Atlanta United’s top 5 players in Football Manager 18

While Atlanta United never made it into last year’s FIFA video game series, the team was added to the release of Football Manager 17 — a computer game for huge nerds. We wrote a wrote a mini-walkthrough to guide you through the preseason drafts and various methods of player acquisition. But this year, Atlanta’s full squad is in the game, so it’s time to pull back the curtain and show you the full ratings for Atlanta’s top five players (by transfer value) excluding Brad Guzan (because let’s be honest — we’re not here to see goalkeeper ratings).

No. 5 Yamil Asad

About what you’d expect from Asad here in term of the ratings. Pretty good at a lot of stuff, while not really excelling in a single area. If I were to complain about anything, I’d push his work rate up to about a 15 or so. He’s one of the hardest working players on the team. And as far as Atlanta’s attackers go, he almost always played for the full 90 minutes — usually only being substituted for tactical reasons, so perhaps his stamina could be higher as well.

No. 4 Carlos Carmona

Carlos Carmona is an amazing ball winning midfielder for an MLS team, both in the game and in real life. Great tackling, bravery, determination, stamina. He has very high aggression, which will swing both ways in your saves. He will go in harder and tackle more often, meaning he’ll win more balls, but he will pick up a lot of bookings. Combine this with his player traits of “Dives into tackles” and “Argues with officials,” I think they’ve nailed Carmona to a T in this edition of the game. He will be a crucial player for your Atlanta United saves, but makes sure you have a backup on the bench so you can replace him at the 70’ mark.

No. 3 Hector “Tito” Villalba

I gotta say, even though he’s fast in the game, I don’t think they made him fast enough. FM lists his acceleration as being higher than his top-end speed (“pace”) which is criminal, in my opinion. When Tito gets a full head of steam, no one in the league can catch him. Hell, hardly anyone in the world can catch him.

No. 2 Josef Martinez

I know what you’re thinking -- underrated. This is one of those times when the polygon is an optical illusion, though. If you look at the highlighted stats, which are the only stats that come into play for the highlighted role of “complete forward,” they are pretty damn good across the board. The added bonus of Josef being most natural in a complete forward role is that, in my experience in football manager, you don’t need to play Almiron right underneath him. Instead, you can play Almiron deeper to help bolster midfield and offer some creative help to the likes of Carlos Carmona and other players doing the dirty work. Speaking of which...

No. 1 Miguel Almiron

Almiron is INCREDIBLE in this game. He has everything you want in a central midfielder... pace, technique and work rate. As I mentioned before, I think you’re best off using him as a pure CM instead of as an attacking cm behind the striker. Reason being, you’ll give him more freedom in the middle of the park to utilize his best attributes. With his pace, you want Almiron running at players with room in behind them. With his work rate, you want him in the middles of the field so that he can affect more areas of the game. Overall, he’s a great partner for Carmona, but good luck keeping a hold of him for long, as the big clubs will undoubtedly come calling. With a value so low, I will surely being targeting him with the saves I start with European teams.