Yamil Asad: I’m an intense player

Midfielder Yamil Asad is currently tied with Chris Pontius from the Philadelphia Union for first place with six primary assists each, but it has been in the last three matches where Asad has made his presence more noticeable. (MLS counts primary and secondary assists. Victor Vazquez leads the league in combined assists with 8.)

In the last three games for Atlanta, Asad has accounted for three assists and has completed an average of 68 percent of his passes.

According to whoscored.com, he completed 41 passes for a 70.7 percent pass completion and two assists against Houston and against NYCFC, he completed 35 passes and provided an assist to Hector Villalba for the second goal of the game.

Asad was suspended for the first matchup against NYCFC after an elbow against Lloyd Sam late in the game against DC United.

“Whether or not you agree with the suspension, it’s something you try to learn from,” Asad said. “I learned from it and taken it as more experience now. I [sic]taken it calmly and I think it’s gonna serve me well for the rest of the season.”

“I saw the replay of the play,” Asad said of the elbow against Sam. “If that’s a red, then I also seen plays since then that weren’t called for the same thing.”

The Argentinian midfielder was also suspended early in the season after he received a red card in the matchup against Toronto.

“They were two isolated plays and I think both of them will serve me well and it’s not gonna change how I play,” Asad said. “I’m an intense player and I want to do what the coach asks of us, which is to press, to be intense and to try to win the ball back. I learned from it but I don’t think it’s gonna change my game at all.”

Despite his two suspensions, Asad said he will continue to do everything he can to help the team obtain positive results, which he believes is because they regained their confidence and also because they played back-to-back home games.

“I think my game has been similar the whole season,” Asad said. “One thing that I think you’re seeing is the team has more confidence now, we lost it for a bit in that stretch where we lost back-to-back games, but I think from the Portland game and on, you see that we regained it and it’s showing.”

“The atmosphere at home has been amazing,” Asad said. “We as players have a responsibility to enjoy it because we played on the road and in a lot of stadiums, we seen that it’s not like that everywhere. We feel like we really gotta enjoy our home games as players and we also try to repay the fans with our play on the field.”