Atlanta United manager Gerardo Martino said his team will try to win its first trophy on Saturday in the final round of games in the Carolina Challenge Cup. But don't expect them to do so using many of those players who started the 2-1 loss to Columbus last week, or the 4-2 win over Seattle on Wednesday .
“We aren’t going to change the plans we had coming into the tournament,” he said. “We want to win the tournament. We will play a lot of the players who haven’t played as much up until now.”
Atlanta United needs to defeat Charleston, its USL affiliate, and for Columbus to either tie or lose to Seattle. Columbus has four points after two games, Atlanta United has three, Charleston two and Seattle one.
Based upon what Martino said, Atlanta United seem likely to change almost all of its starting 11.
In the past two games, goalkeeper Alec Kann, fullbacks Tyrone Mears and Greg Garza and centerhalves Michael Parkhurst and Lenadro Pirez have started. Jeff Larentowicz, Miguel Almiron and Hector Villalba have started in the midfielder, and Josef Martinez has started at forward.
Julian Gressel and Yamil Asad started for the first time against Seattle, while Chris McCann and Kenwyne Jones, who started against Columbus, didn’t dress.
The reserves, or those who haven’t started, include goalkeeper Kyle Reynish, fullback Mark Bloom and Mikey Ambrose, centerhalves Miles Robinson, Zach Loyd and Anton Walkes, midfielders Carlos Carmona, Andrew Carleton, Kevin Kratz, Chris Goslin, Andrew Wheeler-Omiunu and Harrison Heath, and forwards Jacob Peterson, Romario Williams and Brandon Vazquez.
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