Rewatch Notes: Atlanta United vs. FC Cincinnati | April 20, 2024

2500 words plus video and pictures. No one can say we aren't trying.

via Atlanta United

After every match of interest, we’re going to do our best to dig into the tactics and personnel that defined the weekend’s action. It’s tough to notice those things when you’re stressed out during the actual game, so we like to take a couple of days to rewatch, take notes and try and understand the part of the game that’s not played on a spreadsheet a little better. It’s not what you’d call an exact science, but at least we’re trying. 

Also, hey, by the way, if you want the full notes from this game, we put them in the Discord each week. Also, this is the last time I’m making this article free. Guess you should subscribe. 

Upon further review, giving the ball away to the other team so they can run directly at your goalkeeper relatively unimpeded is bad. If you didn’t learn it in New York then maybe you learned it against Philadelphia and if you didn’t learn it against Philadelphia then maybe you learned it against FC Cincinnati. 

That’s the bottom line of any real discussion around the last few results. There’s a timeline right next to ours where Atlanta picked up a deserved seven, maybe even nine points over the last three games. But the team decided to stick a fork in a wall socket multiple times. 

I don’t think they’re going to do it again, although I should note I also said that after the Philadelphia match. Either way, these results aren’t going to stop being any more frustrating for Atlanta fans anytime soon. Because for large chunks of the last two games Atlanta either outplayed or went punch for punch with two of the best teams in the league despite missing multiple key players. They owed it to themselves to get more out of it. 

Saturday’s game posed the most interesting challenge of the last three games. Playing NYCFC is barely playing sanctioned soccer. And Philadelphia have not and will not do anything different beyond playing direct out of a 4-4-2 diamond. Cincy had a little more insight to offer about how teams are approaching Atlanta United defensively and how attacking setups that include wingbacks pose a particular threat when the Five Stripes aren’t at their sharpest. 

Tristan Muyumba has a travel buddy 

I’ll let Gonzalo Pineda write the article for us. 

“Yeah, I felt that they were kind of man for man all over the field. It was challenging for Brooks to get the ball without pressure. And then they made Acosta to run a lot today and he did the work. He was chasing Tristan all over the field, especially in that first half. So, it was challenging.

“We tried to drop Daniel Rios to make that advantage. So, the only trade we had was direct passes, but they were better in winning those and then it was challenging. So we tried something different. And in the second half, actually, we created a very, very good chance from a goal kick in the second half. And then from the run of play pretty much the same. 

“They were very aggressive with their wingbacks. We knew that. But we were trying to get some numerical overloads that, because of their man marking, were not happening. They did a good job on that and they kind of never directly pressed Abram and then their two outside strikers were pressing our outside center backs in that back line of three. So, then it was really difficult. I felt like Acosta, he was doing a great job on our midfielders. So, we started some rotations and in certain moments we created what we wanted, but certainly it was challenging.”

That’s it. That’s the whole game. We almost don’t need to dig into any more than that, but I wanted to at least show a few examples. 

Let’s start with Cincy’s man-marking in midfield. Pineda talked about it, but Lucho Acosta hung out on Tristan Muyumba’s back as often as he could. Bartosz Slisz typically had a travel buddy too. You can see the idea manifest immediately when Atlanta took its first couple of goal kicks. 

Acosta and Pavel Bucha are hanging out with Muyumba and Silsz respectively. And Cincy’s strikers are prepared to press the center backs. When the ball goes out to Luis Abram, Cincy goes too. They’re set to trap the fullbacks when the ball goes wide. 

Like Pineda said, it caused some problems. Through the first 30 minutes especially, Cincy forced turnovers that nearly buried Atlanta early.

It’s not the first time the Five Stripes have struggled against man-marking principles. You might remember that Toronto employed a similar tactic to a more extreme degree. It might be a concern for Atlanta going forward as teams look to keep the Five Stripes’ double-pivot off the ball and look to crowd out any overloads Atlanta is trying to create. 

That being said, Atlanta did adjust. Thiago Almada came back to the ball a little more, Muyumba and Slisz started to look for different spaces and the team played directly at times. You can even see they came out of the half with a different approach to building out of the back.

This is the chance from a goal kick Pineda mentioned in the quote. You can see from the start that things are more asymmetrical now for Atlanta.  Brooks Lennon has pushed upfield, as has Muyumba. Caleb Wiley has dropped deeper and both center backs are hanging out on the far side. It’s enough of a change to unbalance Cincy and it leads to a chance that Saba Lobjanidze probably could have done better with.

Even with the turnovers Cincy caused initially, Atlanta created plenty of chances against what might be the league’s best defense. Depending on what source you’re looking at, Atlanta’s final xG tally on the night came out to about 2.1 xG. Yeah, they had issues, but they also forced Cincy into bad positions as well. They made adjustments. And they even threw in some wrinkles from the start like utilizing Daniel Rios doing false nine things.

“[The instruction] was to drop. Drop so much that it would look like we were almost playing with two No. 8’s,” Rios said. “This was to create space for Thiago or to create space for myself. I think we did very well at first, but then Cincinnati adapted well to what we were trying to do. Aside from that I think that we did give them a hard time in moments, we played very well for about 65 minutes and scored the goal which took us a lot of hard work to score.” 

