Seventeen Points From Seventeen Home Matches

Twenty-two minutes in, Alexey Miranchuk slid a ball through the Toronto back line and Miguel Almirón finished it left-footed from the middle of the box. Forty-one thousand one hundred and ninety-seven people made the noise they had been saving since August.

Atlanta United 3, Toronto FC 1. Full time at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. The last home match of 2026.

On the twenty-fifth of October I wrote that six home matches had gone by since August 23rd and one was left to change it. This was that one. It changed it.

Not much. But exactly as much as it could.

### Three goals, all off the left foot

Almirón at 22, from Miranchuk's through ball. Cooper Sanchez at 40, into the bottom right corner, from Almirón. Miranchuk himself at 51, central again, and that was the match.

All three left-footed. All three from the centre of the box. Nothing clever about the geography — Atlanta kept arriving in the one place where a shot is a goal.

Lewis Morgan got Toronto's at 79, right foot, bottom left corner, laid on by Josh Sargent after coming off the bench at 54 for Dániel Sallói. He is the reason this is not a clean sheet, and the reason this match is such an honest piece of the season.

Because here is what I argued twelve hours ago, before a ball was kicked: that Atlanta's trouble at home was never that they went quiet in here — it was that they leaked while they were scoring. Twenty-three scored at home. Thirty-two conceded.

And then on the last night they scored three and let one in.

I will take the thesis holding. I would rather it had been wrong.

### The columns are level

This morning the home ledger read fourteen points from sixteen matches, goal difference minus nine, against an away column on sixteen points and minus seven.

After tonight, walked match by match through all thirty-three rows:

Home — seventeen matches, five won, two drawn, ten lost. Twenty-six scored, thirty-three conceded. Minus seven. Seventeen points.

Away — sixteen matches, four won, four drawn, eight lost. Seventeen scored, twenty-four conceded. Minus seven. Sixteen points.

Level. Exactly level on goal difference, and one point apart on the table, with the extra point coming from the extra match.

I have spent a month writing that the road column was the better column, that the Benz was worth one point when I measured it on the tenth of October. Three goals on the first of November closed the gap. The whole gap.

It took the final ninety minutes of the home season for Mercedes-Benz Stadium to stop being the thing that was wrong with this club. That is either a lovely ending or a damning one and I cannot decide.

### What it is worth

Thirty-three points from thirty-three matches. Thirteenth of fifteen in the East, one place better than when the teams walked out, because D.C. United are on the same thirty-three with a worse goal difference. Nine Eastern clubs carry a playoff qualification note. This one carries none.

So: a first home win since the twenty-third of August, when Sporting Kansas City came and lost 2-1. Six home matches in between without one — five defeats and a draw. The first time Atlanta have scored three in here since the second of May.

All true. All worth nothing in the table.

And this, which is also true: Atlanta had forty-eight point three per cent of the ball. Toronto had more of it and attempted twenty-seven crosses to find three shots on target — the exact disease I diagnosed in Atlanta a fortnight ago, showing up in the opposition. Atlanta were not in control tonight. They were efficient. Twenty shots, eight on target, three goals, and a defence that still could not get through ninety minutes intact.

Almirón went off at 70 after an injury delay at 27, Jay Fortune on. Mauricio Amaro went at the same moment, expressly because of an injury, Adrian Gill on. I do not know what either of those is and I am not going to guess on the night.

### One match left

Saturday at Red Bull New York. Decision Day, every Eastern kickoff at the same hour, and nothing riding on it — the hosts are eliminated too.

So this was the last one in here. The first time in ten weeks the people in the stands got to walk out of Mercedes-Benz Stadium having watched Atlanta United win a match.

Three scored, one conceded, on a night when the only thing left to win was the argument about what kind of season this was.

The ball doesn't lie. It just occasionally waits until the last match to tell you the truth.