Game Context
Atlanta’s season was supposed to be about a team trying to elevate itself into contender status with a high-scoring attack that would hopefully paper over defensive weakness. Instead, Atlanta came into this game with their high-priced attack sputtering and a surprising sturdy defense. Unfortunately for that defense, their preferred (I think?) starting centerbacks were unavailable as former DC United player Derek Williams has been out several weeks with a calf injury and Norwegian international Stian Gregersen got a concussion playing in the midweek Open Cup game. That left Atlanta starting Luis Abram and 18-year-old Noah Cobb. Together they’d played about 800 minutes between them, so it’s not like they haven’t contributed to Atlanta’s defensive performance this year, but…they are…how to put this…a bit undersized considering Luis Abram is 5’11” and Noah Cobb is 6’0. Atlanta fans were understandably anxious about these two trying to defend Benteke.
But Atlanta’s bigger problem has been their star #10 Thiago Almada, the one who played (a tiny bit) on Messi’s world cup-winning Argentina side, the one who they paid $16m for, the one who is supposed to be too good for MLS. The problem was supposed to be that they would have to transfer him to Europe this summer for an enormous profit, which would be good in the long run but disruptive to the season in the short run. Instead, the problem is that we’re a third of the way into the season and he has only 1 non-penalty goal and one assist. There were reports he wanted to go to Europe after last season…is he still disappointed that didn’t happen? Most DC fans will remember what did to Lucho Acosta’s 2019 season.
As for DC United, they hadn’t won a game on the road in five attempts, but they’d only lost once in those games. That’s miraculous enough, but the real miracle is that except for Russell Canouse, every player was available coming into the game. That’s mostly luck, but I think it’s a credit to Troy Lesesne that his system—so far—isn’t causing the sort of injuries that we saw with Hernan Losada.
Formation
As with last game, DC played what I would call a 3-4-3 in attack and a 5-3-2 in defense. Matti Peltola played again on the left side of the three man backline, Jared Stroud played up to the right of Christian Benteke, and in the only lineup change, Ted Ku-Dipietro played the same position that Jacob Murrell did at the beginning of last week’s game: up on the left during the attack and then dropping back into midfield when defending.
Atlanta played a 4-3-3 with Thiago Almada playing as an attacking midfielder underneath their forward Giorgos Giakoumakis and wingers Edwin Mosquera and their other designated player, Saba Lobzhanidze. This left Atlanta’s midfield anchored by just two players (Bartosz Slisz and Tristan Muyumba).
Scoreline
Atlanta got the scoring started early in the game with what seemed like a relatively harmless play that began with Saba getting the ball out wide. His initial cross was blocked by Dájome, but he managed to loft his second try to the far side of the box. Mosquera touched it back towards an onrushing Giakoumakis. Christopher McVey tried to poke the ball clear and Giakoumakis went down like he’s been shot. McVey tried the usual “I got the ball” defense with the ref, but no dice. I didn’t see a really good replay of this but even McVey seemed more disappointed than angry, so I’ll assume it was the right call. After an interminably long VAR check to confirm the penalty, Almada sent Bono left and easily scored the penalty by side-footing the ball into the right side of goal.
Only a few minutes later, Mayumba tried to play Saba in behind with an aerial through ball, but Dájome got back well and won the ball. He played it along the sideline to Ku-Dipietro, who passed it back to Bartlett. He gave it to Peltola deep in DC’s left corner. Peltola hit a long ball that found Benteke ten yards inside DC’s half. He was bracketed by two Atlanta defenders, but so much the better: he won the ball, of course, and when he headed it towards the center of the field there was acres of space for Klich and the overlapping Aaron Herrera. The commentator at this point remarked that four players are counterattacking for DC United, but Atlanta had at least five players back so it didn’t seem all that dangerous to me. Herrera played Stroud in to the endline where he crossed to Benteke. Luis Abram was standing in space marking no one, leaving Benteke man to man with Noah Cobb. As mentioned earlier, Cobb is only 6’0, but it didn’t matter on this play. The real problem is that the 18 year old was caught flat-footed while Benteke darted in front of him to get an easy header down where Guzan had no chance and tie the game.
