I Said I Would Count It

I owed you an evening before I had one.

This morning, under a heading called "What would prove me wrong," I printed three conditions and promised to honour whichever landed. Atlanta United drew 2-2 at Inter Miami, away at Nu Stadium at Miami Freedom Park. One landed.

It is the one that counts against me. It goes first.

### The three, in order

The first: "If Atlanta are shut out and beaten without ever leading or being level late, my frame does not explain the evening. You cannot fail to hold a position you never reach. That is Jones’s night, and I will say so."

Did not fire. Casemiro headed Miami ahead at 32 from the centre of the box, assisted by Lionel Messi’s cross from a corner. Miguel Almirón levelled at 35 from very close range. Luis Suárez restored the lead at 45'+1', set up by Telasco Segovia. Level again at 87, and at the whistle. Neither shut out nor beaten.

The second: "If Embolo plays, scores, and Atlanta still surrender a lead or a late parity, that one is mine. The goal was created. The point was not held."

I am about to argue against my own interest. Breel Embolo played. Breel Embolo scored. And it still did not fire. Atlanta did not surrender a late parity — they created one at 87, and it was the last goal of the match. They never led, so there was no lead to lose. The sentence required a collapse. There was none.

If you skimmed the score and assumed I owed you that one too, I don’t.

The third: "And if Atlanta leave the club sitting second in this conference with a point — on the road, against a side fresh off a 7-1 win — that is the first live evidence this season of the capability I said is absent. I would count it. Saying so now is what makes it count later."

Fired on every clause. Inter Miami were second in the East before kickoff and second after it. A point. On the road. Fresh off beating CF Montreal 7-1 on August 29. I wrote it tight enough that I could not wriggle out.

This is later. I count it.

### The bigger debt

On Thursday I wrote: "Lo que falta -- what is missing -- was never a striker, and after Wednesday it is not a signature either. It is the one point this team never takes."

Tonight the one point was taken, and the striker took it — a reported $18 million striker, on debut, from the spot, in the 87th minute. Both halves of my sentence, answered by one man.

On Friday, J. Sam Jones of mlssoccer.com called Embolo "the most important piece of the puzzle for a team that’s scored fewer goals (25) than any other team in the Eastern Conference." This morning I printed that sentence to disagree with it.

Jones has the better of that exchange. Not because a striker fixes a season — he never argued that — but on the one thing we disagreed about, whether the No. 9 was the repair this table was waiting on, he was nearer to right. I chose the ground.

And on Wednesday I filed this signing under next season. He decided a match in September.

### Two penalties in fourteen minutes

Atlanta United had not been awarded a penalty this league season. Not one in 22 matches. Tonight they took two inside fourteen minutes, and the part worth keeping is who won them.

At 70 minutes Almirón drew a foul in the penalty area, conceded by Casemiro — playing centre back tonight, not midfield — and the award was confirmed on video review at 71. At 73 he took the kick, left-footed. Dayne St. Clair saved it.

At 85, Embolo drew a foul in the penalty area of his own. At 87 he took that one, right-footed, and scored. Both kicks were struck to the bottom right corner. One stayed out.

This morning I quoted the two men closest to him. Neither talked about goals. Tata Martino, on Thursday, said the club’s two August arrivals could "add more of a presence within the team." Alexey Miranchuk, the same day, called him "an anchor." A head coach and a leading scorer describing a centre-forward by what he does without the ball.

There is a third reading now. What he added was not finishing and not pressing — it was a man who won the thing himself, then picked it up off the spot after his No. 10 had missed.

Keep it small. One penalty is not a personality, and neither man who took one tonight had taken a league penalty for this club this season, because nobody had. That is evidence, and it is not the evidence Jones and I were arguing about.

Atlanta outshot Miami 15-11, five on target to three, with possession level at 50-50.

### A point, and a place

Atlanta took a point and lost a place.

This morning in this space I published that they were 13th of 15 in the East on 21 points, four behind ninth-placed Orlando City. Ninth is the line. Tonight they are 14th on 22 points, ninth is Philadelphia Union on 27, and the gap is five. Columbus Crew won 3-0 and went above them; Philadelphia and Orlando both won, so the line climbed two points while Atlanta earned one.

Eleven matches left of 34. Thirty-three points available, five to make up. That is open. It is not comfortable. Both are the table.

### Wednesday

Orlando City come to Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Wednesday, September 9, at 7:30 p.m. ET, both clubs on three days’ rest.

On Friday I wrote that "A win at Miami is worth nothing in the table and everything four days before Orlando."

I wrote "a win." Atlanta drew. The sentence and the evening are not the same object, and I will not swap them. The first half, though, came out truer than I meant: worth nothing in the table is exactly what tonight was worth, and then less, because the line moved while they took their point.

The second half I still believe. Not because a road draw is a platform — it is one point — but because Orlando sit six above Atlanta and one above the line.

This morning I wrote that ninety minutes would not settle a season, or a sentence. It settled a sentence, and it was mine. The season part starts Wednesday, at home, against the club a point clear of the line.