MLS Eastern Conference: Elite striker play, FC Cincinnati look vulnerable & more on each team

Welcome back our two-part weekly MLS column here at Backheeled where we break down all 29 teams in the league.

Joe’s got the West. I’ve got the East. The Red Bulls got thumped. Cincinnati have problems. Let’s do this thing.

To read up on the West, check out Joe’s rundown.

MLS Western Conference: San Jose Earthquakes’ failure, tactical tweaks galore & more on each team

We’re dissecting every MLS team in the Western Conference.

BackheeledJoseph Lowery

Atlanta United

Result: 1-1 draw at Philadelphia Union

Atlanta deserve a lot of credit for their continued fight. They’re still very much alive in the playoff race, and their point in Philadelphia was a dramatic result.

Dramatic, yes. Helpful? I mean, more helpful than a loss, but the Five Stripes badly need three points from basically every match to close out the year. Until late, the urgency was non-existent. The attack was generally aimless. Alexey Miranchuk looks slow and ponderous in the attack, and while some of his attacking numbers look good, he’s not consistently putting players in spots to take high-value shots. 

It probably shouldn’t be a surprise that a team who fired their coach and sold all their best players look incomplete, but Atlanta look very much incomplete. They may somehow squeeze into the postseason, but don’t expect anything from them.

Charlotte FC

Result: 1-1 draw at Inter Miami

Here’s what I said last week:

“Just hand the keys over to Agyemang full-time at this point. He’s a better fit and more goal-dangerous player than Karol Swiderski.”

Given that Swiderski started and Patrick Agyemang was relegated to the bench for 70 minutes, I’m gonna go ahead and say that Dean Smith doesn’t read Backheeled, confirmed. I guess that’s a good thing, because Swiderski scored this gorgeous and completely intentional goal to give Charlotte a surprising point in Miami.

“It’s definitely a step in the right direction,” said Dean Smith post-match. “To come against the league leaders with the quality of players that they have and then come away unbeaten definitely will give the players a boost.”

Here’s the fun part.

“They had some good chances as well. The little master could have scored three or four with the chances he had today, and we’ve got to be better at not giving teams like that and players like that them chances.”

First off, “little master” is my favorite Lionel Messi nickname ever. And second, Charlotte got a standout performance from Kristian Kahlina and a healthy dose of luck to come away with a point. Without much consistent threat in the attacking end of the field, they’re putting an awful lot of pressure on their defense to carry them through the postseason. I’m unconvinced about its sustainability.

Chicago Fire

Result: 1-1 draw vs. Toronto FC

That’s a wrap on 2024 for the Fire, folks.

It took an 86th minute equalizer from Jonathan Dean to rescue a point against Toronto, and the whole thing was a brutal match in which the two sides combined for a grand total of 15 total shots. This picture says everything.

The disinterested looks on the faces of the fans. The “7” on the sign, clearly taped over the “6” from last year. What looks like an official on the phone in front of the sign in the second photo, seemingly unhappy about the protest. At least maybe the quality on the pitch will redeem things. Let’s check in on that:

No? Yeah, it’s time to call it a year and move on. May new leadership come quickly.

FC Cincinnati

Result: 2-1 loss vs. LAFC

Joe Lowery: Losing to a rotated opponent at home? Yeah, that’s bad. Losing to a rotated opponent at home and losing the starting center back due to injury who was signed in the summer window to replace one of the other starting center backs you lost to injury earlier in the year? Yeah, that’s worse.

As of writing, I’m yet to see an update on Chidozie Awaziem’s injury after he stepped off the field just past the thirty-minute mark. The same goes for Sergio Santos, who subbed on and off in the second half. Even before players started dropping like flies, FC Cincinnati looked more than a step off the pace. They didn’t find a shot until the 29th minute and they didn’t find a shot from inside the box until the 40th minute. Pat Noonan summed up his team’s early struggles quite well:

According to FBref, Cincy’s short passing accuracy was their third-lowest of 2024, sitting at just 84.6%. Needless turnovers ruined the host’s chances of establishing real rhythm and building into real chances in the first 30 minutes, ceding the kind of control that eventually came back to bite them against LAFC. There was far, far too much of this from FC Cincinnati in possession: 

The second half was much better for FC Cincinnati, who took advantage of LAFC’s deeper line of confrontation to find a slew of shots (even if they were almost all low-percentage looks). But Saturday gave Cincinnati a taste of the postseason: when you don’t show up for a chunk of the game against a good team, you tend to get punished.