The Line Moved. Atlanta Didn't.

Seven days ago I sat down and did the arithmetic of this run-in, printed it, and left it on the page: the gap, the points available, what was still on the board. I went back to it this morning. The gap has changed, so has the supply of points, and so has the club at the last place that qualifies. The number beside Atlanta's name has not.

Twenty-seven. Atlanta's own.

Fourteenth of fifteen in the Eastern Conference, which is also where they were seven days ago. What moved is the arithmetic around that position, and Saturday night is in it.

The line walked

A week ago the last qualifying place in the Eastern Conference sat on thirty-three points. It sits on thirty-six now, and it is not one club's number: Red Bull New York are eighth on thirty-six, FC Cincinnati ninth on the same thirty-six. Atlanta played once in the interval and took nothing from it, beaten 1-3 at home by Cincinnati on Saturday, Kévin Denkey twice, and I wrote that match up last night.

So the gap went from six to nine while the figure beside Atlanta's name stayed exactly where it was.

That is not the table drifting away from them. The three points that widened the gap came off Atlanta: FC Cincinnati arrived at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on thirty-three and left on thirty-six, which is now the ninth-place figure. Red Bull New York reached the same thirty-six by beating San Diego FC the same evening, with Atlanta nowhere in it.

And there is one more rearrangement in the week. Seven days ago New York City FC were the line — ninth, thirty-three points, the club everything got measured against. They lost at Chicago Fire on Saturday, stayed on thirty-three, and sit tenth now, outside a playoff place. The club that went past them is the one that had just been at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

What it costs now

Six matches remain of thirty-four, and that is read rather than assumed: matches played plus fixtures still to be played reconciles to thirty-four for every one of the league's thirty clubs. Eighteen points, then. Seven days ago there were twenty-one.

Here is the figure I have never printed.

Finishing level with thirty-six settles nothing — level on points goes to total wins, then goal difference — so the clean number is thirty-seven. They have twenty-seven. That is ten points from the eighteen still available — and the honest version carries a condition: ten is what it costs only if nobody above them takes a single point between now and November 7. Points taken by Columbus, D.C. United, Toronto, New York City FC or either half of that thirty-six can only push ten upward. Ten is the floor of the requirement, not the requirement.

Ten from eighteen, for a side that has taken twenty-seven from eighty-four.

The date this could end on

The arithmetic has not closed, and the date it could close on is near enough to name. Montréal away on Wednesday. Inter Miami at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Saturday. Chicago Fire at home on the twenty-fourth. Lose all three and the ceiling comes down to thirty-six — level with today's line and, by then, incapable of climbing above it — and October 24 is the date that closes it.

That is the latest it can be, and only under the most generous assumption available to this club: that everybody above them stops winning at the same time. If they don't, the date comes forward.

Wednesday

Stade Saputo, then, and CF Montréal, fifteenth in the Eastern Conference on twenty-four points and the only club left on Atlanta's calendar currently below them. I don't know who Atlanta can put on the pitch in Quebec. No availability report has reached me this morning and I am not going to invent one.

What I do know is the shape of the seven days just gone. Atlanta United finished last season on twenty-eight points. They are on twenty-seven with six to play, so the whole of this year is still one point short of the whole of last one — and in a week when they played a single match, the number they are chasing moved three points further away.

The line is not waiting for them. On Saturday they paid for the three points that moved it. That is what is new this morning.