Atlanta United fell 2-0 to Columbus Crew on Sunday Night in the team’s final MLS match before the 2026 FIFA World Cup break. Saba Lobjanidze made his 100th appearance for the club in all competitions, while Miguel Almirón returned to action after injury. Sekou Bangoura and Diego Rossi scored for the Crew.
The Crew dominated the opening minutes of the match and hit paydirt in the 24th. On a counterattack, Rossi found Mohamed Farsi down the right wing. Farsi played a ball to Bangoura, who slotted it home to take the lead.
The Crew doubled their lead in the second minute of first-half stoppage time when Farsi recovered a ball down the right wing. The defender crossed to an oncoming Rossi, who one-timed a shot into the bottom left corner.
After the match, Atlanta United head coach Tata Martino had this to say after being questioned on how to rectify so many mistakes (via coaching or new players):
“As a club, we know the transfer window is opening. In any case, we’ve made mistakes in various places in various matches, I mean, various places on the field. I always have the aspiration that there are things you can correct. I don’t think one thing is linked to the other. That’s to say, we will try to go into a transfer window where we can have possibilities, and surely we’ll have them, the errors we have to correct when it corresponds, with the players who are here, and surely we’ll do an analysis of the first 14 games of the league and we’ll work in function of that, set pieces, set pieces that are poorly executed, turnovers playing out of the back, when the opponent is in transition and gets behind our backline of four. In all those ways, we’ve conceded goals, so we’ll have to work on all of those things during this preseason.”
French midfielder Tristan Muyumba was questioned about the team’s lack of intensity. “It’s been happening for a while now. It’s frustrating,” said Muyumba. “We have been a little bit too respectful to Columbus during the first half, during the first 20-25 minutes.”
“Obviously, we concede this goal, and we should not concede these type of goals because sometimes it happens when you play away, you have a difficult 20-25 minutes, but if you’re not conceding goals, you can come into the game and try to improve through the game and keep the ball and keep confidence. I think the goal we conceded killed us a little bit.”
After tonight, the Five Stripes are in the penultimate place in the Eastern Conference, sitting just four points above the Philadelphia Union. After another poor performance tonight, it’s no wonder that Tata casually brought up the transfer window and adjustments that could potentially be made. As it looks right now, the vast majority of the squad needs out.
Atlanta United (3-9-2, 11 points) returns to action Friday, July 17, when it travels to Geodis Park to take on Nashville SC (8:00 p.m. ET, Apple TV, 92.9 The Game, La Mejor) when MLS returns from a break for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. All Atlanta United MLS matches are available on Apple TV.
-Jon Jones
Photo: Courtesy of Atlanta United