Giorgos Giakoumakis scored his 10th goal of the season, Andrew Gutman had a goal and an assist, and Atlanta United pulled away to a 3-1 victory over visiting D.C. United on Saturday night.
Substitute Tyler Wolff also scored an insurance goal for Atlanta (7-4-7, 28 points), which extended its unbeaten run to six games, though the previous four of those were draws.
Giakoumakis’ early tally helps him keep pace in the MLS Golden Boot chase. He began the day a goal behind three players for the goal-scoring lead.
Osvaldo Alonso made his first MLS appearance since April of 2022 as a late substitute for Atlanta after a long recovery.
Giakoumakis’ Greek international teammate Taxi Fountas scored the lone goal for D.C. (6-7-5, 23 points) to level the game later in the first half.
But the visitors couldn’t overcome errors from goalkeeper Tyler Miller on Atlanta’s first and second goals while sinking to their first multi-goal loss in their last 11 matches.
Miller’s first gaffe came when he raced off his line as Giakoumakis was running onto a ball over the top. Miller lost the foot race, Giakoumakis eluded him and then did excellently to hit a low, first-time finish into an open net from a tight angle.
Fountas evened affairs in the 27th minute on an Atlanta mistake, when Chris Durkin pressured Thiago Almada into a turnover to create a breakaway.
With Christian Benteke to his left, Fountas instead drove a low and hard finish past Brad Guzan for his fourth goal of the season.
Atlanta regained the lead four minutes into the second half, boosted by Miller’s second costly error.
Almada made amends for his earlier error when he played Gutman into the left side of the penalty area with an excellent throughball.
From there, Miller tried to anticipate Gutman crossing the ball and in the process left his near post open, and Gutman took advantage with a firm shot that Miller got a hand to but couldn’t keep out of the net.
Gutman then assisted Wolff’s insurance tally in the 74th minute, which was originally offside but then given following a video review.
–Field Level Media
