Illustrated Box Score - Columbus Crew 6-1 Atlanta United: All theory is gray

Do you ever see something so bad that you’re not even upset about it or anything, you’re almost impressed, like “wow, I’ve never seen the pinnacle of bad before, but this is it and there’s something almost great about being that impressively awful”? Of course you have, you saw the Atlanta United game where they lost 6-1 to the Columbus Crew on Saturday.

MLS has a massive ambition to be a top league in the world and I think that goal really undersells how good the league actually is. For example, it is the best league with a salary cap, the best league with designated players, the best league with expansion teams, the best league with GAM, the best league with TAM, the best league with more than 10 college graduates in it and the best league that doesn’t ever for the most part take time off for international breaks.

So in sum, it’s the best league in the world.

What this means for Atlanta United is that last week the team was the best team in the world and this week, well. I had a premonition about what might happen.

I did not think that what did happen would happen, not exactly and not with the sheer number of comedy goals given up, but I thought it’d be... well not what we’ve seen in the first four weeks.

Here’s how the box score looked.

It’s a bit unfair of me to give my impression of the entire game. Right before the Brooks Lennon goal I put on the Nashville vs. Cincinnati game and risked missing the comeback. Still, it seems very, very surprising (I suppose is the right word) that Columbus’ lineup filled with backups and someone named Schutle in goal could have done that against any team, much less the best team in the East for four weeks.

What really hurt though is that Andrew Gutman got injured and it’s the international break, he wasn’t even supposed to be there. It’s also shocking that bringing in Erik Lopez didn’t solidify the backline and that Columbus scored almost immediately after he was brought in.

We’re the Timbers now, it’s called irony. Here’s a picture of a puppy and Andre-Pierre Gignac.

Photo by Alfredo Lopez/Jam Media/Getty Images