Atlanta United doesn't play through balls

RIP: "Runners for Alexey"

FSF: “You talked about kind of mimicking past MLS Cup winners. How critical is it to, when you're looking at these next DPs, to maybe kind of mimic some of the assets that the NYCFC team that Ronny had? You have Taty up top, of course, who's just this incredible defensive forward, as well as attacking. Is it kind of in the back of your mind, like, 'Oh, if you can find some of the similar attributes they might be set up for success with Ronnie?’”

Garth Lagerwey: “Yes, but some of that is coincidental. And I don't mean to be dismissive of it, because Taty was fundamental to how they played in New York City and how that team won the title. He was excellent, impactful, just tremendous. But what I take from that is Ronny is effective with mobile forwards. In other words, I think there's less specific to that player and more the style of player that Taty is. Where I say it's coincidental, is what's good for Miranchuk? What do we see? What flipped that all of a sudden made us better for the last seven, eight games. Thiare went into the lineup full time and started running in behind, and certainly at the beginning part of that Mosqeura was also impactful in terms of the tie at Red Bull. Just the idea that pace could create vertical space, which made Miranchuk's life easier. So, the idea now, if we have a mobile striker, and potentially, if we had two DPs and they can both run, that should increase the vertical space, right?”

We had that conversation with Lagerwey back in early January. By the start of the season a few weeks later, Lagerwey had fulfilled his promise to provide pace and verticality for Alexey Miranchuk by adding Latte Lath and Miguel Almirón to the lineup.

There’s no denying those two can fly. Sportec has Latte Lath’s top speed as the 26th fastest in MLS this year. Almirón is 46th. And neither have had a ton of opportunities to really open it up and shift into their highest gear.

That’s…kind of the big problem. Despite all that pace, Atlanta United have never utilized it. I mean that literally. They’ve never utilized it. Per WhoScored, Atlanta United have zero (0) key passes from through balls this season. Not one.

In total, Atlanta United have completed five (5) total through balls this season per FBref. That’s last in the league.

We can even go a step further and point out that Atlanta still actually makes a decent number of passes. They’re 11th in the league in open-play passes with 5700. But they straight up refuse to play through balls. The Five Stripes are averaging a through ball every 1,140 passes. That’s very, very much last in the league.¹ In fact, that’s the worst non-COVID year through ball ratio in FBref’s database (back to the start of 2019).

Even if the team hadn’t predicated their entire offseason on becoming a more vertical team, this would be a serious problem. The data shows that through balls generate the highest quality chances.