DC’s next goal came on the back of a 23 pass sequence that began with Alex Bono uncharacteristically starting a move out of the back instead of hitting it long to Benteke. I’ll have the full sequence later, but after first going up the left, the ball swung around to the right where Stroud and Herrera interchanged, then Herrera passed to Klich and he played in Stroud in a very similar pattern to the first goal DC scored last game. Part of what I’m looking for in these goal writeups is repeatable goals and, well, here’s the definition of repeatable. Last game, it took a really nice pass from Herrera and this time it was a simple square ball, but again Klich played Stroud behind. This time Cobb and fullback Brooks Lennon were double-teaming Benteke, leaving Dájome wide open at the far post, and Cobb managed to make a diving clearance to keep Stroud’s low cross from reaching Benteke. But Cobb sent it right back to Stroud, who hit it first time with his left foot back across to Benteke. Cobb was still getting up, but Lennon had correctly moved to the inside position on Benteke. It wasn’t a jump ball—Benteke had to hunch over a bit to head it—but Lennon inexplicably tried to kick it instead of head it and he couldn’t get his foot up in time. Another easy header for Benteke. Guzan was covering the near post when Stroud hits his second cross and had absolutely no chance at a ball tucked in close to the far post. Lennon ended up looking very silly (and didn’t help in this regard by comically lying flat on the ground afterwards) but to be charitable, perhaps he was caught off balance by the suddenness of Stroud’s one-time cross.
DC took that lead into halftime, but after the Philly game, I don’t think anyone thought two goals would be enough. Sure enough, only a few minutes into the second half, Atlanta scored again. This time, it started from a simple situation where DC was playing out of the back under no pressure. Peltola and Hopkins were too lackadaisical and allowed Atlanta to converge on them and take the ball. At that point, Herrera was forward and needed a long recovery run to get back, but otherwise DC still seemed to have things contained. But they got destabilized by a nice backheel from Giakoumakis and a good dummy run out of midfield from Muyumba. This opened up some space for Almada to find Saba Lobzhanidze, Atlanta’s wide midfielder who makes $2m to be a faster but (this season, at least) less effective version of Jared Stroud. Saba hit a hard, low cross. In my opinion, he should have crossed high because Giakoumakis was in front of Herrera on the far post and theoretically could have scored. With the ball hit along the ground, between McVey and Hopkins double-teaming Mayumba and Bono coming out to dive for it, there’s no way the ball gets through to their striker. Alas, Peltola tries to block the pass and it deflects off his foot as Bono commits to moving forward, allowing the ball to trickle into the goal at the near post. Yet again, DC gives up a lead on a really unlucky goal.
But once again the response came in only a few minutes. I’ve complained in the past that we don’t seem dangerous on corners despite having Benteke, but in the 54th minute…DC scored directly off a corner. Nothing cute this time. No galaxy-brained attempt to pass it to Bartlett instead of Benteke and have him head it across goal or something. Benteke just took up position at the far post and Klich kicked it to him. Benteke headed it down into the ground toward the opposite side of the goal. I think Guzan could have done better here. He stayed on the spot in case someone touched it, but one of the replay angles made it clear the nearest DC player (Hopkins) was a good five yards away from the path of the ball. If Guzan trusted it won’t be touched, I think he had enough time to get across and save it. But he waited, then it pinged off the post and in.
23 Passes
Here I just want to give credit to everyone involved by listing the players involved in the buildup to the second goal. I think every DC player except Peltola touches the ball at least once (Peltola was instrumental in the buildup to the first goal, so we’ll let him take this one off). Credit also goes to the referee for playing advantage midway through the build-up.
