity and playmaking skills of those on the ball.
This is where the loss of Josef is more profound. Josef loved to use his pace to make runs behind defenders. He also loved to come back and play a quick one-two with Barco or Pity. This is something that is lacking from Atlanta’s play. Cubo Torres or Adam Jahn shouldn’t be expected to fill the shoes of Josef Martinez, but they should be expected to help Barco and other creators as they attempt to build attacks.
To put this all into a smaller idea, besides Barco Atlanta United are very tentative on offense. They fail to really take any risks. As bad as it is right now, this is something I expect to be easily fixable over time. This is a style of play that has carried over from Frank De Boer’s reign. To ask the players to immediately get out of that style they’ve played for over a year is a ridiculous ask. I think that this team will get more and more exciting as time passes. Darren Eales and Carlos Bocanegra will be pushing for attacking play and Glass (or any new coach that comes in) will do as much as he can to give them what they want. With the talent this Atlanta United team has (including a possible attacking DP) the more attacking this team gets, the better they will be. And I believe that slowly but surely this team will get used to attacking soccer again.
This tie leaves Atlanta with 10 points in 9th place in the Eastern Conference, still with the ability to move into 6th with their game in hand. Even though they are heavily underachieving so far this season, they still are more than in reach of the playoffs. And let’s be real, we’re 9 games into a 30+ game season, which means there’s a lot more games to be played.