Atlanta United were blown out by the New England Revolution, 4-1, on Saturday night. The Five Stripes now find themselves at the very bottom of the MLS standings. Happy days.
While we all know how bleak it currently is, Tata Martino isn’t offering us much hope that this will get better any time soon.
With the team on a long road trip and a short turnaround from Wednesday’s draw in Charlotte, I had the rare chance to attend a Tata pre-match media availability via Zoom.
While he still seemed in good spirits, offering a few playful responses in addition to being analytical over the 2-2 draw in Charlotte, one answer from him paints the picture of a frustrated manager resigned to the team’s short-term fate.
Tata is rarely pessimistic, usually showing a confident face to the public. However, even he can’t pretend that this squad is good enough to compete as it stands currently.
Obviously he’s not going to throw any anyone at the club under the bus. There’s no upside to doing that as Ronny Deila proved over and over last season. But it is very telling that even Tata can’t remain optimistic about the team’s chances of getting results while it attempts to overhaul the roster during the summer transfer window.
The most depressing thing about the result against the Revs was that New England is everything this Atlanta team is not.
The first goal came from a superstar DP putting his team on his back and scoring a match-winning type of goal that no one on Atlanta’s roster can. When’s the last time anyone other than Jay Fortune beat someone on the dribble and scored a goal from outside of the box? Miguel Almiron can’t carry a team. Alexey Miranchuk can’t carry a team. Latte Lath can carry his bags to the airport.
The second goal saw the Revs absolutely rip through Atlanta’s whole left side with a beautiful, flowing move with passes, off the ball movement, and clinical finishing. Atlanta has none of that.
This team lacks any dynamism or individual brilliance along with being unable to play as a cohesive unit on a consistent basis. The talent level across the board simply isn’t good enough and Tata knows it.
It seems extremely unlikely that the summer window can fix these problems but several smart and bold moves could easily get the process moving in the right direction. However, as Tata said, prepare for a long and rough summer as we wait for those decisions to be made.
The season is, for all intents and purposes, over. We are statistically more likely to win the Wooden Spoon than we are to qualify for the playoff play-in match.
Based on historical averages this decade, Eastern Conference teams need roughly 45 points to qualify for the playoffs. We're on pace for 24. We're not technically eliminated at the halfway mark, but to get there, the team would need to average 1.94 points per match across the final 17. They've done that once in franchise history, in 2018. This team isn't that team. This team is averaging .71 points per match. Since Atlanta United entered the league, Wooden Spoon winners have averaged .71 points per match. We've never been closer to the Spoon than we are right now.
This window was the last chance to change that, and managing this roster during it has been criminal. In a 54 day World Cup break, we've had two credible rumors, both center backs, one to replace a center back signed last summer and one to supplement the other four cycled out that same summer. While active on the outbound side, it's been anemic on the incoming side.
Six players have been shipped out or shelved: Berrocal, Galarza, Saba, Latte Lath, Amador, and Alzate. Two have come in. Beyond the revolving door at center back that Henderson has installed, the team is also trying to replace two midfielders who lasted half a season, a striker who should have been moved out at the end of last season, a winger who needed real reinforcements in the offseason and never got them, and a left back who is arguably better than the man brought in to replace him.
The club keeps saying they're working hard to sign players. Even so, given how long it takes any international signing to get a visa and acclimate, it will realistically be September before anyone new can make a meaningful difference. That leaves 12 matches. We'd need to win essentially all of them to have any hope of reaching the play-in. Based on the historic trends of roster signings and misses in the Henderson era, hope is not high.
The folks who are tasked with convincing supporters to renew their season ticket memberships have all of my sympathy.
I realize this is just nipping at the edges and won’t fill the great soccer void that is Atlanta United, but can we at least play Cayman at striker rather than playing someone else out of position there. I don’t think it was a coincidence that Atlanta scored its lone goal in the 10 minutes he played and he was in the middle of it.