The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
» United players try to get used to early start,
It’s not done as a remembrance to the days when juice boxes and orange slices were the eagerly consumed and mostly sticky reward for playing soccer in the hot sun, but Atlanta United will play a game at 9 a.m. today. That’s a.m., not p.m. Yes, it’s weird. But at least the players’ parents don’t have to sit and watch in broken lawn chairs or on broiling metal bleachers.
Atlanta United will face Cincinnati in the second game of group stage in the MLS tournament in Orlando.
“As an official game, this will be a first time,” Atlanta United defender Franco Escobar said.
“I was 7 or 8 years old I think,” manager Frank de Boer said. “Maybe when I made my debut as a 7-, 9- or 10-year-old. We aren’t used to these kinds of times.”
“I can’t remember,” fullback George Bello, 18 and the likeliest to remember because of his age, said when asked the last time he played a game so early.
MLS scheduled games at 9 a.m. to try to minimize the effects of weather conditions. Atlanta United vs. Cincinnati will be the fourth game in the tournament to kick off at a time that’s better suited for a second cup of coffee than a 10-mile jog in temperatures forecast to be 83 degrees at kickoff and 87 by game’s end, with humidity levels of just-throw-awayyour socks. There are at least four more scheduled.
The game time not only is weird because, well, only golf, tennis and road races should start that early. It’s weird because of how it will affect the team’s preparation. The team can’t have a pregame meal three hours before kickoff because of the self-isolation guidelines put into place by MLS for teams in the bubble. But de Boer may or may not have been joking Tuesday when he wondered if any of the players have ever considered eating pasta for breakfast. Re-purposed pasta carbonara as an early-morning treat?
“You see how hot it is,” he said. “It continues every 15 minutes getting hotter and hotter.”
One thing that wasn’t weird was that de Boer and a few players all said the same thing about the start time and the weather: A lot of teams have to deal with it. It’s no excuse. They must find a way.