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Atlanta United traveled back home from a road match with three points in hand for the first time since May thanks to a highly entertaining 2-0 win against the Portland Timbers. It was Atlanta’s first trip to the newly renovated Providence Park (which looks gorgeous), and it’s a testament to Atlanta’s quality and newfound resilience that the Five Stripes were able to win convincingly in a notoriously tough place to play. Josef Martinez added to his league-record goalscoring streak, tallying for the 11th consecutive match, and Leandro Gonzalez Pirez added his first goal of the MLS season to lead Atlanta.
Man of the Match: Brad Guzan (!)
Look at y’all! I start giving you a bit of grief for always voting Josef as your man of the match whenever he scores, and then y’all go and elect Darlington Nagbe and now Brad freaking Guzan in a match when Josef scored a banger! Good on you, and I agree. Guz was tremendous controlling the box, and stamped his authority on the match late in the second half with a world class reaction save with a strong left hand. In total, Guzan made five saves to post his league-leading 12th clean sheet of the season.
Full Player Ratings
GK: Brad Guzan - 9.38
RWB: Julian Gressel - 7.96
CB: Florentin Pogba - 7.18
CB: Leandro González Pírez - 8.26
CB: Miles Robinson- 8.20
LWB: Justing Meram - 7.57
CM: Jeff Larentowicz - 6.97
CM: Darlington Nagbe - 8.26
CM: Ezequiel Barco - 6.62
FWD: Pity Martínez - 7.31
FWD: Josef Martínez - 8.63
SUB: Emerson Hyndman- 6.81
SUB: Dion Pereira - 6.45
SUB: Tito Villalba- 6.34
MANAGER: Frank de Boer - 8.38