Atlanta United: Analyzing best performances from 2018 season

Atlanta United finished their impressive 2018 campaign with 21 wins. With the offseason upon us, let’s now analyze their most complete wins.

The offseason provides a great opportunity for reflection on the previous season. With the 2018 MLS campaign 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. To see the first part of this series, analyzing their losses, click here.

Atlanta United reached new heights for wins in a regular season. They set a new record with 21 wins in a season, although the New York Red Bulls won 22 matches in the same season and hold the record as a result. 21 wins is a lot of wins for any MLS team in a single season. With so many wins, there are bound to be many kinds of victories. Atlanta hd their fair share of lucky wins, gritty wins, and downright dominant ones.

In this post, we’ll take a look into Atlanta’s most complete wins. We’ll look at how both the attack and defense fared in these matches, as well as their significance to Atlanta’s MLS Cup run.

April 7 vs LAFC

This match was a wild one, and although the score read 5-0 at the end, things could’ve turned out completely different. In just the first minute, Chris McCann was given a straight red for a poor tackle. Thankfully, VAR stepped in and reversed the call. Atlanta almost spent the entire match playing down a man. Instead, they ended up playing with house money. LAFC was vulnerable after getting Zlataned the week before, and the Five Stripes took advantage.

How Atlanta won: A slow first half saw just one Atlanta goal, thanks to Julian Gressel in the 17th minute. LAFC kept things close until Josef Martinez found the back of the net in the 67th minute. Gressel put in a perfect cross and Martinez capitalized. Miguel Almiron blew things open in the 88th minute on a converted penalty, then followed up with another converted penalty in the 92nd minute. Romario Williams even got in on the fun with a 97th-minute dagger.

Dominance all around: The attack did its job well, scoring five goals on just 11 shots total. LAFC took 17 shots, but only one found the target. Atlanta’s defense may have done an even better job by keeping LAFC off the scoresheet in spite of all those shots. LA dominated in possession with 59%, but thanks to the Five Stripes’ poise behind the ball, the game turned out to be a complete performance all around.

Bigger picture: Atlanta handled business at home, frustrating an extremely talented LAFC side looking to rebound from a collapse just a week prior. This game does not stick out that much from the entire season, but it at least shows, in a head to head sense, which young club is better.