Sunday Night Soccer presented by Continental Tire heads to The A, where the hosts are desperate for a good performance or – best yet – a good outcome against high-flying FC Cincinnati (7 pm ET | MLS Season Pass, Apple TV+).
So, what’s gone wrong for Atlanta United? I’m of the mind to just wave an arm in their general direction and say “all of it.” It’s been that kind of season, one in which they’ve managed just 11 points from 14 games and are seeing their Audi MLS Cup Playoffs hopes grow slimmer before the calendar has even hit June.
Cincy are at the other end of the spectrum. Things haven’t been perfect, but they’ve shown enough talent and fortitude to plant themselves at or near the top of the Supporters’ Shield race all year long. And since they’re finally getting fully healthy, I think they should get used to that view from the top.
Atlanta United
- For the Five Stripes, the one thing that’s worked out pretty well has been the purchase of No. 9 Emmanuel Latte Lath. The league-record signing has been a constant threat and looks a good bet to live up to expectations throughout his contract.
- You can only kind of go home again, right? Miguel Almirón seems to be learning that during his second, much rockier tour of duty. The Paraguayan hasn’t really fit into head coach Ronny Deila’s scheme.
- The third DP is holdover Alexey Miranchuk, who arrived last summer and… it's not gone great. They’ve tried different positions, roles and formations, and he’s brought little to the table.
FC Cincinnati
- Kévin Denkey was the league-record signing for about two-and-a-half months before Atlanta got the Latte Lath deal done, and he’s looked the part. It’s not just his goals, but his IQ and feel in the final third that drags defenders around and opens up space for the rest of the attack.
- The main guy in “the rest of the attack” is Evander, the Brazilian No. 10 who arrived from Portland this winter as one of the league’s first cash trades. He’s been playing at a Landon Donovan MLS MVP clip this year, so… good bit of business.
- Things went sideways for Cincy last summer when veteran center back Matt Miazga hurt his knee, which kept him sidelined for more than 10 months. He’s back now, and while he’s not quite up to his previous level, you can see the rust coming off with each passing matchday.
They enter Matchday 15 eight points out of the Wild Card spot, and 13 points below the fourth seed – which would mean home-field advantage in Round One of the playoffs. Given how much they spent on their attack over the past two windows (reportedly close to $50 million), the fourth seed was just about the floor for expectations. The Wild Card? That would’ve been almost unthinkable.
The good news is there’s at least some precedent for a team digging out from this kind of hole: Atlanta were in 12th at the end of May just last year, but climbed into the final Wild Card slot, won at CF Montréal, and then pulled off a historic upset of Inter Miami in Round One of the playoffs. So it can happen.
The bad news is their 2024 team had much more promising underlying numbers than this year's group, which neither defends nor attacks too well. They really, really need to show some life or the season’s gonna get away from them.
Cincy have gotten used to competing for trophies since Pat Noonan arrived as head coach a few years back. They’ve only managed to win one – the 2023 Supporters’ Shield – but they’ve come close multiple times, and were one of the fashionable picks to win another Shield entering this season.
Thus far they’re living up to it. Even if a lot of their wins have been of the brute force variety (they have more talent than most of their opponents, and are thus able to achieve peace through superior firepower), those still count.
And so they’ve racked up the points, and with the halfway mark of the season rapidly approaching, they find themselves right in the mix of another Shield race.
Trophies matter. Adding to that lonely one they’ve got in the cabinet matters. Every single point matters, whether it’s May, October or any stop in between.
Atlanta United: What on earth is going on after halftime?
Our crack Sunday Night Soccer producer Brad Mertel dropped this stat in the group chat the other day:
Atlanta United’s goal differential in the first 15 minutes of the second half is -9 (10 goals against, 1 goal for). Meanwhile, their goal differential in all other segments of the game is -1 (14 goals against, 13 goals for).
That is… stark, especially at a moment when you should have tactical clarity and the legs to attack games. Keep a close eye on that period of the match on Sunday.
FC Cincinnati: Can they hurry up… by slowing down a beat?
This quote, from Pat Noonan following last weekend's Hell is Real draw in which Cincy had 32 percent possession and were completely under it for the entire second half, stood out to me.
