Red Bull New York Lost, and Atlanta United Went Out Anyway

In Foxborough, at the same half-seven kickoff as Atlanta United's in Queens, Red Bull New York were losing 3-2 to New England.

That was the result. That was the one Atlanta could not go and get for themselves, the one that had to arrive from somewhere else, and on Wednesday night it arrived.

I wrote on Tuesday that Red Bull New York had two away trips left before they host Atlanta on the final day, and that they had to come back from both with nothing. They came back from the first with nothing.

And Atlanta United are out, because the other half of it never happened.

### Ninety-five minutes in Queens

Nothing at the interval. The board at Citi Field said nil-nil at half-time, which is a sentence I have written about this team more often than any of us would like.

Atlanta finished the night with fifty-four per cent of the ball and nineteen shots to New York City's eleven.

Nicolás Fernández Mercau put the home side ahead from a free-kick on seventy.

And then Atlanta did the hard part. Breel Embolo rose on eighty-eight and headed it level, and for three minutes Atlanta United had the point that kept the whole thing breathing.

Bénie Traoré came on in the ninetieth minute for Hannes Wolf. In the fifth of the added minutes, Kevin O'Toole put it across and Traoré scored.

Five minutes on the pitch. Three minutes after the equaliser. Season over.

Nineteen shots. Six on target. One goal. Matt Freese made five saves in the New York goal and will not remember most of them.

### La resta

I have been doing a subtraction in public since the end of September, and I want to put the whole thing down in one place, because tonight is where it stops.

On the twenty-sixth of September the ceiling was fifty points. On the twenty-seventh it was forty-eight. By the sixteenth of October it was forty-five, and I wrote then that only five Eastern clubs were guaranteed to finish above Atlanta. On the nineteenth it was forty-two. On the twenty-fourth it was thirty-nine, and eight clubs were past it.

Tonight it is thirty-six, and twelve clubs are past it.

Thirty points from thirty-two matches. Two left, six available, thirty-six at the absolute outside — and Red Bull New York are sitting on thirty-nine right now, tonight, having lost. Toronto beat D.C. United and are on thirty-nine as well. Columbus and New York City FC are on thirty-eight. Nine clubs go to the playoffs in this conference. Atlanta United can finish no higher than thirteenth of fifteen.

There are matches still being played around the East as I write this and not one of them can help, because points do not come back off a total once a club has banked them.

On the eleventh of October I wrote that if Atlanta lost all three, the ceiling would come down to thirty-six and would by then be incapable of climbing above the line. I attached a date to that — the twenty-fourth — and the date was wrong. The window stayed open four days longer than I said it would.

The number was right. It is thirty-six, and it cannot climb.

### What the last two are for

Toronto FC come to Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Sunday, in the last home match of Atlanta United's season, having just climbed to thirty-nine points at Atlanta's expense and D.C.'s.

Then, on the seventh of November, Atlanta finish the season away at Red Bull New York — the club holding the place they needed, in the building where the whole thing was supposed to be decided. Both sides are on minus sixteen goal difference tonight, level to the goal. I had that match marked for weeks as the one that would write itself.

It will not decide anything now. It is a fixture.

Gerardo Martino came back to this club in November of last year, to the place he managed in 2017 and 2018 and won a cup with. His return season finishes outside the playoffs, fourteenth of fifteen in the Eastern Conference, with thirty points and eighteen defeats.

I am not going to pretend the ninety-fifth minute is why. A club that arrives at the end of October with thirty points did not get there on Wednesday. It got there over eight months, and the shape of Wednesday — the ball, the shots, the equaliser, the three minutes of holding it — is just the season doing its party trick one last time in front of a smaller audience.

Two matches left. Nothing riding on either.

That is the subtraction finished.