Dwelling on Atlanta United’s long summer ahead
If Tata is resigned to it, there’s no reason we shouldn’t be either.
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.