Bono (collecting a pretty harmless long ball to Saba from the Atlnata CBs)
McVey
Bartlett (aerial ball over the Atlanta press)
Ku-Dipietro
Dajome
Hopkins
Klich
Hopkins
Dajome
Hopkins (entry pass to the top of the box)
Benteke (back to goal, drops it back)
Klich (under pressure, passes back as he is fouled, ref plays advantage)
Barlett
McVey
Herrera (“healthy string of passes” the commentator says at this point)
McVey
Bartlett (under pressure from Giakoumakis)
Stroud (first time)
Herrera (first time)
Stroud
Herrera
Klich (through ball)
Stroud (cross)
After 23 passes, Atlanta touches the ball, but Noah Cobb sportingly kicks it back to Stroud so he can try again.
Stroud (first time cross)
Benteke scores with a header!
Player Ratings
Alex Bono - 5 - I don’t think he’s really been close to saving a penalty this season, but oh well. Nothing he could do with the own goal. He had a little adventure out of his box at one point, but Atlanta wasn’t fast enough to threaten the goal while he was getting back.
Christopher McVey - 5 - Good game…except for, you know, giving up that penalty. It wasn’t a completely ridiculous foul seeing as it was a bang-bang play and if McVey doesn’t do something, Giakoumakis would have been a very dangerous position. So I don’t see it that harshly.
Lucas Bartlett - 6 - Poor Bartlett. Late in the game, he carries the ball into space, passes to Klich, realizes no one else is there to help Klich as Atlanta defenders close in, so he makes a run up the wing to provide an outlet. Klich gets him the ball, and then right as Bartlett is about to show off his skills as a winger, Luis Abram cleans him out with a totally gratuitous slide tackle that earns a yellow card. What? How did he play? Uh, solid game.
Matti Peltola - 6 - In a press conference, Lesesne was asked about Peltola playing in the backline and said he didn’t know why people were surprised, Peltola played there for Iceland and his old club. Just like I said in last game’s recap! He also said Peltola’s passing is a real asset in that position. Just like I…okay, I frankly hadn’t picked up on Peltola having any unusual skill in this department. So I was watching carefully this time, and in the first half he really did have several good progressive passes. The commentators did well to highlight his long ball to Benteke that led to the first goal, but he had a couple other good balls bypassing players in the midfield. So all that was good. I don’t blame him for the own goal itself, but I do think he gets the majority of the blame for the turnover that started the sequence.
Jackson Hopkins - 5 - Not as flashy as last week on the offensive end and he did lose the ball to start the own goal sequence, but it seemed like most opportunities Atlanta generated were down the flank with Saba. That might be more of an indictment of Giakoumakis and Almada, but I’ll say it’s a win for Klich and Hopkins.
Mateusz Klich - 8 - I’ve been a bit skeptical of him but he had a very good game. He got an assist on the corner, contributed a great deal to the second goal, and kept his intensity high until the end of the game. He racked up 8 shot-creating actions and is #6 in the league in SCA/90, just ahead of one Leo Messi (and behind Acosta, Almada, Gil, Puig, and Bassi).
Aaron Herrera - 7 - It’s hard not to take him for granted, but lots of MLS fullbacks don’t hit the pass to Stroud that led to the first goal with the perfect weight on it the he did. He makes the position look easy.
Cristian Dájome - 5 - This is supposed to be closer to his natural position than when he was playing fullback, but he didn’t create a whiff of danger. His replacement at halftime, Conner Antley, didn’t feel like a step down.
Jared Stroud - 8 - Another two-assist game for Stroud. He’s already up to 6, one more than he had in all of 2023 with St. Louis City in what was previously his career-best year. To emphasize this, he is tied with Luciano Acosta for assists and along with some other players they are in 3rd place for assists league wide. Obviously Stroud is not as good a player as Acosta, so a lot of credit has to go to Troy Lesesne and his system for enabling him to do this, but when he is subbed off the field his replacements are either unwilling or unable to play the way he does.
