Atlanta United face pressure, must prove they can handle it

Despite some of his team’s recent results, Atlanta United manager Gonzalo Pineda and a few of his players say the MLS team not only can handle pressure, but can use it to play its best soccer.

It’s about to find out if it can against what may be its hardest possible test.

On Wednesday, needing only a point to secure a playoff berth or three to keep alive its chances of hosting a postseason game, Atlanta United will play at the Red Bulls. The Five Stripes have never beaten the Red Bulls in a regular-season game. The Red Bulls can secure a playoff spot with a win.

Atlanta United will need to overcome history and its own inabilities to finish games with another goal or by allowing goals to avoid needing to win at Cincinnati on Sunday in its final regular-season game.

“I don’t go a lot through that (history),” Pineda said. “What I go through is the way the team is performing, preparing the team mentally and physically for this battle. And making sure that everybody understands how good we’ve been the last few games, and that we just need to continue improving and continue the same way we’ve been playing. And then if we get that victory for the club, it would be amazing. But ultimately, we go through that process every day trying to win every game.”

Atlanta United is sixth in the East with 47 points. The top four seeds in the playoffs will host a playoff game. To clinch the fourth seed, Atlanta United would need to earn at least four points from its two games, and for NYCFC to lose its finale, and for Orlando, which is in fifth with 48 points, not to win its finale.

Being able to earn at least a draw Wednesday in Harrison, N.J., wouldn’t seem that threatening of a challenge if not for the fact that the team is 0-2-1 there and has yet to score a goal. It’s not a stadium in which Atlanta United seems comfortable. Even when it played NYCFC at Red Bull Arena because of a venue issue earlier this season, it lost in what arguably was its worst game of the year.

So take the team being scoreless in three games there, that it is winless against the Red Bulls and add that it has given up late goals to turn wins into draws in two of its past three home games, and Atlanta United is in a pressure-filled situation of its own making.

“I think this is a group that dwells under pressure,” fullback Brooks Lennon said. “And this is a humongous game tomorrow night in New York. So yeah, we’re looking to go there, get three points and get in the playoffs.”

Pineda said the team has watched film of the late situations in which it didn’t execute. They have talked about the situations. They have trained the situations.

“I think that’s the only way we can solve it,” Pineda said. “We aren’t hiding from the discussions.”

It’s not the fault of the defense that the team didn’t beat NYCFC three games ago and Toronto on Saturday. The offense failing to finish its numerous chances were key reasons why the team dropped four valuable points.

“I think we’ve had a lot of those moments throughout the season where we’ve created so many good goal-scoring opportunities,” Lennon said. “We’ve had some amazing movements and passes. It’s just that final ball that we need to, you know, clean up. And I think if we do that moving forward, we’re gonna go far in the playoffs.”

Lennon said he doesn’t think Atlanta United should play to try to draw the game. If the teams are tied late in the game, and knowing that Atlanta United needs only that one point, Pineda said he doesn’t know yet if he will go for the three points and the win, or play to keep the point. He said there are many factors that will influence his decision, including how the game feels, how his team is playing, their mentality.

“It has to be in the moment,” he said.

Wednesday’s challenge will be more difficult because the team will be without midfielder Santiago Sosa for the third consecutive game. Having Sosa gives Pineda the flexibility to play with either three centerbacks or two because Sosa can play as a third defender. Because the team won’t have him, Pineda said it likely will continue to play with three centerbacks and two wingbacks.

Sosa would be especially important in this game because the Red Bulls are going to ferociously press all over the field. Having a ball-winner and solid distributor like Sosa can flip that pressure and turn defense into offense.

“There’s going to be times in the game where it’s not going to be pretty, and those are the moments where we need to buckle up and stay compact and finish the key moments in the game,” Lennon said. “I think we can do that. We have so many amazing players on our team, and I think we deserve to be in playoffs.”

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April 17 Atlanta United 0, Orlando 0

April 24 Atlanta United 3, Chicago 1

May 1 New England 2, Atlanta United 1

May 9 Atlanta United 1, Inter Miami 1

May 15 Atlanta United 1, Montreal 0

May 23 Atlanta United 1, Seattle 1