Yamil Asad danced. He sang ... badly, he says. And Atlanta United celebrated another blowout win in their new home.
Behind two goals from Asad, and assists on goals from Josef Martinez and Miguel Almiron, Atlanta United demolished the Los Angeles Galaxy 4-0 on Wednesday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
The victory moved the Five Stripes into fourth place in the Eastern Conference with 46 points. The team improved to 3-0-1 at home, where it has already scored 17 goals.
“I don’t have the answer but I think that since the first game here we have felt well,” Atlanta United manager Gerardo Martino said. “The team has been playing well but we also played well at Bobby Dodd (Stadium). We’ve been able to turn both into a really strong homefield advantage for us. It is true, you’ve seen it here that we have played very well.”
The team will try to improve to 10-2-2 at home when it hosts Montreal on Sunday. With two more wins, Atlanta United will become the first expansion team since Seattle in 2009 to clinch a playoff berth.
Here are five observations about the game:
Asad's best performance. Scoring two goals to increase his season total to six and adding two assists to increase his season total to 12, Wednesday may have been Asad's best game this season.
“Yamil is so important to the team that it doesn’t take him scoring goals for me to notice him with all of the things that he brings to us,” Martino said. “But today, he played a great game and everyone was able to see that with him scoring twice.”
Asad’s first goal came in the 16th minute and to celebrate he ran to the corner flag and started singing and dancing. His shot came after one by Almiron was blocked. The sequence started with Anton Walkes hitting a pass between Ashley Cole’s legs for Hector Villalba to run onto. His shot was palmed away by Jon Kempin and landed at Almiron’s feet.
Asad made the score 3-0 in the 21st minute on connecting passes from Almiron to Hector Villalba, whose pass across the goal was met by Asad from 6 yards out.
Asad’s contributions were greater than just goals. He tied for the team lead in chances created (2), tackles (6) and fouls won (2).
“You think about the attacking players, I feel like (Yamil) Asad is kind of the one who doesn’t get all of the attention, but tonight it was good because he scored a couple of goals and he deserves that,” teammate Jeff Larentowicz said. “He deserves that performance. He deserves that attention.”
Asked if this was his best game, Asad instead wanted to talk about the team.
“I think you’ve seen in the last few home games that the whole team, generally speaking, has come out with a great intensity at the beginning of the game,” he said. “We’ve been able to maintain that and get some good results.”
Playoff seeding. Martino said the first goal is to qualify for the playoffs, but the players said securing a third or fourth seed, so they can host a playoff game, is crucial.
“We all know what the atmosphere is like here so if we can do that, that would be tremendous,” goalkeeper Brad Guzan said. “First and foremost we’ve got to make sure we find ourselves in the playoffs. We do that by continuing to win these games and pick up points, and then, hopefully, like you said, we can find ourselves having a home game. I think if we do that we can create some momentum and a buzz and an energy around the team and around the city and (one) that I don’t think many MLS teams can compare.”
Atlanta United trails third-place Chicago by two points and second-place NYCFC by five points. Atlanta United has a game in hand on both teams. The Five Stripes lead fifth-place Columbus by two points despite playing two fewer games. It leads sixth-place New York Red Bulls by four points.
Atlanta United has six games remaining. Only one of its four home games (Toronto on Oct. 22) will be played against a team that is currently above the red line. The two road games at New England on Sept. 30 and at the Red Bulls on Oct. 15. Road teams have a .338 (69-172-76) winning percentage this season. It has sold out 13 consecutive home games going back to Bobby Dodd Stadium, and last week set an MLS record with more than 70,000 tickets sold for a game agaisnt Orlando City.
Martino said the team seems to be rounding into playoff form.
“We can’t ever lose the hope to keep improving because there are always certain things to improve,” he said. “It’s true that since we moved into this Mercedes-Benz Stadium that we’ve been playing well. We’ve been great (at) attacking. We’ve been able to control the ball and defensively, I think we’ve been sound as well -- aside from the game against Orlando where we gave up three goals.
“But, we’re still not in the playoffs yet so we know we still have work to do and some things that we can still improve on.”
Martinez keeps rolling. Martinez's goal in the 13th minute was his eighth in the past four games.
He has scored 17 this season in just 15 appearances and trails league-leader David Villa by two in the race for the Golden Boot given to the league’s top scorer. Martinez has played just 1,111 minutes to Villa’s 2,173 and taken just 54 shots to Villa’s 112.
The goal against the Galaxy was like many of Martinez’s this season: one touch, one score. The shot came on a tap-in of an Asad cross in the 13th minute.
Martinez is scoring at an MLS-record clip 1.38 goals per 90 minutes.
The South Americans. Martinez, a native of Venezuela, is just one of the South Americans on the team playing well.
Almiron’s goal was his ninth. The Paraguayan also had an assist, his 13th season. Leandro Gonzalez Pirez, a native of Argentina, returned from his one-game suspension and worked with with centerback Michael Parkhurst and defensive midfielder Carlos Carmona, a native of Chile, to post the team’s eighth shutout this season.
Atlanta United’s South Americans, a group which includes Villalba, have combined to score 46 goals and post 38 assists this season.
“Josef (Martinez), Tito (Hector Villalba) and Miguel (Almiron) are all really dangerous players for us,” Asad said. “They make some great diagonal runs that open up the space. We all try to take advantage of that.”
Red cards. Two more players were given red cards. Four players have now been ejected from four games at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. New England had two players ejected in last week's 7-0 win by Atlanta United.
The two on Wednesday were Jermaine Jones in the 39th minute for stomping on Villalba’s back after a tackle, and Brandon Vazquez in the 82nd minute for a tackle of Michael Ciana. Referee Ricardo Salazar said that Vazquez used excessive force on his tackle.
Four red cards in four games, in fact, two in two games, is rare. One given to New England and the one to Jones were the result of one player stomping another. The second given to New England came after a handball denied a clear goal-scoring opportunity. Vazquez may have been unlucky to receive his. Though he jumped into his tackle, he appeared to try to pull out and didn’t strike Ciani with the studs of his cleats.
“They are just situations that happen in a game,” Asad said. “It’s nothing more than statistics.”
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