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Well The Garbage Cowards Atlanta United continued their perfect record on the road in Minnesota as they beat Minnesota United 1-0 at the Duck Pond, or whatever they call their stadium. You could say that it was a hard fought match with Minnesota giving up a hilarious own goal and then doing an adequate job of pressing Atlanta and employing the cutting edge tactic of clogging up the midfield until Leandro Gonzalez-Pirez got a red card in the 38th minute and the King Peaches were left with little choice but to cluster together in front of goal to keep warm up north.
Or you could call Atlanta cowards and be super salty about not scoring on a 10 man team for 52 minutes - plus 7 minutes of injury time.
Let’s hear from the game’s hero.
After scoring the only goal of the game in a season where his team finished 9th with a -23 goal differential and currently sits in 5th place in the West with a -3 goal differential, the best center back in MLS on the best expansion team in MLS history had this to say:
Here is a snippet of Francisco Calvo's words after the game because I'm on deadline read my story for more k thx #MNUFC pic.twitter.com/PBX0B6Bscr
— Megan Ryan (@theothermegryan) April 1, 2018
I’m sure nobody will mock Minnesota anymore.
Another center back had a take on the game:
More like... pic.twitter.com/aEZqGvXELK
— Michael Parkhurst (@MFparkhurst) April 1, 2018
That was arguably the best defensive performance from Atlanta as a team in its history. A clean sheet on the road with its star center back missing for two thirds of the game. It was a gutty win for Atlanta even though they weren’t at their best in attack.
Anyway, here’s how it looked in the box score:
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Minnesota was up a man for an hour including stoppage time and managed three shots on goal, but yeah they should get a lot more respect in the league.
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LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL -50 CROSSES - 50 - FIFTY! Minnesota, you are up a man, try working a ball in for a shot or playing soccer and not crying about how you don’t get respect.
Is the circle on ‘50’ after“Them” a zero preceding “no credit” or just a circle - you tell me.
That was a full on CONCACAF masterpiece from Atlanta United. Players were time wasting, kicking the ball away - booting it up field. Magnifique job team - Peter Vermes would be proud (I threw up typing that).
There was a lot of insecurity analysis about why Minnesota is as good as Atlanta United online last night - it was reminiscent of another hero with a deep connection to Minnesota sports:
Atlanta will get back to it next weekend playing LAFC - without their starting center back and starting defensive midfielder, so I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about (I’m going to have nightmares until next Saturday).