Ted Ku-Dipietro - 5 - Random fact: Ku-Dipietro leads all of MLS in xG +/-. As in, if you subtract xG allowed from the team’s xG only while he is on the pitch, and normalize to 90 minutes, he is +1.36 and best in the league. So maybe I am underrating him, but I think he’s been fortunate in the games his injuries have led him to miss. This game was pretty typical of his season: very low usage (12 touches), a nice amount of xG (0.4) on a single shot from a dangerous spot. In this case, he didn’t hit it well and it was a pretty easy save for Guzan.
Christian Benteke - 10 - What can you say? None of his goals were hard, per se, but it’s his movement and positioning that made them easy, not his height. With all due respect to Jacob Murrell, I think there’s a decent chance he scores zero goals in the same situations. Meanwhile Benteke had his usual dominant game in the air to help us in the buildup. He deserves to be in the MVP conversation and is unlucky that it is nearly impossible for him to win it. Ah, but can you imagine the outraged headlines worldwide if he did?
Substitutes
Conner Antley - 5 - This wasn’t one of his better games, but he looked okay and was helpful for park-the-bus mode in the second half.
Jacob Murrell - 5 - Ku-Dipietro left the door open for him to make a case for starting, but Murrell didn’t look any better playing the same position. Though he didn’t look worse either.
Gabriel Pirani - 6 - I admit I root for Pirani as a lovable underdog since DC fans have been so frustrated with him. Well, he came in and the commentator said the extra space on the counter would be perfect for him. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who rolled my eyes. But…he did well! He was still his low-usage self with only 6 touches in 18 minutes (but note, this is the same rate as Murrell and higher than Ku-Dipietro). But Pirani had 2 shot creating actions with those 6 touches! Not too shabby! His cutback pass that ended in a Klich shot was an especially dangerous chance, though it would have been better if he had passed it to Murrell like I think he intended instead of hitting it behind him to Klich. I’m going to call this a promising game.
Garrison Tubbs - 4 - Great to see him make his MLS debut! As for the play on the field…well…uh…let’s say there’s lots of room for improvement here (in ten minutes, two touches, one dangerous turnover).
Pedro Santos - N/A - He got in one tackle as we saw out the win.
Other
Troy Lesesne - 8 - He outcoached Gonzalo Pineda. Atlanta fans seem to think this is a common occurrence, but after a season and a half of Rooney coming out worse in tactics to what felt like every manager in the league, it’s nice to see our players consistently put in a position to do well.
Referee - 8 - I think the penalty call was correct, he correctly played advantage on DC’s goal, and…look, I’m not going to pretend to understand the crazy nuances of the handball rule, so I’m just going to put on my fan hat and say that surely he did a great job not calling off DC’s first goal due to the minor ball-to-hand contact on both Dájome and Saba when the possession started.
Second Half Progress?
Last week I was talking about how Troy Lesesne was trying to find a way to keep the team from wilting in the second halves of games. I worried it might not be possible with the somewhat messed-up roster, but it feels like some progress has been made.
In this game, instead of waiting patiently for DC United to wilt, Pineda subbed off a winger (Edwin Mosquera) at halftime and subbed on Dax McCarty to reinforce a midfield battle that Klich and Hopkins had been winning in the first half. I didn’t check to see if this happened at the half, but certainly after the third goal, Lesesne pulled the team back into a low block and defended in a 5-4-1 instead of a 5-3-2, leaving Benteke as a lone high outlet. This slowed down DC’s offense but successfully denied Atlanta much in the way of chances. Lesesne put Pirani on for Stroud in the 73rd minute, both for fresh legs and perhaps because Pirani is—at least theoretically—better than Stroud at holding on to the ball while outnumbered and finding a pass under pressure. This didn’t pay off with a goal, but he did help generate a few shots, which lately have been few and far between after halftime.
