Tata Martino coy on how team will look with Barco

Ezequiel Barco is back. Or finally here, I guess. In the 20 minutes he played against NYCFC, he looked dynamic, fast, and extremely dangerous. The question Tata Martino now faces is how he handles utilizing all the attacking weapons that have made Atlanta a pain to face and include Barco moving forward.

“First we have to get everyone back. I still don’t know if this week we’ll have Tito. Then we’ll revise the scheme to see if they can all play together, and if they can, see how we can put them on the field to continue being a solid team,” Martino told the spanish-language media.

Speculation among fans would suggest that Julian Gressel or Tito Villalba would be relegated to the bench assuming everyone is healthy. Something Martino said he wouldn’t do is throw the influential attacking players into the starting eleven just for the sake of keeping these attacking players on the field.

“We have the intention of not only being a team that continues to be victorious but also a solid team. We’ll see when we get everyone back how we utilize them on the pitch to continue having a good team,” Martino said.

Martino wouldn’t say if Barco was a certainty to start against LA Galaxy next week. He did mentioned that they’d follow up with Barco to see how he feels, talk to team doctors and determine if he’s able to play from the start or if he’ll come off the bench on Saturday against LA Galaxy.

Atlanta United visits LA Galaxy Saturday, April 21 at 10:30 P.M.