Atlanta United: Analyzing their seven losses from the 2018 season
By Josh Bouland
Atlanta United finished their impressive 2018 campaign with just seven losses. With the offseason upon us, we can analyze what happened in those matches.
The offseason provides a great opportunity for reflection on the previous season. With the 2018 MLS season completed, now is the time to look back at different aspects of Atlanta United’s season. This will be part of an Atlanta Analysis series, featuring analysis of the team’s losses, gutsiest wins, and most complete performances.
Atlanta United were fortunate to end the season with only seven losses and one of the best regular season records in MLS history. Surprisingly, despite the low amount of losses, the Five Stripes managed to bookend their season with two very awful performances. Sprinkled in between were a few head scratchers, a couple of run-ins with Red Bulls, and some continued kryptonite.
In each loss we’ll look at what went wrong, how the opposition won the day, the few bright spots for Atlanta (if there were any), and the big takeaway from each performance.
March 3 @ Houston Dynamo
This game was a complete disaster from start to finish. Atlanta, coming off a record setting expansion season, were pegged as favorites to snag a trophy in their sophomore season. Houston on the other hand, were expected to fall off from their 2017 Western conference final appearance. So, since the score line was 4-0, any follower of MLS would be quick to say it was Atlanta scoring those goals. Oh, quite the contrary!
How Houston won: Houston completely demolished Atlanta 4-0 in this opening weekend game and all four goals came before half time. It was a combination of counter-attacking and aerial wizardry. Atlanta is a small team height-wise, while Houston is not. They exposed this with crosses into the six yard box. With Atlanta captain Michael Parkhurst not starting and Leandro Gonzalez Pirez making extremely uncharacteristic mistakes, Houston had a field day picking apart the Atlanta midfield and defense.
What went wrong: For starters, Atlanta’s starting XI was far from first choice. Parkhurst started on the bench while Ezequiel Barco didn’t even make the game day eighteen because of a late injury during preseason. Martino started Julian Gressel as the no. 10 and Jeff Larentowicz featured as a center back. The defense was very unorganized, most likely due to Parkhurst’s absence. Oh yeah, and perhaps the two best players in the organization, Josef Martinez and Miguel Almiron, had some head scratching misses on the goal. Almiron missed on a breakaway opportunity while Martinez failed to convert from the spot. Even weirder, Martinez made all but one penalty attempt the rest of the regular season.
The bight spot(s): Brad Guzan. That’s it. Guzan was practically standing on his head the entire time since his defense couldn’t make a stop to save their lives. It says something that even though Guzan is the lone bright spot in this game, the team still allowed four goals.
The takeaway: This game was awful, and easily one of Atlanta’s worst performances of the season. Luckily, this was only opening day and it forced Tata Martino to really evaluate the team’s tactics while waiting for the team’s top players to become fully fit. But in hindsight? Yeah, losing 4-0 to a team that didn’t even sniff the playoffs was extremely disappointing, and only looks worse after a complete season.