I wanted to see if I could validate my fuzzy sense of improvement with some objective stats. We’re twelve games into the season, so maybe we can see some trends. Note that I normally use FBref, but for this I’m using Fotmob stats because they let me filter by half.
The first question is do the stats even confirm the eye test that this is a real issue?
Answer: yes. Kind of.
DC’s overall goal difference:
Overall: 0
Second halves: -3
Expected goal difference (DC’s xG minus opposing team xG):
Overall: +2.06
Second halves: -0.43
Big chance difference (DC’s “big chance” stat minus the opposition’s “big chance” stat):
Overall: +4
Second halves: -1
So this seems like a significant effect. My first thought was it doesn’t seem as big as I would have thought, but it’s worth noting that DC’s overall xG difference is 4th best in the league. Their second half xG difference, if it were the team’s overall, would be near the bottom of the eastern conference.
What about the trend? I tried looking at trends by looking at stats like xG and big chances based on the percentage DC had in the second half, but those charts didn’t tell the story I wanted them to tell seemed either too noisy or too impacted by the game state. I think the best view is just second half xG difference, so here that is game-by-game:
Overall, you’ve got to like that trend over the past four games! Although it looks more dramatic because of how terrible that NYCFC game was. Also, it’s worth noting that the Orlando City game involved a brutal collapse on the scoresheet but doesn’t look so bad in xG terms.
Here’s the same thing broken out so you can see our xG and xG allowed in the second halves of each game:
My big takeaway is that we should try not to get crushed like in the Inter Miami and NYCFC games. Instead, we should do the crushing, like we did against New England and Portland. How’s that for hard-hitting analysis?
Finally, let’s look at DC’s xG difference in each half:
From this, you can see there’s been several games with clear meltdowns: St. Louis City, CF Montreal, and Seattle. And a few where DC was a bit worse: New England, Cincinnati, NYCFC, and Philadelphia. Portland was the one really big turnaround, but Columbus and Atlanta were both improvements.
As always with soccer stats, this is mostly a matter of entertainment and not scientific truth, but I’ll keep an eye on things as we go forward.
Coming Up
First up is a home match against DC’s arch-rival, the New York Red Bulls, who bounced back from their humiliation by Inter Miami with a 4-2 win over New England. It’s nice that DC gets to play them during “Rivalry Week”, but unfortunately, almost all the energy has drained out of this rivalry through a combination of the league trying to make NYCFC the chief rival of the Red Bulls and, maybe more importantly, DC being too bad to contest it properly. Two sad stats:
Wayne Rooney never defeated the Red Bulls. Not as a manager (two losses, one draw), and not even as a player (three losses, two draws). One of the most exciting games of the LuchaRoo season was the second Audi Field game against the Red Bulls, but NYRB’s Bradley Wright-Phillips completed his hat trick in the ninetieth minute to tie the game 3-3.
DC has played the Red Bulls 25 times since the start of the 2015 season, but their record in that time is just 4 wins, 8 draws, and 13 losses. Yikes.
The Red Bulls have a lofty 3rd place in the standings but are only 3 points ahead of DC, so we’ll see how it goes.
After that game, it just gets tougher as DC travel to play Inter Miami on the weekend. Miami gave up two goals against CF Montreal in the first 32 minutes of their match this past weekend, tied it up before halftime, and then ended up winning 3-2. The energy of their once-again-healthy young players like Ben Cremaschi and Matias Rojas combined with the skill and guile of Messi and Suárez has made them seem unstoppable. I try to look on the bright side, but the only good news is that they are playing midweek in 80 degree weather in Orlando before playing us at home in 90 degree weather. Maybe Messi and Suárez will get too tired?
Then it’s back home to play the Chicago Fire, who are next to last in the Eastern Conference standings, next to last in the East in goals scored, and next to last in the East in minimizing goals allowed. By comparison, DC is 4th in goals scored and tied for 6th in goals allowed. So on paper an easier game, though DC isn’t good enough to ever expect any game to be easy.