Preseason Analysis: Birmingham Legion 0-2 Atlanta United

Once again, the Legion lost a preseason game to Atlanta United. This time there were a few good reasons why that happened.

First and foremost, United had been in training at least a week longer than the Three Sparks and had a game under their belts already. Admittedly, they lost that game 1-2 to Chattanooga FC (who the Legion will be playing this coming Saturday, coincidentally) but they were playing a ton of trialists, which was not so much the case this week, at least in the first half. So they were playing first team guys (Miguel Almiron excepted, unfortunately) with more work already done.

Second, the Legion was missing a couple of important players. I alluded to this in the preview, but it may not have escaped your notice (assuming you were at the game) that AJ Paterson was on the sidelines with his knee in a brace and hobbling on crutches. That’s not great, but he is reportedly getting better quickly. You may also have seen Diba Nwegbo on the sidelines with him, looking in good shape (he was in practice this past week) but for whatever reason he wasn’t in the gameday squad. Also missing was Tyler Pasher who is injured. Again. Another absentee is Darwin Matheus who was signed late last year to some acclamation; he’s not on the club’s roster any longer despite still being under contract.

Adding to that, the Legion squad is replete with new players so the communication is still not quite there, not only among the new guys but also between them and the remaining players from past seasons.

Fourth, Coach Soehn has not yet settled on a tactical approach. That’s hardly shocking given the point in preseason the Legion is at currently. And that will probably stay that way for another couple of weeks yet.

Lastly, this was also an opportunity to get a good look at a number of trialists in a true game situation. And the Legion deployed a fair few of them.

There were two trialists In the first half. One was Ethan Kos, who played at centerback in AJ’s absence. Kos is a 23-year-old Californian who played at University College Dublin before joining Kerry FC in the League of Ireland First Division for its inaugural season in 2023. Kerry FC dubbed him Captain America. The other was named Mora and may or may not have been Robbie Mora, who should be a junior midfielder at Gonzaga right now.

There were several more in the second half. The most obvious was Yaniv Bazini, a 6’2′ forward who scored 32 goals in his career at the University of Vermont, who won both the College Cup and the national championship last year. Also in the squad was Jackson Wrobel. That name might ring a few bells: he was on the Legion roster back in 2021 (but did not get any minutes). He also came up through the Atlanta United system and played at Wofford and Clemson (the 2023 national champions). Another was Damean Dominguez. He’s another midfielder who played his college soccer at Florida Atlantic and Georgia Southwestern. The defender who scored the own goal (more on that later) was Dylan Bellios but I have no idea if that is the correct spelling and I can’t find any data on him. Google is useless sometimes. There was also a player whose first name is Omar, but that’s all I have on him!

So, all told quite a mixed bag.

The Legion played two different formations and styles in the two halves. In the first half Tommy Soehn went with the 4-2-3-1. That would probably be a strong option for the Legion if the team had a quality central attacking mid, which it really does not at this point. Coach alluded to strengthening the midfield when I talked with him last week but that still looks the most evident unfilled hole. It worked moderately well despite the disadvantages listed above, and was a good choice to match United’s formation, basically the same. Both teams like to press and we saw plenty of that in the half, Atlanta having most of the run of play up to the goal and the Legion after it.

The Legion was largely able to absorb the pressure, which is a very good sign. The goal eventually came from a set piece, which is often the last thing a team works on in preseason, so not too troubling. It did have the effect of waking up the Three Sparks attack though. From what we saw of it, the combination of Dawson McCartney and Danny Trejo on the wings is going to cause a lot of headaches for Championship defenses once they get in rhythm with Ronaldo Damus up top. They weren’t quite able to connect with him, but that’s a timing and communication issue that should get resolved over the next few weeks. Behind McCartney is Stephen Turnbull, who may not have Jonny Dean speed but he’s close. He was especially impressive in recovery play but is pretty dangerous pushing forward. Moses Mensah on the opposite side maybe less so, but as long as he can get the ball moved up to Trejo, Danny’s speed can handle the rest. Kos as the trialist at centerback was pretty good and may be doing enough to earn himself a roster spot.

In the second half the team shifted mostly to a 4-4-2. That’s a pretty basic and therefore safe choice given the number of trialists on the field. It also had the benefit of seeing both the trialist Bazini and the already-rostered Lucca Dourado at work. Both were good and if anything Bazini was slightly the better of the two. Dourado was good in tight spaces though. The team did give up an own goal, and that’s a tough thing for a trialist to do. In his defense, he had to make a play on the ball as two Atlanta attackers were waiting on it and had an easy shot on goal. It should not be too much of a black mark for him. Fernando Delgado was out of the play in that case, but he made two excellent saves on high shots. He probably remains the number three guy but is likely going to move up the listings pretty quickly. Expect to see a lot of him in the early Open Cup rounds (the Legion enters in the first round after all) and probably also the Jägermeister Cup. Also impressive as before was Ramiz Hamouda (who just earned a call-up to the US U-17 squad) who is a man with a boy’s birth certificate.

Overall, there are a lot of positives to take from this game. Coach Soehn did highlight the speed of play as an issue he wants to work on so keep an eye out for that. It also tends to suggest that he wants to see a lot of transitional play. Which means counter-attacks. And those are always entertaining to watch.

On to Saturday, then. And if you think you can fill one of the Legion’s remaining roster spots, first up this weekend are open tryouts at 9:00am. Then in the afternoon is the preseason tilt with Chattanooga FC at 2:30pm. That is open only to season ticket holders. Both events will be at the club’s training facility on Dunnavant Valley Road (in Chelsea just off US 280).