The one where we don’t concede EARLY goals anymore

1: It feels like Atlanta United has beef with a lot of teams. We have history with Toronto, losing to them in our race win the shield in ‘18 and they beat us in the conference final in ‘19 and now took valuable points from us tonight. We have beef with Orlando because, well it’s OFYO. We got beef with Red Bull, obviously. We have a little bad blood with DC and it feels like something is starting up with Miami. Personally, I love it. Rivalries are fun and add more meaning to more games. 

 

2: Toronto dictated terms for large portions of the first half but I thought we played out of the pressure well enough, despite the chances they had. I would have liked to see us apply a little more pressure to prevent TFC from having the time and space to pass the ball into dangerous areas. 

 

3: A healthy and fit Juergen Damm is showing his versatility. He can play on the wing, he can come in central when required and he does a ton of defensive work. His speed is a tremendous asset that allows him to cover all of that ground with relative ease. He’s got great vision as well picking out quick passes and little give and go’s. Really looking forward to his partnership with Josef next year. 

 

4: Barco is back. This is a total mystery to me. I did not expect to see him get a 45 minute run out. I thought he would just get maybe 20 minutes or so. When a player has been out for over a month, usually they don’t get a full half upon returning. I truly have no idea what’s going on with the little boat but he did look up for it tonight. 

 

5: We got the attack going early in the second half. You expect that when you actually have good attacking pieces you can bring on from the bench. This is the first time in a long time where we actually had options and weren’t just zip tying and paper clipping an 11 together to go out and do something. So the attack looked good and this is probably, at least in the second half, the strongest attack that we are going to be able to field without another DP and Joseph. Yet, we still can’t get a goal. You can make the argument that all of these players still haven’t had enough time playing together, but there’s enough quality on that pitch for 45 minutes to go and find a goal.