Atlanta United’s passionate fan base will have plenty to cheer for when the MLS All-Star Game comes to town on August 1.
Six players from the Five Stripes were selected into the MLS All-Star Fan XI for the contest with Juventus at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
Brad Guzan, Michael Parkhurst, Miguel Almiron, Ezequiel Barco, Darlington Nagbe and Josef Martinez will start for the MLS All-Star team on their home turf.
Sporting Kansas City’s Graham Zusi and LAFC’s Laurent Ciman will start alongside Parkhurst in defense, while Portland’s Diego Valeri is the only non-Atlanta player in the four-man midfield.
LA Galaxy’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic and LAFC’s Carlos Vela join Martinez in the forward trio.
Eleven players chosen by Gerardo “Tata” Martino and two commissioner’s picks will be added to fill out the gameday roster of 24 players.
These 11 are not necessarily starters Tata will choose the starters from the entire roster. Funny how the team with the best attendance gets the most players voted in, I’d really only argue with Guzman though.
If I’m Tata, though, I absolutely keep my Atlanta players together…it’d be fun (and more than fun) to see Almiron alongside Vela, with Nagbe and Barco playing the flanks, and Martinez playing off The Zlatan…Juve had better come ready to play, or they could get blown out of the building in the first half if they think it’s just the usual summer exhibition.
Do they even know what they’re in for…and moreover, would they even believe it if someone told them?
“If I’m Tata, though, I absolutely keep my Atlanta players together…it’d be fun (and more than fun) to see Almiron alongside Vela, with Nagbe and Barco playing the flanks, and Martinez playing off The Zlatan…” oh hell yeah, quozzel, absolutely!
““if i’m tata, though, i absolutely keep my atlanta players together” – quozzel.
i think the first mls all star coach to set this precedent was peter novak (dc united) in 2006 when the all stars played chelsea at wrigley field in chicago. as the all star head coach, peter novak i think chose all dc united players (which turned heads/raised a few eyebrows in 2006, maybe people weren’t sure if that was politically correct or not.) in 2006, dc united’s usual starting eleven looked something like this:
5/20 @ columbus
d 1-1 | d.c. 4-1-3
gk troy perkins
d brian namoff
d bobbie boswell
d fecundo erpen
m freddie adu
m brian carroll
m filomeno/simms
m christian gómez
m joshua gros
f jaime moreno
f alecko eskandarian
on august 5, 2006 at wrigley field in chicago, peter nowak fielded his all-star-enhanced dcu united line up:
gk troy perkins (dc united)
d bobby boswell (dc united)
d facundo erpen (dc united)
d jimmy conrad (kansas city wizards)
d chris albright (la galaxy)
m dwayne de rosario (houston dynamo)
m christian gómez (dc united)
m richard mulrooney (fc dallas)
m joshua gros (dc united)
f brian ching (houston dynamo)
f jaime moreno (dc united)
substitutes used:
m freddie adu (dc united)
f alecko eskandarian (dc united)
and we all know the result was mls won that game 1-0 “with dwayne de rosario scoring the winning goal in the 70th minute. ” (wikipedia)
so basically peter nowak did what quozzel is suggesting, he kept his dc united starting unit together, more or less. and he just enhanced it with a few key all star players such as attack dog defender jimmy conrad and human missile forward brian ching and the magician dwayne de rosario and the attacking, overlapping fullback chris albright. but by retaining the core dc united group along with their coach, peter nowak, this all star team had a real cohesion and chemistry similar to dc united, the club team. (my meaning is that if you just put 11 all stars together and if they never played together before, they might lack cohesion and chemistry as a unit. but this super-sized dc united all star team in 2006 had plenty of cohesion and chemistry and i think that showed on the field.)
it doesn’t raise eyebrows anymore, does it? i think everyone expected tate to pick his remaining players from atlanta united. and i think we can go back to peter novak in 2006 for setting this precedent.