Martínez earns hat trick, Atlanta rolls
ATLANTA — An early foul in the box led to a penalty and red card. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time became an own goal. A lapse in defending gave Miguel Almirón and Josef Martínez a chance to expose the opposition’s back line.
Those mistakes by the Vancouver Whitecaps (2-1-0, 6 points) turned into multiple scores for Atlanta United F.C. (2-1-0, 6 points) Saturday at MercedesBenz Stadium.
The Five Stripes notched their second consecutive win of the season with a 4-1 rout of the Whitecaps. Martínez scored three times, making it the sixth multigoal game of his Major League Soccer career.
“[Martínez is] really good at scoring goals,” Atlanta captain Michael Parkhurst said. “He’s got that mentality. He’s ruthless in front of the net. He just loves to score goals. He gets upset in training and in games when he doesn’t score. You can see it out there. He’s always right in front of the goal. He puts so much pressure on the backline and I’m thankful I don’t have to play against him. He’s got to be tough to play against for 90 minutes. It’s impressive what he’s done so far in the league.”
Atlanta had an advantage early when Vancouver captain Kendall Waston received a straight red card and was tossed from the game. During an Atlanta free kick in the 10th minute, Almirón lofted the ball into the box and Waston threw his elbow, which met the jaw of Atlanta centerback Leandro González Pírez.
The referee did not rule on the play initially, but he went to the Video Assistant Referee when Atlanta’s centerback went down in the penalty area. The official returned, showed Waston a red card and awarded Atlanta a penalty kick. Martínez buried the goal in the low right corner of the net for his first score of the game.
The match was chippy throughout. Referees handed out four yellow cards and whistled for 22 fouls.
Just before the final whistle, with the game out of reach, Vancouver’s Felipe Martins tackled Atlanta’s Darlington Nagbe hard near midfield. After the whistle blew, players from both teams bumped chests and shouted at each other in a scrum. As he barked, Atlanta goalkeeper Brad Guzan had to be held back by Vancouver midfielder Brek Shea.
Facing a Vancouver team with a man down, Atlanta kept firing at goal and totaled 21 shots in the game. However, the Five Stripes missed many scoring opportunities in the first half, including a three-on-one fast break.
In the 58th minute, another Vancouver misstep resulted in a score for Atlanta.
Héctor Villalba passed the ball from the center edge of the box to Julian Gressel, who was racing towards the penalty area on the right wing. Gressel gathered the ball and crossed it low and hard. But the pass unintentionally met the foot of Vancouver defender Aaron Maund. The ball bounced past keeper Stefan Marinovic and rested in the back of the net for an own goal.
Moments later, Martínez sprinted past Vancouver’s defense and received a feed from Almirón. The 5-foot-7 forward from Venezuela collected the ball, reached the top of the box and fired a rocket shot past Marinovic for Atlanta’s third score.
17-year-old homegrown talent Andrew Carleton entered the game in the 78th minute. He recorded the first assist of his MLS career when he received a feed from Gressel at the right outside corner of the box and then, in traffic, chipped a ball to the far post that was headed in by Martínez.
For Martínez, the hat trick is his fourth of his 23-game MLS career. He is one hat trick away from tying the MLS career record for hat tricks, which is shared by Landon Donovan, Stern John and Diego Cerna.