Atlanta United Answers Twice, Settles for 2-2 Draw With NYCFC
With MLS teams playing into the opening days of the international window, Saturday's matches presented an opportunity for clubs juggling first-team absences and crowded playoff pushes.
For Atlanta United, dealing with both, the home match against NYCFC was a chance to keep the visitors out of the play-in discussion and to improve their own lot with seven matches remaining. Miguel Almirón, Alexey Miranchuk, Junior Alonso, Paulo Díaz, and Fafa Picault were away representing their countries, so others had to step up.
"Not very fun," Tata Martino said of building a lineup around the absences. Martino called it imprudent to play through a FIFA window with so many MLS players on national teams, while noting the schedule was known in advance and New York faced the same problem. "There's no complaint," he said. "I just think it's something that has to be reviewed in the future, and it will surely change."
Lucas Hoyos wore the captain's armband. The backline in front of him held no real surprises with Elías Báez, Enea Mihaj, Matt Edwards, and Tomás Jacob. Mauricio Amaro and Giuliano Galoppo paired in midfield in front of the defenders, and Tristan Muyumba, Luke Brennan, and Cooper Sanchez, playing a higher role than we have seen from him, sat behind Breel Embolo.
NYCFC had absences and injuries of its own and started Tomás Romero in net. Nico Cavallo, Raul Gustavo, Thiago Martins, and James Sands lined up at the back, with Andrés Perea, Nicolás Fernández Mercau, and Jonathan Shore in midfield and Hannes Wolf, Bénie Traoré, and Agustín Ojeda up top.
NYCFC nearly had a disastrous start when a back pass in the second minute failed to reach Romero. Embolo pressured the pass to the keeper and almost had the first chance for the Five Stripes. Three minutes later, NYCFC got on the board with what was eventually registered as an Edwards own goal. The cutback pass from the right straddled the edge of the six-yard box, with Ojeda the target.
Atlanta equalized in the 10th minute off a corner kick, the sixth time in their last 11 goals that the result came from a corner and the fifth of their last six at home. Galoppo started the play in the middle of the six and worked his way through traffic to the back post on his own, where Jacob found him unmarked for his first goal in his home debut.
"It's a corner play where I go for the last ball, and it falls to me," Galoppo said.
Edwards said the quick reply mattered. "Not the way we wanna start the game, or the way I wanna start the game," he said of the own goal, adding that getting the goal back reset the group mentally and gave them more confidence.
Hoyos was called upon a few times in the first half. Fernández Mercau set up his left foot from outside the box to force a save in the 23rd minute, and Ojeda's cross found Perea for another Hoyos stop three minutes later. At the other end, Embolo headed a Brennan cross on target in the 29th, but Romero was there.
Edwards stayed active from the back on both sides of the ball, coming up with a key block on a transition chance and setting up Amaro for a shot from distance that Romero saved in the 40th minute. Muyumba and Báez also worked for an opportunity late in the half, but the match was honors even at the break.
NYCFC held a 6-5 edge in shots, with each side putting three on target. New York also had more entries into the 18 and 59 percent of the possession. As a result, the Five Stripes had the defensive numbers in their favor in every category: tackles, interceptions, blocked shots, and clearances.
Martino made his first change in the 55th minute, sending Daniel Chica on for Jacob. The move was planned. Martino said Jacob has been carrying a muscle contracture for two weeks, and the back of his thigh tightens as matches wear on.
A minute later, NYCFC retook the lead. Perea sprinted into the Atlanta 18 to meet Ojeda's cross and slammed it into the back of the net for 2-1.
Galoppo took a share of the blame. "It was a lapse in the marking, between me and the defense, a little bit of a misunderstanding there," he said. Martino absolved his center backs on both goals, describing the second as a midfielder arriving from the second line, and went further on Mihaj. "At minimum, our best player," Martino said. "I don't know that he wasn't the best in the match."
Atlanta kept pushing, earning corners in the 58th and 65th minutes. In the 67th, Martino went to his bench for fresh legs, bringing Jay Fortune on for Sanchez.
That swap was built into the plan. With Almirón, Miranchuk, and Picault out, Martino said Brennan was his only true winger. The options were a second striker alongside Embolo in what would essentially be a 4-4-2, a shape the team had never played, or starting a midfielder on the left, "not with the idea that he plays as a left winger, but to come inside and find numerical superiority." Because Fortune is still on a minutes restriction after last year's injury, the staff prepared the role with Sanchez in training.
"We knew that at some point we were going to need Jay," Martino said. "And in the end, that's what happened."
Fortune said the instructions were simple. "When I came in, Tata said, you know, you have the freedom to go wherever you need to go, and that helps," he said. "So I was just kinda still operating in the middle of the field."
It paid a dividend quickly. Fortune forced Romero into a save from long range in the 70th minute, and four minutes later he found the equalizer. Brennan sent a ball into the 18 for Muyumba, who, with his back to goal, kept the ball alive and set it for Fortune to fire inside the near post. Romero couldn't corral the shot, and the score was level at 2.
The cross was a bit behind Muyumba, and he was able to control it and lay it off to Fortune. Once Muyumba got it under control, Fortune said, "From there, I think I was probably as loud as anyone in that stadium just telling him to set it, and he did a great job of setting the ball."
"From about 10 minutes into the second half, and above all with Jay's entry, we started to impose ourselves in midfield," Martino said. "For me, Giuliano picked up a lot, Mauricio picked up a lot, Tristan picked up a lot."
Martino's final changes came in the 86th minute, with Cameron Dunbar and Steven Alzate replacing Muyumba and Galoppo. Atlanta nearly had a third with the same pressure that opened the match. In the 88th minute, a back pass to Romero was almost intercepted by Embolo, another close call 86 minutes after the first, and the match finished a 2-2 draw.
One thing to monitor going forward is the injury to Daniel Chica. In the 89th minute, after repeated pressure from behind by Luighi, the NYCFC substitute was finally whistled for a foul, and Chica went down with a knee injury. With Atlanta's substitutions already used and Mihaj laboring through the final minutes, United played out stoppage time a man down while chasing a winner.
Martino said the medical staff would need time to determine the extent of it, but singled out the half hour Chica gave the team. "Beyond this injury, what he did, the solidity he played with and the way he came into a difficult match, really deserves to be highlighted," he said.
"He had a good game, a good debut," Edwards said. "We hope he's okay."
With the 2's set for their first-ever playoff match on Friday, October 16 against Connecticut United, the status of one of their key two-way talents will be a focus.
Atlanta United (7-14-6, 13th in the Eastern Conference) now waits for a home match on October 10 against FC Cincinnati, still six points back of the play-in round of the MLS playoffs. Martino called the draw fair given NYCFC's first half and said the night's other results were favorable overall. "If we're able to keep winning away from home, the chances are there," he said.
Hoyos called the captaincy a source of pride but said the result left a bitter taste. "We know we can't drop any more points," he said. "It depends on us. We'll fight, and we'll keep trying until the end."
"The moment you start to try and focus on other teams is when you can start to lose it," Fortune said. "We've been in situations like this before where there was no expectation of us to make playoffs, and we were still able to do it."
The fight Atlanta United showed on the night, coming from behind more than once with a lineup still getting acquainted, brought effort from new faces in Amaro, Galoppo, and Embolo, and some promise along with it.
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