Atlanta United v Charlotte FC
Two weekends of rivalry matches begin in the MLS in the early hours of Sunday morning and one such match sees Atlanta United meeting Charlotte FC for the second time this season, after the former MLS Cup champions won 3-0 in Charlotte earlier in the campaign.
Atlanta were at their very best on that afternoon and have the potential to do some damage in this match too. Generally Atlanta are a good team on their own patch and only Toronto FC have left Georgia with a point this term.
Charlotte do at least make the trip to the Mercedes-Benz Stadium off the back of a win over New York City FC last week in a match where they delivered their best showing of the season.
They backed that up with a win in the US Open Cup in midweek and suddenly after a sluggish start to the season they now have four wins in their last five in all competitions.
That slow start should be attributed to exceptional circumstances after the passing of their player Anton Walkes in pre-season. Any team would need time to recover from such a loss so we should cut Charlotte some slack.
Charlotte do have a problem here though in that they are missing a bunch of centre-backs and are either going to need to utilise full-backs or midfielders at the heart of their defence, something which is less than ideal when going to Atlanta.
There is a chance that Atlanta could have number nine Giorgos Giakoumakis back from injury for this one and he is lethal in and around the penalty box and will be ready to take advantage of this weakened Charlotte back line.
We saw enough from Charlotte last week to believe they can be a threat going forward in this one though, even without DP forward Enzo Copetti, so over 2.5 goals appeals in what could turn out to be another end-to-end battle at this stadium.
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