No Josef Martinez to father them. No Tito to tame them. No Dom Dwyer to miss from point blank range. No Will Johnson to scream uselessly. No Joe Bendik to laugh at. No Jason Kreis to play with no identifiable strategy. No James O’Connor to babble incomprehensibly in a ridiculous accent.
Yes, this was not the Atlanta United-Orlando City contest of yesteryear, and neither was the result. There was an air of inevitability about this one. The game against Nashville SC offered some reasons for optimism, but the Stripes were clearly still not playing up to their old standards.