Atlanta Moved. The Line Didn't.

Twenty-second minute. Miguel Almirón took a touch outside the box at Stade Saputo, opened his body, and put his left foot through it into the bottom right corner.

Elías Baez gave him the ball. Baez is a left back.

Nineteen minutes later Giuliano Galoppo turned in a set piece from close range. On the hour Breel Embolo swept the third away with his left foot from almost the same yard of grass. CF Montréal nil, Atlanta United three, and Atlanta did all of it a long way from the building they are named after.

The number that crossed over

Four days ago I wrote that the Benz is worth one point. Tonight the arithmetic walked past it.

Fourteen points from fourteen matches at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Sixteen points from fifteen on the road. The away column is now the better column, and it became the better column tonight, in Quebec.

Six of those road matches came consecutively between May and August, when the World Cup took the stadium off them. That stretch is part of why the away sample runs a match longer. It is not why the away sample is worth more.

Eighteen shots, six on target, three goals

Here is the pair of numbers I did not expect to be able to set side by side.

Saturday, at home, against FC Cincinnati: sixteen shots, six on target, 55.7 per cent of the ball. One goal, beaten 1-3 at home.

Tonight, in Montréal: eighteen shots, six on target, 48.4 per cent of the ball. Three goals, won 3-0 on the road.

Six on target on both nights. The same number of real chances, four days apart. One goal became three.

On Saturday I left a question open and told myself not to answer it early: is the shooting without the scoring a structure or a symptom? One match does not answer that. Five are left to ask it in. But the first of them says the chances were always real and the finishing was the variable, which is the kinder of the two answers.

The one in the middle

The shape was a 4-1-4-1. Mauricio Amaro alone in front of the back four, and four midfielders in a line ahead of him.

Atlanta gave Montréal the ball. Fifty-one point six per cent of it, in their own stadium, and it bought them nine shots and two on target across ninety-five minutes. Atlanta made fourteen interceptions. They won fourteen of nineteen tackles.

A single pivot asks one footballer to cover a pitch's width and trusts the four ahead of him to come back and help. They came back. That is the whole trick, and away from home it is not a small one.

The match stopped at 79' for an injury to Almirón. He came off at 83' for Fafà Picault with Atlanta three goals clear. That is everything that is known tonight, and it is everything I am going to say about it.

And now the table, which does not care

FC Cincinnati lost at home to the New England Revolution. Red Bull New York lost at D.C. United. The two clubs holding the Eastern Conference's last two qualifying places went down on the same evening Atlanta won by three, which means the thirty-six-point line that spent last week walking away from this club stood perfectly still.

Nine points back this morning. Six tonight. Five matches, fifteen points.

On Sunday I wrote that the line moved and Atlanta didn't. Tonight is that sentence backwards, and I am not going to pretend it is the same thing as hope.

Because thirty-six is still not the number. Level on points goes to total wins first, and Atlanta have eight against FC Cincinnati's nine and Red Bull New York's ten, so the clean figure is thirty-seven, exactly where it was. And four clubs are parked in the queue between Atlanta and the line: Columbus Crew on thirty-two, then New York City FC, Toronto FC and D.C. United all level on thirty-three. Five clubs to pass in five matches, with Cincinnati and D.C. United each holding a match in hand.

Not eliminated. Fourteenth of fifteen. Both of those are true tonight and neither cancels the other.

So take the one thing that needs no qualification at all. Thirty points, with five matches still to play. Last season this club finished fourteenth in the East on twenty-eight points from all thirty-four. They have already passed it, and they passed it in Montréal, on a Wednesday, three goals to nil, off a left back's pass and a midfield that ran back.

Vamos.