Welcome to the Morning After the Morning After. Rather than hastily writing about the events of this week’s Atlanta United match and other events around the league, we want to bring you the kind of well-reasoned, thoughtful analysis of both Atlanta United and the rest of the league that comes from sitting things out for a day or two. Now that we’re two days removed from a 2-1 win in Montreal, I’m actually feeling pretty great thanks for asking.

Atlanta United Thought of the Week

“It don’t gotta be pretty to work.”

Josef Martinez has 43 goals in 43 regular season MLS games. This is good. Now, how many of them do you remember of the top of your head? Take away the goals in the last month. Can you remember more than five? You may be able to but there’s a decent chance you had to think pretty hard about it. There is an insight on what this means about Josef somewhere in that thought but first let’s refresh your memory. Here are all 43 goals (well, excluding the seven penalties and a couple I couldn’t find) ranked in a completely indisputable list that is correct in every single way. Remember, we’re focusing on Josef here.

32.

Josef could have breathed heavily on this one and it would have gone in. Only like ½ of the DSS commenters would miss this. Truly as easy as it gets.

31.

LOL

30.

I had forgotten about this and can’t believe it’s real to be honest. After everyone else wastes their time actually trying the ball comes to Josef off the crossbar and he chases it in, completely disgusted in his teammates inability to finish (probably).

29.

Ok, so, ATLUTD social media is phenomenal but in the early days hadn’t quite gotten the highlight thing down yet. Somewhere in this vertical shaky cam video is Josef shooting and the ball deflecting into the goal. I think. I’m too lazy to look it up to be honest. Besides he scored a much better goal later in the day.

28.

Josef, unmarked, heads in from five feet away.

27.

Easy.

26.

Eaaaassssyyy.

25.

Josef puts his foot in front of a cross and the ball deflects of him and into the goal from maybe four yards away.

24.

Yamil does the heavy lifting here (come home bb) and Josef does Josef things.

23.

Pay attention to Josef’s second of three that day and the only one that wasn’t a pen. He’s like three feet away and taps it in out of the air. Which is really hard and none of us could do but he was, like, three feet away.

22.

Header from an Andrew cross that skipped off some folks.

21.

A header from a cross. ANYONE SEEING A THEME YET?

20.

Cross. Header. Goal.

19.

Revs forget how to defense. Josef rolls it in.

18.

Good ball from Andrew and Josef beats a guy to score on a header from a cross.

17.

Josef takes off and slots the ball past one of the dots you can barely make out through the snow. My god I forgot how much of a mess this game was.

16.

Header from a cross but he beats a couple of guys kind of sorta soooooo...yeah.

15.

Josef reads the ball well in the air and finishes. What’s new?

14.

Header from a cross but he was brave about it so it’s ahead of the others?

13.

He jumped real high i guess. Bonus points for breaking his nose.

12.

Extremely difficult to redirect a cross like this. Still, not a stunner.

11.

In an actual snowstorm Josef gets around the keeper and finishes here for the first of his six (!) hat tricks so far.

10.

Josef gets the ball on the break. Excellent timing, and scores probably the longest goal of his whole life.

9.

Josef runs into some space and somehow in the middle of all that finishes. Top-notch snow goal.

8.

Good run, but an even better cross here. Credit to Josef though who never assumes the ball is going to be cut off. Knowing and being aware that Orlando is terrible deserves to be lauded.

7.

Great movement and finish. A rare left-footed finish too.

6.

This is a heckuva finish off a cross. The power and angle he gets on it is ridiculous considering where the ball was coming from and how quickly it was moving. Not to mention how big this moment was until Giovinco ruined everything.

5.

This might be my favorite Josef header from a cross. Gressel’s cross is world class and Josef‘s finish is in that realm.

4.

Rounding the keeper is hard. Josef makes it look good. The timing and the move to ruin the keeper’s life make this one pretty special.

3.

Very similar to the Rev Wedding goal (getting there) in how impossible this angle is. A little bit less oomph behind it though.

2.

1.

The angle on this is unreal. If the keeper had tried to stop it his arms would have detached from his body. The press box got yelled at for cheering at this. We couldn’t help it. The movement, the power, the F.U. of it makes this a peak Josef goal.

And that’s it. If you told someone unaware of how quickly and how often these goals were coming to watch these highlights they would probably assume a very good, not great player. I mean that in the nicest possible way.

Josef’s positioning and timing is on another level. As ugly as some of these goals look they happen because the guy is relentless. He doesn’t have to score bangers from distance to make a difference. Honestly, I’m not entirely sure he can. If you kept track at home there wasn’t a single goal from outside the box. Josef’s unsightly skillset, wasted on the wing elsewhere, has turned him into the greatest scorer in league history in Atlanta.

Atlanta United Tweet of the Week

Atlanta United Quote of the Week

“If we’re playing at home, we play one way. And if we’re playing away, we play exactly the same way. And that’s what letting us win games –maintaining our form at home as well as on the road.” - Tata Martino

MLS Tweet of the Week

Alpharetta Dad Thought of the Week - Sponsored by TaylorMade

“Selfish. Just selfish. A real striker would have let his teammates score some of those goals. I’m sick and tired of Joseph Martino and I’m sick and tired of gas prices slowly climbing. We all see it big oil. Is it Martino’s fault? It might be. It just might be.”

Heeeeeeee’s Tryin’!

I can’t find a GIF of it but did y’all see that Larentowicz shot from 40 yards away that I’m pretty sure is still elevating?

Cleanse