The clock is ticking down for Atlanta United. Its season of underachievement and disappointment may be reduced to one final match, Saturday against uber-team Inter Miami at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
Saturday is Game 2 of the best-of-three series of the Eastern Conference playoffs. Atlanta United is down 1-0, and only a magnificent performance by goalkeeper Brad Guzan prevented the 2-1 loss in the Friday opener from spiraling into a rout. Further, it could be without two key starters (fullback Brooks Lennon and centerback Stian Gregersen) who were injured in Game 1.
Even if United manages the upset Saturday, it would have to defeat Miami a second time, on the road Nov. 9, to win the series and advance. A tall challenge, that: Miami achieved the best regular-season record in MLS history behind the world-class quartet of Lionel Messi, Sergio Busquets, Luis Suarez and Jordi Alba. Further, the Herons, as they’re known, have not lost back-to-back games all season.
By sneaking into the playoffs as the No. 9 seed and getting past Montreal in the wild-card game, Atlanta United has provided a couple feel-good moments for the club and its fans in its downtrodden season, but it’s difficult to picture this joyride continuing.
And then, who knows?
After dismissing coach Gonzalo Pineda in June and technical director Carlos Bocanegra in September, Atlanta United president Garth Lagerwey has decisions to make about the club’s leadership. And once those positions are filled, decisions about the roster will be next.
Changes are coming. This would seem to be the last hurrah for Atlanta United as we know it, though players are apparently not dwelling on it.
“I don’t think that’s been spoken about or thought about,” veteran midfielder Dax McCarty said Tuesday after a training session.
He acknowledged that the season, begun with anticipation of finishing in the top four in the Eastern Conference, has veered far off course. United was inconsistent from game to game and half to half. The Five Stripes won back-to-back games only twice.
When it sold stars Thiago Almada and Giorgos Giakoumakis during the season, they did not – or could not – replenish the roster with the elite scoring threat it needed. Ninth in the conference was an appropriate finish. Its 10 wins and 40 points tied for the lowest totals in franchise history with the 2022 team (excluding the 2020 season), a far cry from the trophy-collecting seasons of its past.
“It was a frustrating season,” McCarty said. “Let’s call a spade a spade.”
He knows changes will be forthcoming.
“But I think that happens every year,” McCarty said. “It doesn’t matter how great of a season you have or don’t. You’re going to have changes. So right now, the main focus is on, let’s just take it a day at a time.”
McCarty has his own end point to not think about. A free-agent signee before this season, he will retire at season’s end, at age 37 after 19 seasons. Only two players in MLS history have appeared in more games.
From the outside, it looks like United might as well be trying to hold back an incoming tide. A new chapter is about to start, one that supporters hope will read better than the last few.
More than likely, the Five Stripes will fail to advance past the first round of the MLS Cup for the fifth consecutive season. In that time, 20 of the other 28 MLS clubs have reached the conference semifinal stage. This despite the fact that United has spent more aggressively than most of the league in that span.
It’s one final chance for this group to show its worth, for better or worse. A team that has struggled to play with desperation and focus now has little choice or else it’ll get run off the field and into the offseason.
The supreme talent of Messi, the eight-time winner of the Ballon d’Or (world player of the year) and his playmaking cohorts demands nothing less.
“You have to be focused all of the time, because maybe you think that he will pass somewhere, but it’s not like this,” midfielder Bartosz Slisz said. “His mindset is to always play forward, to play behind the line. So you have to be close and don’t give him space. Because if you give him space, he runs with the ball, he plays the ball, he shoots from everywhere. And he’s the best.”
At least for the Five Stripes, there is something liberating in their situation.
The pressure to make the playoffs is gone. They face no external expectations. Against a supremely skilled team, they have little choice but to be aggressive. And, for that matter, Atlanta United took the most points off Miami (four, from a win and a draw) of any team in the league during the regular season.
“I don’t want the season to end in front of our home fans,” McCarty said. “I know that’s how our locker room feels. We have nothing to lose, so we need to attack the game, just try to put on a show for our fans.”
McCarty spoke of his team’s lack of fear of Miami and his confidence that the Five Stripes can prevail.
“I think that’s the only thing on guys’ minds,” McCarty said. “It’s not about what’s happening at the end of the year or next year or the next couple of years. Let’s focus on the next day. Let’s focus on the next game and see how far we can take this.”
At least for Saturday, maybe that’s the answer.
About the Author
