Training Ground Notebook: Constructing Control

The opener was not chaotic.

It was instructive.

For 20 to 25 minutes in Cincinnati, Atlanta United looked like a team building something with intention. The ball progressed cleanly. Latte Lath found a clear look at goal. The structure held.

Then the game tilted. In that tilt, Tata Martino saw exactly what still needs refining.

Building the Game, Not Just Finishing It

Tata did not frame the loss as a failure of creativity.

Tata Martino and Gerado Martino Jr. speaking before Tuesday's training session.

“I think everything that has to do with attacking or defending has to do with the whole team,” he said. “Maybe it seemed like less because of the final decision, the decision making.”

He believes Atlanta created a similar volume of sequences to Cincinnati. The difference was clarity at the end of them.

But the more revealing point came underneath that surface explanation.

When Cincinnati intensified their pressure, Atlanta struggled to build through it.

“When a rival presses, normally it becomes all one-against-one, and we couldn’t free ourselves from that situation,” Tata said.

That was the inflection point.

As the press tightened, Atlanta were increasingly forced into longer passes rather than constructed progression into the attacking half. The Five Stripes stopped arriving in advanced areas through buildup and began bypassing phases altogether.

And once that happened, the forwards became disconnected.

“I think the performance of the forwards is strictly linked to how the team builds,” Tata said. “If the team builds well, they will have situations. If the team does not build well, it becomes more difficult.”

If there is one area of concern early in the season, Tata did not hesitate.

“If I have to say which part of the team concerns me the most right now, it would be continuing to improve our buildup play,” he said.

This is not alarm. It is diagnosis.

The opener was not about a lack of ideas. It was about sustaining control once the match became faster and more vertical.

Forwards Must Help Create, Not Just Finish

The adjustment is not just structural. It is participatory.

“I don’t want the forwards linked only to the finishing of the play, but also involved in the construction,” Tata said.

Miguel Almirón naturally drops and connects phases. Saba Lobjanidze and Latte Lath are more instinctively tied to final actions. Tata wants that balance to evolve.

When Atlanta built cleanly early in Cincinnati, the forwards were present in the game. When buildup stalled, their influence narrowed.

This is part of the early-season learning curve.

“We’ve only been training together for about fifty days,” Tata noted.

Fifty days is enough to install ideas. It is not enough to perfect them under full-speed league pressure.

The Miguel Evolution

Miguel Almirón’s positioning, as it has for years, created narratives after the opener. At times he drifted centrally, leaving the right side temporarily vacant.

Tata is not concerned.

“We want him to start as a right winger, but then move freely without concern,” he said. “When it’s time to defend, he recovers his position. And if he doesn’t, we have mechanisms to cover that space.”

This is intentional fluidity, not improvisation.

There is also a deeper layer: Tata is adapting to a different version of Miguel than the one he coached in 2017 and 2018.

“I worked with a Miguel who played as an interior left midfielder or attacking midfielder,” Tata explained. “Now I’m working with a player who, at Newcastle, has played more as a right winger. We are adapting to this new version of Miguel.”

It is evolution on both sides.

MLS Intensity and the Midfield Education

Atlanta United preparing this week for San Jose on Saturday night.

Much of the buildup challenge is contextual.

Tata described MLS as a league of constant pressure.

“MLS is a very intense league where teams run a lot,” he said. “Most teams press. The spaces become smaller and smaller, and you have to manage your body profile very well, receive facing forward.”

That intensity demands faster thought.

Alexey Miranchuk echoed the same theme.

“In MLS, everybody is very aggressive,” he said. “Sometimes you have space, but as soon as you get the ball, they are very aggressive with you, so you need to be quick.”

Quick not just in movement, but in decision.

“You need to check every time before you receive the ball,” Miranchuk said. “You have to decide before the ball comes to you.”

For Tomás Jacob, Cooper Sanchez, and the central midfield group, that education is ongoing. Tata acknowledged that Jacob is still growing into the deeper midfield role and must improve as one of the team’s first pass options, receiving in ways that allow him full vision of the field.

That detail matters. The first pass dictates the entire sequence.

Pressing as Identity

There was one aspect of the opener Miranchuk embraced fully: the aggression.

“What I like is we press high,” he said. “Defenders step up. There is not much space for the opponent. And when we win the ball high, we can hurt them straight away.”

That is the identity Tata wants. Control the game with the ball. Compress it without the ball.

The missing piece last week was sustaining the first part under sustained pressure.

The San Jose Test

San Jose present a different challenge. Bruce Arena’s teams traditionally use width, overload wide channels, and deliver crosses. It is a stylistic contrast from Cincinnati’s intensity.

“Every game and every opponent is different,” Tata said. “We train according to where we believe we can take advantage and where they are strongest.”

The question this weekend is not whether Atlanta have ideas.

It is whether they can construct control long enough to impose them.

The Fight Is All Year

Ronald Hernández in training on Tuesday in Marietta.

Early in the season, Tata offered a reminder that stretched beyond a single match.

“We need a team that fights from February 22 until December 8 — not for three months, not for half the year,” he said. “The fight is all year.”

The opener was a lesson in tempo, pressure, and control. San Jose is the next classroom.

This team is not searching for identity. It is working to show that identity on a more consistent basis in matches.

We’ll find out tomorrow night whether progress has been made.