Atlanta United's performance against Chicago (and underlying numbers) provide some reason for worry

To their credit, everyone who spoke to media after the game on Sunday agreed that Atlanta United has played better soccer games in their history. That acknowledgment didn’t make rewatching this one any more fun though. I hope the team suffers through their tape session this week as much as I did. 

Seriously, it was rough. It was one of those games where you don’t learn much on rewatch because, if you were paying attention during the game, you could clearly see a majority of the problems. We’ll talk through them right quick, but this is one part of a larger picture that suggests there just might be reason to worry about the kind of performances Atlanta United are putting together as of late. 

A Sosa-Rossetto midfield

You might have noticed early on that Santiago Sosa took on a role we’ve seen from him before and saw from Franco Ibarra earlier this season against NYCFC. When Atlanta United had possession, Sosa dropped back into a back three between Miles Robinson and Juanjo Purata. 

It worked. For a moment.

By creating a group of three at the back, Atlanta countered Chicago’s two-man press at the top of their 4-4-2 defensive posture. An extra man means a numbers advantage at the back. Initially, that gave Sosa plenty of time to play line-breaking or diagonal passes that helped drag Chicago out of their setup. It also allowed Thiago Almada to work in and around that two-man press and play a long ball that set up Atlanta’s first goal.

However, the tradeoff is that Atlanta lost a man in midfield. Almada and Matheus Rossetto were generally outnumbered. And Chicago eventually adjusted enough to make sure that Sosa wasn’t just sitting there with time to pick out whatever pass he wanted. 

It didn’t help that Rossetto’s off-ball movement could be described as “gentle.” You can routinely see Almada working to find gaps and looking to turn and make things happen once he received the ball. Rossetto, meanwhile, delivered this pass chart. 

It’s not the only reason Atlanta wasn’t able to pull Chicago out of their defensive shape for the majority of the game. The team as a whole played poorly and they were too afraid too often to play balls over the top or switch the field. That led to Chicago comfortably pressing Atlanta’s fullbacks when the opportunities presented themselves which led to a rough stat line for Andrew Gutman, who completed 62% of his passes on the day. Again, that’s not entirely on him. Think of it like a quarterback who’s constantly under pressure. 

Anyway, all of this led to a negative feedback loop that saw Atlanta give away the ball in bad positions, which encouraged players not to do anything to break structure for fear of being taken out of the play defensively after a turnover, which led to the ball being given away in bad positions. Too static, too scared, which made it all too static. 

Friend of The Striker and analytics guru Tiotal Football put forward a solid theory after the game about opting for the Sosa-Rossetto midfield instead of going with Amar Sejdic and Ibarra. Essentially, Sosa and Rossetto are “safer” options in that they’ll post decent pass completion numbers and generally retain possession. However, what it leads to is the kind of game you saw on Sunday. A game you can fairly call “Heinze-esque.” 

Meanwhile, Ibarra and Sejdic are more likely to give the ball away. They’re also more likely to progress the ball forward and into the final third. What that leads to is a more open game. One that’s not quite so … let’s call it cagey. That means there’s the potential to surrender bigger chances. But with transition players like Almada (and Luiz Araujo at his best), you also create more and better opportunities for yourself. And you avoid the general malaise that eventually led to Atlanta turning the ball over in bad spots anyway against Chicago. 

It’s just a theory. But for me it holds water. And the data points so far have suggested that Ibarra and Sejdic have been the most successful pairing of the midfield bunch. 

Again, you can’t put it all on Sosa and Rossetto or any one individual player. The team stunk. But it does feel like there are measures you can take to keep the negative feedback loops that plagued last year’s team (and pretty much every team since 2019) from showing up again. 

Maybe this is just what the team is? (For now?)

All that being said, it’s not like Atlanta have been an attacking powerhouse with Sejdic and Ibarra in. It’s starting to look like we might have been a bit misled by a beatdown of a terrible (and very injured) Timbers team. I’m not saying this is a bad team. They’ve largely deserved the points they’ve earned. I’m pointing out that the team’s game model might be more reminiscent of late 2010s Seattle than this year’s LAFC. 

For all of Atlanta United’s boring and static attacking play on Sunday, they were correct in assuming that conservative movements off the ball would largely keep them from surrendering high-probability chances. Remove the major goal-scoring chance (and eventual goal) Chicago received by way of Ibarra’s terrible backpass and Atlanta surrendered just 0.73 xG worth of chances. 

In general, they’ve been good, maybe even great defensively. Take out the Columbus disaster and they’d be somewhere around the third- to sixth-best defensive team in the league by expected goals allowed. But they’ve been generally mediocre in attack. 

They generated about 0.9 xG worth of chances against Chicago. Per American Soccer Analysis, they’re currently 15th in league in expected goals per 90 minutes. Unsurprisingly, they’re also 15th in league in completed passes into the 18-yard box per 90. They’re 16th in carries into the 18-yard box. They simply aren’t getting the ball into places you really need to get the ball if you want to score goals. 

They aren’t even really getting close to that area. They’re 27th in the league in passes into the final third per 90. They’re 21st in touches inside the final third per 90. There are only 29 teams in the league, y’all. 

That doesn’t mean everything. Game state (whether a team is ahead, tied or behind) changes things. And Atlanta has been ahead much more often than they were last season. But it’s not encouraging. It’s especially not encouraging to see such a downward trend in where they’re receiving the ball. 

Atlanta completed 11 passes into the 18 versus San Jose, 17 versus Toronto, and 13 versus Portland. Then they had one whole completed pass into the 18 against Columbus. Then two against Red Bulls. Eight against NYCFC. Six against Toronto. And four against Chicago. 

Those are tough games — either against some of the best defensive teams in the league, on the road, or both. But you have to worry it’s an early sign of some underlying issues that need to be corrected sooner rather than later. 

As of now, this is a good team with match-winners that can tilt steady games in their favor. The best teams in the league have match winners, too, though.