Rekrap - Atlanta United 0-1 NYRB: A day at the races

Atlanta United lost to a running club that occasionally scores goals and runs the MLS equivalent of the triple option on whatever day the game was played.

I don’t have anything to add to this that wasn’t obvious- NYRB ran a lot, Josef Martinez isn’t playing, Julian Gressel didn’t get paid. Drawing any meaning from the game or tournament is futile anyway. The teams haven’t played in months, they didn’t have any real preparation for competitive matches leading up to it and society in general is going through a kind of simultaneous death and rebirth.

It’s difficult to watch the games and feel good about what’s happening on or off the field as if good or bad are useful dichotomies for view the world through anyway. On the field, a severely diluted product is on display after the MLS owners tried to leverage a catastrophe for financial gain while the health protocols on MLS Island are either iffy or totally working.

Neither of those results are good. If they’re iffy the players health is at risk and if they’re working fine it’s just a reminder of how horrible the situation with the pandemic has gotten for the general public that only giant monopolistic corporations are able create anything that resembles safety while everybody else continues to suffer.

Still, I watched the last 15 minutes of this game and they were exciting and fun and I stayed up shitposting about it afterwords and that felt pretty good even if the highest scoring American pro couldn’t save the game.

Not only that, but afterwards the L on the field was followed by ATLUTD Twitter also taking the L off of it...

Bless our hearts, we are so owned.