Atlanta United Manager Gonzalo Pineda joined Dukes & Bell for his monthly appearance on the show and talked about his lineup decision to not start Josef Martinez last night, and was he benched?
Pineda talked about strategy of how he uses players with multiple games in a week.
“I did the same against New York Red Bulls, we played against Toronto and then the next game against New York Red Bulls I rotated the lineup just to try to find some balance, for performance and tactics, so I think usually do that, especially when we have three games in a week,” Pineda said. “So I did the same thing this week with Josef I did two weeks ago so yea, that’s part of the reason.”
When asked if Martinez was benched.
“I normally don’t give a lot of explanations on every player I put on the bench, if I opened that door I would have give explanations to why no Ronaldinho, no Alex Dejohn, so I don’t normally give a lot of explanations on my choices. I prefer to talk about the guys who are on the field rather than the guys who are not.”