MONTREAL — Atlanta United travels to CF Montreal on Saturday with a chance to climb into a tie for fourth place in the Eastern Conference with a win.
Kickoff is set for 7:30 p.m. at Stade Saputo in Montreal.
Atlanta United (8-5-8, 32 points) holds a 5-3-3 all-time record against CF Montreal (8-10-2, 26 points) in MLS regular season play: 4-0-1 at home and 1-3-2 on the road. This will be the first meeting between the teams in 2023 as Atlanta will host the second meeting on Sept. 23 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
Atlanta is coming off a 2-0 win against Philadelphia Union on Sunday behind goals from Thiago Almada and Brooks Lennon. Atlanta held the Union to one shot on target and blocked a franchise record nine shots in one of its best defensive performances of the season.
Almada now has 18 goal contributions this season, which ranks second in MLS. The MLS All-Star created five chances against Philadelphia. It marks the fourth match this season in which he has created at least five chances, the most such matches in MLS.
Ten of Almada's 14 career MLS goals (71.4 %) have been scored from outside the box three more than any other player since he joined MLS last season. Of the 56 players to score at least 10 goals since the start of the 2022 season, Almada is the only one with more than 40% of his goals coming from outside the box.
Lennon played in his 100th MLS regular season match for the club, becoming just the fifth player in Atlanta history to reach the century mark.
Montreal heads into Matchday 22 in ninth place in the Eastern Conference and coming off a 1-0 loss at home to New York City FC on July 1. Montreal saw its streak of eight straight shutout wins in all competitions at home come to an end with the loss to NYCFC. In it's past four matches, Montreal has posted three clean sheets and conceded one goal.
