Boehm: How the Red Bulls stole Atlanta's jewel (s), and maybe more

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"The pressure can blow up the pipes," said legendary and great clutch performer Robert Horry, "but he can also make diamonds."

It's Sunday night, and your team's last regular season game this afternoon probably reminded you of one or the other half of Big Shot Bob's sentence. And in a few key cases, we dropped some tough questions on your lap as we enter the playoffs of the 2018 MLS Audi.

The 2018 edition of the MLS Decision Day presented by AT & T illustrated both sides of this sporty truism worn out by time. For every confirmed playoff contender who crowned his campaign with an emphatic performance on the big occasion, we've seen at least as many lively outings among this year's players, aspiring spoilers with little to play except for the pride, a place the roster and simple and stubborn seduction that beats the hearts of all supporters.

I'll be honest: I'm glad no one asked me to predict the results of Decision Day. I thought that we would have drama that day, but even as I write this, I am stunned by a good part of the procedure. And I want to congratulate the upset people who did it:

  • DYNAMO HOUSTON Naranja evoked one of the most viciously and deliciously tiny displays I've seen in professional football, letting LA Galaxy believe that they were in the playoffs for over an hour before leaving the rug with a heartless mercy that the eternal Charlie Brown football- kicking torturer Lucy would have admired. You can watch the highlights here, but this subtly wild tweet sums it up:
  • REVOLUTION NEW ENGLAND Apart from the reluctant approval of a head coach who for weeks grossly referred to the purging of the off-season roster, the Revs got their hands dirty in hopes of playing in the playoffs. The devil takes the farthest, indeed.
  • COLORADO RAPIDS Call them Dynamo Light because the Mile High Club has caused damage to the northern half of Texas with this win over FC Dallas, just as Houston has done in LA. And given FCD's faltering stance lately, falling into the Western category could hurt what once looked like a legitimate MLS Cup campaign.
  • VANCOUVER WHITECAPS They will say that it was all about sending Phonzie Davies in style. But the defeat of the VWFC against a rotating Portland team can have lasting repercussions for the Timbers, who like Dallas can hardly afford to make a longer and steeper turn towards the Cup.
  • And abandon him the most impressive resistors of the day, the defending champions, TORONTO FC …

The week was tough for Atlanta United. On Tuesday morning, the Five Stripes confirmed press weeks according to which head coach Tata Martino would leave the club at the end of the year. It is more than likely that the Mexican national team will take over, depriving ATLUTD of a key architect in its meteoric rise to the aristocracy of the MLS.

The club made the choice to receive this bad news now, hoping to focus on the task of completing the beautiful second season that Tata chaired by finishing her hunt for Supporters' Shield and MLS Cup trophies.

Unfortunately for them, everyone will have to spend another week wondering if it worked out as planned, because they made a bad performance against Toronto FC at BMO Field and were ruthlessly punished by a bloody, bruised but proud team of the TFC only 12 months out of the biggest season of the history of the league. The 4-1 defeat left Atlanta's fate in the hands of the New York Red Bulls.

Most of us were expecting the RBNY, a dominant band at home for several years, to run their business against Orlando City SC at the Red Bulls Arena. The Lions were beaten as brutally as anyone this year, but they thwarted Columbus last week and did their best to create a similar RBA track, with young goaltender Adam Grinwis saving a penalty from Derrick Etienne and denying the favorites opportunities. Etienne then redeemed himself, scoring the winner in a 1-0 win by RBNY that kept the pressure on ATL.

And when Toronto pulled back to wipe out the Five Stripes' attraction for the kind of excellence they had achieved last season – a month ago, I asked if Atlanta could achieve GOAT status at the Reds this year ; the answer turns out to be a firm "no" – not only did they deliver the shield to the Red Bulls, but they also cast a considerable psychological advantage in the playoffs in the same karmic cargo.

"We did all this work from January 15th. We should have had a different performance today. We did not do it, "said a brutally straight postgame of Tata. "We betrayed ourselves, we threw everything we had worked for this season. It is always possible that you lose in Toronto, the important thing is the way we lost it today. "

ATLUTD is about as low as a team of 21-7-6 can be right now. They have just seized an inviting opportunity to win their first ever trophy and break the TFC's highest point record of the season. Their world famous coach goes away. Josef Martinez, their Golden Boot goalkeeper, has not scored any goals in four games. They are probably still blocked without their most important player, the blocked Miguel Almiron, for another week or two. And they have six days to prepare, or at least enough to avoid being ambushed during the first leg of their Eastern Conference semifinal series, on the weekend. next.

Even after the scintillating trio of CFTs last year, there is a lingering superstition about the fan shield in some circles of the MLS, that it offers some kind of perspective that makes the playoffs juicy. In the 22 years of MLS play, only seven Shield winners have won this year's MLS Cup, and only three of those seven years have been in the last decade.

This haunts the Red Bulls – long a star club with a long history of incredible playoff victories – as much as anyone, and their thirsty Cup fans are unlikely to be happy with a third Shield in six seasons.

Yet this year is different. Over the last few months, RBNY has harassed Atlanta as a big-cat-like pride getting closer to their prey, hitting at the last moment to inflict the most pain and doubt on the group of stars who dominated the overall standings for the vast majority of year. . And did I mention that the Taurine team had swept the ATL this season and that I had not yet lost to them in all four encounters of all time?

So … are the Five Stripes diamonds or pipes? This is the question that has come to Tata and his accusations and sting them, strong, in the chest. And they have no chance to prove that they are precious.

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