Stian Gregersen scored twice on corners to lead Atlanta United to a 2-1 victory over Columbus Crew Saturday at Mercedes Benz Stadium.
In the 36th minute, Columbus would find the lead as Alexandru Matan crossed low into the box, Brad Guzan got a touch to it, but Diego Rossi was there to capitalize on the rebound.
Atlanta would be down 1-0 going into halftime, but would come out in the second half on fire.
“I love to talk about their mentality, where they are at as people and their perspective in that sense. I do touch on that a lot, but we touched on it at halftime because we were losing the game, but I thought we played really well,” said interim head coach Rob Valentino. “Call me crazy, but defensively we were really solid, only giving away one chance, and [Columbus] scored, which really sucks. But at the same time, I let [the players] speak and we touched on that and how it wasn’t great, but now we are down a goal, so what are we going to do, what is the rebound going to be like?”
Atlanta would find an equalizer in the 60th minute as Stian Gregersen earned his first goal with Atlanta United when Saba Lobjanidze fired a cross in from a corner kick to find Gregersen who headed the ball into the back of the net.
Gregersen’s header was the first goal this season to come off of a corner kick for the Five Stripes.
“Once they are on the field in the second half, there is only so much we can really get across to them. We try to get messages across, and we try to talk about mentality, being alert, and we use hand signals, trying all those things, but [the players] dug in,” said Valentino. “ I think they could feel the moment, so they dug in and did the work to get a result. If I’m right, this is the first time we have come back from down a goal and won the game, which is a real positive.”
And…SPEAKING OF STIAN GREGERSEN, in the 76th minute, off of another corner kick, Lobjanidze found Gregersen once again and headed it past Nicholas Hagen to make it 2-1. Gregersen becomes the fourth player to score a brace this season for Atlanta.
“Of course it meant a lot to be sent off against Montreal. I had a long week, I didn’t play in the middle of the week, so I rested well and I worked hard, and I had a lot of energy in this game,” said Gregersen. “I’ve never scored two goals in one game before, so it was good to do it here in Mercedes-Benz Stadium and in front of these amazing fans.”
League play will not be on pause as Atlanta United starts their Leagues Cup run on Friday, July 26 at 8:00 p.m. as they host D.C. United.
✍️: Madison Crews
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