Scoring two goals to increase his season total to six and adding two assists to increase his season total to 12, Wednesday's 4-0 win against the Los Angeles Galaxy may have been Yamil Asad's best game for Atlanta United 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," manager Gerardo 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. To celebrate, he ran to the corner flag and started singing -- badly, he said -- and dancing. His shot came after one by Miguel 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.”
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