Atlanta United vs. LA Galaxy: Illustrated box score

First and foremost, I told you so:

It’s really satisfying when all of my brilliant analysis comes together in the best way possible and I correctly predict the score from Atlanta United. Every time someone wins the Powerball the person is interviewed on TV and says “I always knew I would win,” that’s how I feel right now.

Better yet, Atlanta United is even so good that Deadspin (which bases its entire coverage of MLS on the premise that the league is a Ponzi scheme filled with unambitious USMNT and Mexican National Team players, isn’t even a real league because it doesn’t have Pro/Rel and maintains a salary cap ignoring that it does so because the history of soccer in America is a sad tale of overspending bankrupt failures, while writing off the league because it doesn’t have teams that play at a level high enough for writers to post long winded, nearly unreadable Eurosnob tinged breakdowns about such topics as “PSG has three really good players”) managed to stop dumping on MLS long enough to count how many goals Atlanta United has scored in the past four games:

Cool, goals are fun, Deadspin is edgy, thanks for the edgy take - can’t wait to read about how the MLS Playoffs are the worst thing in soccer since the golden goal or more about how the most successful soccer league in U.S. history is really a failure. But by all means, get clicks for trashposts that barely scratch the surface about how all of the steps that MLS has taken have helped enable Atlanta to put together some of the best looking soccer in all of CONCACAF before the next ill-conceived take about the league.

Anyway, Atlanta got back to it on Wednesday night. It didn’t start off all bad for the Galaxy, the team almost managed a goal early on when Gyasi Zardes got in behind the Atlanta backline but since he takes his first touch like his right foot is just an enormous clump of worms, LGP had plenty of time to close him down. Also if you have a touch that looks like a swarm of invertebrates lives in your shoe you can’t have the Twitter handle Gyasinho.

Zyasi Gardes’ bad touch was the only highlight for the Galaxy in the game, that was it it happened in the 7th minute. After that Atlanta got to the goal scoring early and often. Four goals and two red cards later, United came away with three points.

Anyway, here’s what the box score looked like - I want to see Deadspin put together something this hackneyed and amateurish, at least it would be better than takes like “it would be good if the U.S. didn’t go to the World Cup because it would spark reform” (it won’t).

The team stats looked even better:

Obviously, whatever Sigi Schmid said to his team after last weekend wasn’t much of a substitute for an MLS level center back pairing and did nothing to compensate for the fact that the team was relying on Jermaine Jones in midfield. Based on how the team let Toronto’s backups score four goals on them, I expected Jacob Peterson and Brandon Vazquez combine for a pair of braces as the game wound down but a weak red card put that dream to an end.

Atlanta will need some help in the Chicago Fire match, but the team could end up as high as 3rd place by Monday if they take care of the Montreal Impact on Sunday evening.