United are no strangers to having their backs against the wall this season. After opening their 2018 campaign with one of the longest road trips in recent history, the Black-and-Red fought back by turning their new home at Audi Field into a fortress and making a push for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
Those hopes took a hit, though, after back-to-back losses against regional rivals the New York Red Bulls and Philadelphia Union. A Montreal victory over the weekend also widened United’s gap to nine points away from the playoff line.
On top of that, the Black-and-Red would be hosting a red-hot Atlanta team that had beaten them twice before in 2018 and had previously only lost twice while on the road.
With their backs against the wall again, the Black-and-Red did the only thing they could do. They fought back.
“It was our most complete and disciplined performance of the season,” United Head Coach Ben Olsen said following United’s emphatic 3-1 victory over Atlanta on Sunday. “It was a full group effort from the beginning to the end. Against teams like Atlanta, if you don’t give that type of effort and aren't in-sync the way we were for a majority of the match, you can see how they [Atlanta] have the points they have.”
Though the scoreboard read 3-1, the final score alone didn’t quite capture the difficult challenge Atlanta, who are in the running for this season’s Supporters Shield, gave throughout the match. Through most of the first half, the Five Stripes controlled possession and forced United to chase the game despite playing at home.
Then, a series of individual moments of skill and pure will put the Black-and-Red on top when Luciano Acosta slid home the match’s opening goal. The goal, which came to fruition from a perfectly-placed goal kick from Bill Hamid and a Wayne Rooney header to a sprinting Acosta, was the kind of play designed to exploit Atlanta’s higher back line, and it gave United a jolt of momentum in the match.
“We knew it was going to be tough, obviously, against a tough rival that was going to play well like Atlanta,” Acosta said. “We figured out how to defend in the moments that we needed to defend, and attack in the moments that we needed to attack.”
Though Atlanta equalized shortly after, the blueprint had been laid out for the Black-and-Red.
Early in the second half, Acosta found the ball in midfield and pushed it forward to Rooney. Paul Arriola, who made his first start of the season at right back, found himself in a mismatch against Atlanta’s Ezequiel Barco and sprinted down the flank to collect Rooney’s pass and rush into the penalty area. In his panic, Barco clipped Arriola’s heel as he readied a shot, resulting in a penalty kick for the Black-and-Red that Rooney calmly converted.
Olsen noted that Arriola filled in admirably in the position, and the head coach appreciated his ability to adapt and still influence the game in such an impactful way. Arriola’s play with the backline helped quiet a fearsome Atlanta attack headlined by Josef Martinez, who had until then scored in nine straight games.
“We wanted to crowd the center of the park as much as possible. If the ball comes out wide to their outside backs, that’s the lesser of two evils,” Olsen said of United's game plan. “They [Atlanta] force you to give somewhere on the field. We also defended the box very well. I don’t know how many times a guy laid out to make a block…that’s how you beat a team like this."
At the end of the night the headlines belonged to Acosta and Hamid, though, whose efforts on both ends of the field led to the victory.
“Each game that he gets out here, he’s going to get better,” Olsen said of Hamid. “Tonight showed why we brought him back…to bail us out with one or two big saves. We’re a good enough team that we’re going to continue to score goals, and if he can save us one or two times a night, it’s a huge boost.”
Meanwhile, Acosta’s brace continued his run as the offensive maestro at Audi Field, a role he has elevated himself into with the help of Rooney.
“I have said it many times before but he is a very intelligent player,” Acosta said of Rooney. “He knows where he is at all times and we have to play off him. We are lucky enough that he is on the team and we can learn from him.”
United’s captain assisted on both of Acosta’s goals, and since debuting with the team on July 14, all but one of his five assists have resulted in Acosta scores.
Rooney has hinted that he has challenged Acosta to finish more, noting that he sees the pure skill in him, and that he’s capable of being a top-scorer and one of the league’s best distributors.
“I think he [Acosta] has just been clinical,” Rooney said. “I have said to him a few times that he should have shot when he hasn’t and tried to do something and when you get into that position to be clinical, be hungry to score goals. I keep asking him after every game how many goals he has scored and I think he is starting to enjoy scoring goals.”
The Rooney-Acosta partnership will need to continue to flourish as the Black-and-Red drive deeper in to their playoff push, and the road does not get any easier this weekend when they take on another tough opponent in New York City FC at Yankee Stadium.
Like in the Atlanta match, United's backs may be against the wall again in New York City, but in some ways, it’s right where the gritty Black-and-Red want to be.