“We know we've done a good job of getting points, but it's not just about surviving,” Noonan said. “It's finding more ways to have more control of games and play in a more composed way, so that we can have more clarity in everything we're doing.”
I didn’t take Noonan’s words to mean he simply wants more possession. I took them to mean he wants his team to better use the possession they have. Against the Crew, letting your opponent advance up the field with the ball means you’re pinned back with little means to escape. Against Atlanta, it means there’s space and time to carve them up on the break… if you make the right decisions when the ball turns over.
The Union did just that last weekend in Atlanta, and Cincinnati have better attacking talent than Philly. Make the right play and attacking momentum will follow.
Atlanta United
Let me go back to the early days of the season, back when I had hope that the Five Stripes’ winter transfer window moves would pay off:
This came at a point where I thought Deila would use Almirón in more of a free role – just orient your team around your most talented player, right? Let the dude find the game and make stuff happen, and ensure the structure around him is good enough defensively so he doesn’t have to worry about taking risks. You want your best player to take risks; that’s the only way to unbalance most teams.
But it hasn’t worked out that way. Almirón's been more lost than free, and a big chunk of that comes from the fact that Atlanta seem committed to building out via right back Brooks Lennon. He’s getting a ton of touches in his own defensive third, and while Lennon’s really good on the overlap, he’s really not in the build-out. So Atlanta are kind of a mess there, which has had Deila tinkering between his preferred 4-2-3-1 shape and more of a 3-4-2-1 over the past month.
Neither approach has worked, and neither has Miranchuk. The Russian No. 10 was billed as a through-ball artist upon his arrival, but he’s literally yet to complete a through-ball this season, as per Opta. Atlanta, as a team, have completed only four. As you may be able to guess, that’s one of the bottom marks in the league.
The fact that Latte Lath – who might be the fastest player in the league, and who was brought in specifically to get onto the end of through-balls – has remained productive and engaged anyway is a tribute to his mentality and individual quality.
But that only takes a team so far; you eventually need cohesiveness and a blueprint. Thus far, the Five Stripes have neither.
FC Cincinnati
Noonan’s plan for Cincy has been evolving. Initially, the idea was to pair Luca Orellano with Denkey up top in a 3-4-1-2 with Evander stirring the drink as the No. 10. But Orellano was slow to report to preseason camp and slower to get up to speed, and Evander himself missed a little bit of time, so Noonan had to tinker.
That tinkering was mostly based around flipping between the 3-4-1-2 and a 3-4-2-1 with two half-space merchants instead of a pure No. 10, but he’s also had to toy with the wingbacks (inverted or not?), the center backs (three pure center backs or a fullback hybrid in one of the wide CB spots?) and the central midfield balance (it’s “ball progression by committee” when Pavel Bucha’s not out there).
This would have ended lesser teams, but Cincy have fought through all of it, and here’s where Noonan has landed: It’s a 3-4-1-2 with Evander pulling the strings, but Orellano has moved out to play as an inverted right wingback while Sergio Santos joins Denkey up top. It’s actually Santos who stretches the field now, which leaves Denkey time and space to figure out if he needs to be a secondary playmaker, target forward or just pure poacher.
It hasn’t all been smooth sailing – they held onto a point for dear life in their Hell is Real clash vs. Columbus last weekend – but the attack has looked smoother and more balanced, and Orellano looks much more comfortable. He's a wide player who excels at coming inside, but struggles when he has to play inside-out.
The other good thing about the new deployment is it lets both Orellano and left wingback Lucas Engel play a little bit higher, which puts pressure on opponents. It's become a virtuous cycle, as the on- and off-ball strengths of the attackers and wingbacks resonate with each other.
Understand, through all of it, Cincy want to play in transition. In that way, it’s all a story of opportunistic moments (high pressing, counters, midfield turnovers, whatever) and defensive structure that leads to those moments.
I’ll point out here how Atlanta tend to turn the ball over in bad spots. A lot. A lot a lot.
I thought they played pretty well last weekend in a 1-0 loss to Philly, so let’s say they stay with the same 3-4-2-1. Saba Lobjanidze comes in for the injured Lennon, while Latte Lath’s back in the XI after getting the weekend off for rest.
It’ll be the 3-4-1-2, and my guess is Yuya Kubo gets the nod in central midfield.
