Atlanta United FC Scouting Report: Dueling Works in Progress

Tough bunch to impress, too.

Week 5 feels as good a week as any for FC Cincinnati to get back on the right side of the results ledger. More to the point, starting 2025 with three straight losses on the road will hurt prospects and reputation…so, let’s not do that, yes? Let’s get into it.

Atlanta United FC
1-2-1, 4 pts., 4 gf, 6 ga (-2); home 1-1-1, away 0-1-0
Last Results: WLDL
Strength/Location of Schedule
v MTL (3-2 W); @ CLT (0-2 L); v RBNY (0-0 D), v MIA (1-2 L);

Broad Strokes
The furious, hydra-headed attack that MLS Wrap Up’s hype merchants tried to sell after Week 1 hasn’t survived opposition stiffer than Club du Foot Montreal. Then again, goals do tend to dry up against strong defensive teams – e.g., Charlotte FC and Red Bull New York (Inter Miami CF ain’t bad either) – so it’ll be interesting to see how FC Cincinnati holds up against what Atlanta throws at them. Because I’d already watched Atlanta’s one road game of 2025 (at Charlotte, bit of a blur by now), I split 90 minutes between their two most recent games, both played in Atlanta. They approached each team differently – i.e., they ran at the Red Bulls in waves reckless enough to make a World War I general say “goddamn!” versus a more measured, even tentative posture versus Miami – but I can’t say whether new head coach Ronny Deila’s adjustments followed from a general change in plan, or just fear of getting countered to death by Miami. The latter strikes me as plausible enough that I wonder whether Atlanta won’t go closer to broke versus Cincinnati. If they do go that route, Cincy will need their heads and swivels and their boots strapped right, because the Five Stripes can kick up a frenzy.

Personnel
Brad Guzan will start in goal (until the seas consume us, maybe even after), so let’s look at the rest of Atlanta’s likely line-up. Even if he tweaked the formation last week, Deila has called most of the same numbers so far: a back four with Pedro Amador at left back (know jack about him, fwiw), Derrick Williams and Stian Gregersen as (slightly shaky) center backs, and, after a couple of starts for Matthew Edwards, I expect to see Brooks Lennon at right back; because I think last Sunday’s 4-2-3-1 makes most sense from what I know of the players, I see Bartosz Slisz and Tristan Muyumba as “the 2,” Saba Lobjanidze, Aleksey Miranchuk, and Miguel Almiron stretched left to right across “the 3,” and big, new signing (or new, big signing) Emmanuel Latte Lath running wild, free and alone up top. (It could, on the other hand, look like this 4-3-3.)

Getting Reacquainted with New York City FC, MLS's Trust Fund Kids

The past-time of America's past-time.

[Standing Disclaimer: While I have watched…just a stupid amount of MLS over the years, I don’t watch the vast majority of games, never mind all of them. As such, it’s fair to take anything below that isn’t a hard number or a physical trophy as an impression, a couple steps removed.]

Thumbnail History

When New York City FC joined MLS in 2015, it revived the premise of planting a junior club for a major international team – (recent) EPL juggernaut Manchester City in this case – into the U.S. market. Think Chivas USA 2.0, only this time they’d take it seriously. Or something. As MLS fans know, they play their games in a baseball stadium, an embarrassing look of the sort that hasn’t graced the league since teams regularly played over football lines every fall. The Organization finally ponied up to build a soccer-specific stadium in New York City, at a place called Willets Point, congrats and all that, but it looks like they’ve got two more seasons of slipping on tobacco spit before that space opens. While a good product has typically graced that janky field, NYCFC had to learn some old lessons – chief among them, that seeding an MLS-regular expansion team with a few high-profile (if aging) ringers from Europe’s biggest teams is not enough. The team missed the playoffs that first season (and by quite a bit), but defensive reinforcements arrived for the second season and righted the ship. That brought consistency, but success wouldn’t arrive until the team found lower-profile, but better and frankly hungrier, ringers (Sit tight. I’ll flesh out the point below). That combination didn’t just make them regulars in the MLS playoffs; NYCFC finished in the top ten overall in every season from 2016 to 2022, and in the top five more often than not. That solid set-up just needed a nudge at that point, and those arrived in the persons of a head coach (Norwegian Ronny Deila) and a star forward (Valentin “Taty” Castellanos). The blue side of New York raised its first MLS Cup in 2021 (over the fallen bodies of the Portland Timbers, dammit) and the future looked very bright…until it very abruptly didn’t. More below…

Best Season(s)

Easy call. 2021. And by just about every measure.

Long-Term Tendencies

Talking “tendencies” doesn’t make a lot of sense for a team that hasn’t yet celebrated its 10th birthday, but kicking around the secret of NYCFC’s success isn’t too complicated. They became a good defensive team in 2017 and solidified into a great one from 2018 to the present. A potent attack came together one season after that and, with the exception of a slight falling off in The Year of COVID, stuck around through 2022 (the latter, i.e., the season after they won MLS Cup, was their most lethal). As it happens, you don’t need to look at anything but the top-line numbers to answer the question, what the hell happened to New York City FC in 2023? The attack took a giant shit is what happened.