Atlanta United manager Gerardo Martino described his team's 6-1 win over co-expansion side Minnesota United on Sunday as nothing special, but a look at Josef Martinez, sitting shivering in his locker after scoring the first hat-trick in franchise history, showed otherwise.
Playing in a starting temperature of 19 degrees and with snow falling throughout, Atlanta United dominated the game other than a 15-minute spell at the end of the first half, when the Five Stripes already had a 3-1 lead.
Martinez, Miguel Almiron (two goals), Yamil Asad and Hector Villalba exploited the huge gaps in the Loons' defense throughout the game to become the first MLS expansion side to score six goals in a game in its inaugural season. Atlanta United focused on finishing during its practices last week.
“I feel good with the work that the players did today,” Martino said. “Except for the last 15 minutes of the first half, we really didn’t give them a chance to get back into the game.”
As wasteful as the team was in last week’s 2-1 loss to the New York Red Bulls — necessitating the work done in training last week — it was that clinical against Minnesota United on Sunday in front of more than 35,000 cold supporters in a game that featured the use of an orange ball and snowblowers to make lines visible.
Martinez had a man-of-the-match performance with goals in the third, 27th and 75th minute. He said he didn't feel cold until after the game when he remained on the field to do a post-match interview. He said all three goals were similar. For each, he ran onto a pass in space that split Minnesota's United's defenders.
“It’s always nice to score, even more so when it’s three, but the most important thing is that the team got the win tonight and it feels really good to get the first in in team history,” Martinez said.
Martino said the team would concentrate on recovering today and then begin preparing for Saturday’s home game against Chicago.
The Fire earned its first three points with a 2-0 win over Real Salt Lake on Saturday. For Atlanta United to win, it needs to continue to attack on offense and sort out a defense that had a poor spell at the end of the first half during which Minnesota United earned its goal on a penalty kick, and hit the crossbar with another shot.
It was a similar poor stretch as when Red Bulls scored their two goals in the inaugural game.
The good news for Atlanta United is it weathered that poor stretch in Minneapolis and then controlled the game throughout the second half. The team changed its tactics at halftime, switching from trying to control possession with short passes to longer passes down the field. The change was made because the snow made short passes very difficult.
“We were able to find the goals early,” Almiron said. “After, we were able to control the game better than we did last week. That helped us to be more relaxed.”
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