I’m not sure how often we’ll see that from here on out, but it’s nice to know it’s in Rios’ bag. I thought he did very well in possession. He’s not your typical third-string striker. 

Anyway, both teams had chances. Both teams made adjustments. Atlanta was the only team to team to kick the ball to their opponent off a corner and put them in on goal. 

Atlanta’s rest defense issues and ineffective pressing led to opportunities for Cincinnati

You can’t go through life expecting any team to give the ball away like that week after week. We’ve seen once-every-two-year occurrences happen in back-to-back weeks. They’re things to be mad about. Not worry about.

If we’re going to talk about the actual problems Atlanta had that could lead to issues down the line though, we have to start with their ineffective counterpress and how Cincinnati were fully prepared to exploit it. 

I’m going to show you some pictures. Your job is to step into the shoes of a professional soccer player for FC Cincinnati and tell me where you would pass the ball in these scenarios. 

If you picked the comically wide-open guy (For reference: DeAndre Yedlin is the one in the last picture raising his hand just to make sure you know who the comically wide-open guy is. Thanks DeAndre.) you were correct. Ball goes there. 

Now there are lies, damned lies and screenshots of moments happening in full-speed team sporting events. They don’t tell the full story more often than not. But here’s what I can tell you about each of those pictures. Each picture is the aftermath of a moment where Atlanta got forward, gave the ball away and…

1. Were not in position to effectively counterpress

2. Were in position to effectively counterpress and absolutely didn’t

3. Were both not in position and not effective. 

When Cincy broke through Atlanta’s efforts to win the ball back, their 3-5-2 setup allowed them to switch play to a wide-open wingback more than the Five Stripes should be comfortable with. It’s fine to counterpress and it’s fine to have numbers ball side, but you actually have to slow the opponent down to make it work. 

To be fair, Cincy were sharp on the ball. But these moments highlighted a couple of trends for Atlanta. The first is that they haven’t been an effective pressing team. Like at all. 

Most folks will use passes per defensive action (PPDA) to assess a team's pressing ability. However, it typically shows how you much a team is pressing. Not how good they are it. We need to dig a little deeper to figure out if Atlanta is suceeding. Plus, John Muller told me to use a different stat so I’m gonna do it. 

We’ll call it “Expected Completion Differential Against” (ECDA). ECDA looks at an opponent's pass completion rate above or below expected outside the pressing team's final third. Basically, if teams are completing fewer passes than American Soccer Analysis’ expected pass completion metric says they should be in the first two-thirds of the pitch, then the team is likely pressing effectively. 

Atlanta is seventh in MLS in PPDA. That suggests they’re pressing at a rate that’s among the highest in MLS. Atlanta is 27th in ECDA. 27th. Those numbers are hinting at a team that presses more than average and is something close to awful at it. That’s not far from the eye test. 

The second thing to worry about is one we’ve talked about before. Atlanta has issues defending against wingbacks in general. They tend to operate in pockets of space that cause Atlanta’s wingers and fullbacks to make tough decisions at times. That’s especially true when the back line is dealing with a front line of three like they were against Cincy and Columbus. You can see it well on the second goal when Caleb Wiley leaves a bit too much room for Yedlin to dink one over poor Ronald Hernandez. You can also get a clear idea here…

Again though, there are tradeoffs to a 3-5-2 and Atlanta found their own advantages against the Garys’ setup. But it’s something to keep in mind down the road. 

All that being said, Atlanta, once again, defended very well in their own box. They’ve done a fantastic job of attacking the ball in their own 18 and limiting the goofy goals that have plagued them in years past. Cincinnati took 12 shots in the first half and none of them were on target. Per Fotmob those 12 shots amounted to just 0.64 xG. That’s in part due to Atlanta’s ability to reorganize defensively and to affect the play once they get there. The Five Stripes are allowing more shots per game than last season, but the shots are coming from worse positions. 

Last year, Atlanta allowed 0.10 xG per shot. This year, they’re allowing 0.08 xG per shot. That’s the fourth-best mark in the league. On a related note, they’re allowing the sixth-lowest post-shot xG per shot on target. Last year, they allowed the highest. Teams are shooting from worse positions and it’s leading to easier saves. 

And other notes

• Lucho Acosta is a nightmare. His touch map shows you just how freeform he was in this one. How do you track this?

• After the second Cincinnati goal, they were content to drop into a 5-3-2 low-block setup. They pushed out at times, but they made it difficult for Atlanta to find much space. Even still, Atlanta had half-chances that could have gotten them back in the game. They weren’t as inept in the final 20 minutes as it might have seemed on first watch. 

• Bartosz Slisz deserves love for his team-high 12 progressive passes and six progressive carries. He still needs to find a final ball to be truly elite, but he’s getting better and better on the ball with time. I was too harsh on him earlier this week.

• Saba ruled in this game. He put together a 1.2 xG, three-tackle performance and had a couple of opportunities to break the game open. Yeah, he didn’t finish. But if he keeps getting in those positions he’ll be just fine. Plus, his defensive work rate continues to be outstanding. Stats and eye test were both good for me here. 

• Tristan Muyumba I didn’t know you had this in your bag. (Edwin Mosquera did not finish.)

• Giving the ball to other team and putting them in on goal is bad.