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A lot of people don’t know this, but Chris McCann has a 6 foot 5 pocket in his trousers where he keeps Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Atlanta did an excellent job neutralizing the big Swede, but McCann also added a highlight to his And1 mixtape and roasted Zlatan bringing the all up field in the second half.
hahahahahahahahaha mccann just left zlatan on the ground pic.twitter.com/ZNL30KpUWq
— Joe Patrick (@japatrick200) April 22, 2018
In fact, after the game, McCann had this to say:*
“First I went left, he did too. Then I went right, and he did too. Then I went left again, and he went to buy a hot dog”
“What Zlatan does with a football, I do with an orange”
“Arsene Wenger asked me to have a trial with Arsenal when I was 17. I turned it down. McCann doesn’t do auditions”
and of course...
“If I was single I would spread my investment here in the US and you would have future legends in the soccer. But sorry I’m already occupied”
On top of McCann now getting 100% of every endorsement that Zlatan has in the US because he now owns him, the entire team played well.
Josef got back to doing Josef things, and while he took a poor penalty, he made up for it with a high effort play showing hustle and hard work on the first goal of the game. On top of that, there was a lot to talk about in the match, for example - now we know now that Josef does in fact smile on the field.
Can we talk about this for a sec? pic.twitter.com/FvdxSLCpAY
— Bobby Warshaw (@bwarshaw14) April 22, 2018
Perhaps he was extra motivated by this before the game:
Unrequited love. #LAvATL pic.twitter.com/Rxf2KaMlgJ
— Adam Serrano (@LAGalaxyInsider) April 22, 2018
In addition, Atlanta looked bright and threatening the whole game. LA had a few chances but Atlanta largely dominated the match and kept the Galaxy from developing a rhythm. In fact, it looked more impressive on the stats sheets.
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We’ve already established that McCann owns Zlatan, but Atlanta held the LA forward to zero shots. On top of that, Atlanta won despite missing a penalty (seemed to be a theme yesterday for Atlanta players) and having to deal with Sigi Schmid’s famous ‘kick the opponents’ best player’ defensive scheme. The team stats tell more of the story...
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Without much of anything working trying to pass the ball through Atlanta’s defense, LA resorted to crosses. It seems to be a theme with teams Atlanta takes on away from home this year. 26 crosses is a lot and only five were successful. As well as the Five Stripes looked going forward, they easily dealt with LA’s attempts at scoring with only one or two really threatening attempts all game.
Atlanta will look to win again next week as they take on the Poutine Princes of Montreal when the Impact come to town.
*In no way, shape or form did Chris McCann say any of this.