Struggling Atlanta United will hope that the World Cup international break reverses their poor form as they travel to face regional rival Charlotte FC on Wednesday night.
Atlanta (3-10-2, 11 points) is winless in its last four league matches and 14th in the Eastern Conference. It lost at Nashville on Friday off a late winner despite controlling most of the game, and, in the midst of a six-game road trip, have found it hard to produce positive results.
“The attitude isn’t going to change,” Atlanta manager Tata Martino told reporters Tuesday. “Even though we’ve been losing games lately, what won’t change is the attitude. For the rest of that season, we want to have the mentality to compete all the way through the year.
“What we don’t want to happen is to wait until it’s too late in the season to have that competitive attitude.”
Atlanta’s road back up the standings Wednesday will have to start by addressing its misfiring offense, which has produced the fewest goals (14) in the league.
Despite Atlanta’s lowly standing in the league table, Charlotte (6-6-3, 21 points) will need plenty of effort to deal with high-quality designated players like Miguel Almiron and Alexey Miranchuk, who leads the team with five goals.
“I was very impressed with Atlanta,” Charlotte manager Dean Smith said about the Five Stripes’ recent loss. “They played very well against Nashville, so they’re a team we’re not taking lightly by any means. We’ll need our supporters on Wednesday night because it’s going to be a tough game.”
Atlanta will face a Charlotte squad that started red-hot but began to peter out heading into the break. Charlotte decided not to renew star winger Wilfried Zaha’s loan and replaced him with former Newcastle star Allan Saint-Maximin, revamping a star-studded attack.
Saint-Maximin isn’t expected to join Charlotte for Wednesday’s match as he sorts out visa issues preventing him from entering the United States. Charlotte, which has not played since May 23, will instead lean on prolific creator Pep Biel (team-leading seven goals) and lead attacker Idan Toklomati (five goals) to produce offense during his absence.
