Atlanta - Postmatch

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not even a little stitious
 
Regardless of whatever continent , my point is that I admire and admit I feel a bit envious that we are unable to do that.

I have sort of mixed feelings about this. I do love the atmosphere of a big football match but I'm also a natural introvert and I'd really rather watch every single pass, run, tackle intently than spend the whole match singing personally so it's be a bit hypocritical of me to complain too much about other people not making noise.
 
Sweat was horrible. I don't care what the stats say. I will say this, it looked like we were playing with a Back 3 offensively. But he stunk. Straight up stunk. Maxi reverted tonight. I think he has been our player of the year to this point, but his lack of athleticism and strength really showed tonight. His worst performance of the year.

Tajouri - n/a
Berget - 8. He is getting more comfortable. He was brought in to play the role they thought Okoli could play. Now he's playing a respectable LW and looks comfortable all across the front. That little heel flick to cause the PK was fantastic.
Medina - 5. Some nifty passing but was a nothing from out wide. Didn't look great tonight
Villa - 6. Put in a good defensive and press shift I thought. Doesn't look great. Not going to overreact but he hasn't looked great this year.
Maxi - 4. Did the old, "I can't outrun you so I will fall over and hope to get bailed out" thing again a lot tonight. Can't stand it. Thought he was poor defensively as well.
Herrera - 5. Was OK in the press. Was OK clogging up the counter but made some dumb mistakes.
Ring - 7. Not his best game either. Two occasions specifically I thought he got burned by Almiron. Nothing to be ashamed of but he was made to look silly. Thought he still cleaned up some other players' messes as he usually does very well. The goal he scored looks like the ones we thought we may get from him when he joined.
Callens - 8. Straight up wall tonight. His partner to the left was abysmal and Callens was forced to cover way too much space. Thought he was great.
Chanot - 6. He too was made to look silly on several occasions. With the way we played offensively, he was asked to cover a lot of ground to his right and he put in a good shift.
Sweat - 2. Awful. He looked outclassed in that game. He was the only guy on our squad tonight who I thought was a level below the talent he was up against. He looked timid, out of place and slow. Really a terrible performance. He turned the ball over and I blame him for one of the goals.
Tinnherholm - 6. Not his best performance. I don't think he got forward very well at all. He put Chanot on an island a couple of times too. Part of that has to be on Atlanta and how they played. He worked his butt off defensively but not his best performance.
Johnson - 7. Huge save in the closing seconds. Thought he could have done better with the second goal. Distributed well except for a couple of instances.
Wallace - n/a. He was fine. Didn't impact the game. Like Sweat, he looked a level below in this match.
Matarrita - n/a. Thought he was the right player but the wrong sub. That game was begging for a Matarrita for Sweat sub much earlier in the match. PV decided he wanted to stay 3 in the back when we were on offense and I get it, but when you look at the space Garza and Gressel were given down the flanks, Gressel especially, it's awful that Matarrita didn't see 30-35 minutes for Sweat. Poor job on PV.
 
Before this game I believe Medina was leading MLS with five assists. You give him a pass for one mediocre game.
He was making run after run to get behind the defense but that ball is hard to play from 30-40 yards out on that field, and I think that's what really hindered his run out there today. It's also the run that frees up Tinner on the right, which PV pulled back from after that first goal.
 
We spent all week imploring Vieira to go for the 3-2 win, and it ended 2-2. We were great today. We saw some players look mildly fallible for the first time seeing as they actually came up against good opposition. And yet we were still great.

Away support was fucking phenomenal today.

As of right now, I don't see how we don't win the league.
 
I just have to say that the schadenfreude on seeing Atlanta fans whine on Twitter that either 1) Nagbe’s goal should have counted or 2) Villa was offside (??) on Ring’s goal is delicious.

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It's so much crying. And bitching about Villa. I love it.
Cause you know their players are all perfect...
 
I just have to say that the schadenfreude on seeing Atlanta fans whine on Twitter that either 1) Nagbe’s goal should have counted or 2) Villa was offside (??) on Ring’s goal is delicious.

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The claim that Villa was offside is not on Ring's shot. It is on the long pass to Villa that led to him weaving through 47 ATL players before passing to Ring. To be fair to the ATL fans, he looked completely offside on the live camera angle, but 2 of their back line defenders were offscreen. They showed a replay moments later after the goal that clearly has him in an onside position.
 
Also,can someone please tell our players that Miggy ain’t ever going to pull the trigger on his right, so please don’t foul when he’s on it.

Cut down his passing lanes to the right, block out his left.

Let him shoot on his right if he will.

Because he won’t. Because he can’t.
 
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Took Ring for forever to actually ride a tackle through midfield. He was great in a lot of facets, but you see the different element Ofori brings that was a tiny bit missed at times tonight. Taking a man on and beating him at midfield is very valuable. Ring finally did it, and to great effect. But he missed several earlier opportunities.

Hopefully, he and Ofori both learn from each other and pick up some of the weaknesses in their respective games.

And since I guess not everyone was in shoutbox, well done. Great point for us. That would be an outstanding playoff result.
 
I think Villa was absolutely selfish out there tonight, in a really bad way. In past years he was THE GUY and our only hope sometimes so I get him trying to finish off moves himself back them, but we have some quality around him now, and the fact we didn't score a third after the ring goal, or even in the minutes before it is down to Villa, Medina didn't have a great game because david would not see the pass when he was splitting the defence making a run and instead try to dribble past 5 guys to put a shot right into guzan's hands. When he focuses on getting the interplay right and connecting with the players around him we get a sequence like the one leading to the penalty, if not we get him trying to force it, even when another player (maxi and medina on several occasions) would have been the play. We could have had 3 tonight if Villa wasn't going for glory. Score for the team, not for yourself