Atlanta United’s four-goal victory over Vancouver this weekend was a dominant scoreline, but Head Coach Tata Martino wasn’t pleased after the first hour.
“I was a little worried in the first half but it wasn’t because of the chances we were missing,” he said through a translator after the game. “It was more because after the expulsion of Waston I didn’t think we handled the game the way that we should have.”
“We kind of took things calmly and that’s not what we had to do,” Josef added. “We came into the locker room and Tata told us to be aggressive and have a different mindset, so that’s how we came out in the second half.”
And perhaps no one was more decisive in the second half than Josef Martinez, who added two more goals for his fourth career hat trick. That’s just one less than the MLS record in just 23 games played so far in his career, and it’s no surprise to his head coach.
“Honestly, I thought he would be a decisive player for us,” Martino said Saturday. “I saw him play with Venezuela, played against him, and saw him play in Copa America. He was a decisive player in Copa America and whenever he played in Venezuela. So to be honest, I have to say that I thought he would be that for us as well.”
It’s a mentality that Martinez shares with other elite goal scorers: a tenacious desire to continue scoring, regardless of the opponent or scoreline.
“He’s got that mentality,” Michael Parkhurst said. “He’s just ruthless in front of the net. He just loves to score goals. He gets upset in trainings and in little games in training (where) we’re just goofing around, he gets upset if he doesn’t score goals. It’s just what he does. It’s what he loves to do and you can see it out there.”
And while Parkhurst is always confident in his team’s defensive abilities, he’s happy he doesn’t have to face off against the prolific Venezuelan.
“He puts so much pressure on the backline. I’m thankful I don’t have to play against him because he’s got to be tough to play against for 90 minutes. It’s impressive what he’s done so far in the league.”
For his part, Josef is eager to score more, every time he takes the pitch. But he’s more focused on helping the team succeed and continue building on the winning run the team’s been on in the past two weeks.
“Hopefully I can (break the hat trick record) but I just want to (show appreciation) and thank my teammates. We wanted to ratify the performance that we had last week but I didn’t know about the hat trick. I’m just trying to ratify the performance and keep getting better.”
The team will look to get its third win in a row after the international break as they head back on the road to face Minnesota United on March 31st. They’ll then return to Atlanta to take on 2018 expansion side LAFC on April 7th at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Tickets to that match are still available, make sure you’ve reserved yours here.
