Atlanta United proved they're eggs and not potatoes. But is that enough?

Atlanta United scored the latest goal in club history by redirecting a corner off the back (no, really, off the back) of a Chicago Fire FC player and picked up a 2-1 win on Sunday afternoon at Mercedes-Benz Stadium despite …whatever exactly was going on for the 86 minutes or so between Giorgos Giakoumakis’ Name Day opening goal and a Chicago own goal for the ages. Look, it wasn’t pretty, and I have some thoughts. However, only one question has been running through my mind since last night.

Are you an egg or a potato?

“You know, one of the things we tell them is like when you get in pressure situations like this, you know, think of an egg and a potato,” Chicago coach Ezra Hendrickson said post-game. “In the same boiling water, the egg becomes hardened and the potato become soft. So what are you going to be? Are you gonna be an egg or a potato? And we just have to learn how to take a positive egg side of things and be hard when things get rough.” 

First off: Incredible. Second, it felt good to see Atlanta be an egg after a couple of potato moments in recent weeks. Even in this game, they could have curled up in the fetal position after that terrible Franco Ibarra back pass set up Chicago’s equalizer and just let the game end 1-1. They kept pushing and showed egg tendencies. That matters. And their second game-winner in the 99th minute this season has them sitting on two points per game over a quarter of the way into the season. However …

What was that?

All of the above — about resiliency and eggs and potatoes and grit (not grits) — is important on some level. I don’t think it's something you just dismiss even while acknowledging that Atlanta got hilariously lucky. But it’s also important to try and analyze why this team struggled like it did for the majority of this one. Despite the win, it’s fair to call this the most discouraging performance of the season. 

Yeah, I know, I saw the Columbus game too. However, that had a clear explanation. A number of key players missing and a tactical misstep compounded and led to some terrible outcomes. Done. Boom. “Don’t play without Thiago Almada, Miles Robinson and Giorgos Giakoumakis, and don’t make it worse by starting Santiago Sosa and Franco Ibarra in the same midfield.” Got it. Lesson learned. 

In this game, Atlanta had all of the pieces it needed to look sharp. The team took an early lead. And then, instead of stepping on the gas and delivering haymaker after haymaker like they did to Portland, they just … stopped. Everything just … stopped. 

They stopped rotating to the ball. They stopped playing the kind of direct pass over the top to Brooks Lennon that set up the opening goal. They stopped trying to switch the field. And Chicago — happily pressing from a 4-4-2 defensive setup that rarely, if ever, got pulled apart — feasted on easily defendable passes and errant efforts to build through midfield.

“I felt that we didn't have our best game," Gonzalo Pineda said post-game. "Probably one of the worst I've seen, especially on the ball. We never had rhythm on the ball. We never could really connect good sequences of passes and possession. There were moments in the first half but certainly, we lost control for the big majority of the game. 

"But after that, very happy with the mentality of the team," he added. "The players understood that we were not having our best night and they were able to absorb pressure and to be under pressure by Chicago who did a great job of putting good services inside the box and in dangerous areas and we were just defending very well. And that's a massive positive to me that we have a team full of warriors. People that understand the roles and are willing to do everything for the team. So that's positive. We need to correct the soccer side for sure.” 

It could be a fluke. It could just be one of those things where Chicago’s game plan got sorted out once they realized letting Santiago Sosa and Thiago Almada play balls from deep-lying positions unimpeded was going to be a bad time and they corrected and Atlanta didn’t.

It could just be that sometimes bad days happen. We’ll save the deeper tactical analysis for tomorrow’s column, but it’s clear that Atlanta didn’t live up to their own standards yesterday. Even if they ended up being eggs. That has to be corrected. The good news is that, to a man, everyone who spoke to media last night seemed keenly aware that this performance needed more.

“We did some things throughout the week that we felt were going to put us in good positions, but they did a very good job. They came with a different game plan than what we came to the game with,” Derrick Etienne Jr. said after the game. 

“But yeah, I think as a team, you have to do a better job in just seeing that and realizing they want us to play the outside back so they'd trap us there and then and try to create turnovers and then quick little passes playing into Kei and playing off him. But I think it shows a good sign of a good team to be able to, you know, not play necessarily well, but to be able to come up with three points.”

In the end, no matter what kind of deep dive you want to do into the tactics and play of a poor performance (it’s coming tomorrow, I promise), three points is what matters, isn’t it? Over the course of a 34-game regular season, where every team is roughly the same, all that matter is that you get three points. Let’s just call it a sense of karmic soccer justice for Atlanta dropping a few points on the road despite being the better team. 

Sometimes, you put in the work to prove you’re an egg and then you move on to make sure that the water doesn’t even start boiling the next time. Atlanta has 18 points from nine games and is a win away from sitting on top of the Supporters’ Shield standings. In this goofy league, that’s all you should really care about —for now, anyway.

Other thoughts

• Quentin Westberg felt a tweak in his knee during pregame warmups. That issue got worse throughout the first half. That's how we ended up with Clement Diop taking over (and doing well!) in a backup to the backup 'keeper performance. If Westberg is out for an extended period, it's unclear what Atlanta will do to back up Diop. The obvious answer is ATL UTD 2's Vicente Reyes, who's been putting in a shift over the last year or so and is healthier than homegrown Justin Garces. However, there are a bunch of boring and complicated roster rules that might make that difficult for the long term. Hopefully, Westberg is fine and this isn't a worry. 
• Giorgos Giakoumakis left the game with another hamstring issue. Don't be surprised if he gets some time off going forward. Just to get him back to 100%. 
• There are like a million more things to get to regarding the midfield selection and Etienne/Gutman vs. Wiley/Gutman vs. Etienne/Wiley. We'll do that all tomorrow, I promise. This one needs a painful rewatch and some unpacking. I'm not sure how replicable Chicago's performance is, but it's fair to be concerned.