Then the Dutchman made some tactical adjustments – generalization time: The Dutch can be stubborn, especially about soccer, which they didn’t invent but believe they perfected – and Atlanta United started winning again. (So: #deBoerNotOut) But his team never was as dauntless as Martino’s had been, which was surely inevitable but nonetheless obvious. Pity Martinez, imported from Argentina to fill the void left by Miguel Almiron’s exit to Newcastle, took forever to settle. Players complained that the new man wasn’t letting them, er, play.
Much of this angst might have been washed away had Atlanta United lifted another MLS Cup, but Josef Martinez missed a penalty and his time contrived to lose a game it dominated, and then Martinez tore his ACL in this year’s league opener in Nashville. Then the season stopped. It resumed with Atlanta United playing three games in the MLS Is Back tournament at Disney. The team was eliminated after losing 1-nil, 1-nil and 1-nil.
Atlanta United was never going to be as good without J. Martinez, but still. It had more possession than its opponent in two of the three matches; in the third, it was reduced to 10 men in the 26th minute, but still had the ball 47 percent of the time. This, alas, came to be the de Boer signature – plenty of possession, not enough goals.
The scoreless-in-Orlando experience wasn’t, we must note, the worst spell any de Boer team has had. Crystal Palace scored no goals in its first four league games under him, whereupon he got the sack. (And whereupon Jose Mourinho pronounced him “the worst manager in Premier League history.”) It was coming off that ignominious severance that Atlanta United, which has made many splendid moves, pulled the biggest clunker of its existence: It hired FDB to follow Tata.
At best, it seemed the sort of move that might work in spite of itself. Atlanta United had so many good players that you figured they could win with Barney Rubble making out the team sheet. But they fell short last year, and this time they never got started. Martinez’s knee had much to do with that, and the virus-mandated layoff did nobody any favors. Even so, there’s no way a team with Ezequiel Barco and P. Martinez should go 270 minutes without scoring.
Credit to Atlanta United for grasping reality and cutting its losses. This always seemed a forced marriage. As with most most forced marriages, divorce was inevitable.
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