Atlanta United made Saturday’s victory over visiting Real Salt Lake look easy. But playing their third match in 7 days against a well-rested and in-form RSL side was no easy task. After all, the Five Stripes had only arrived back in town Thursday morning after a wild win in San Jose, and were preparing to play their third match in seven days.
With only one day of full training to prepare and surely tired legs aplenty, executing Tata Martino’s gameplan became all the more important. After playing primarily a 4-2-3-1 in SJ, Martino decided to revert to the below 3-5-2 (if we want to get nit-picky this is a 3-4-1-2) formation his side had used in Colorado one week previous.