Carolina soccer fans will watch their teams take on two of the more exciting MLS sides tonight in fourth-round Open Cup action. Our Matt Clark and Erin Moyer have both put together excellent previews for NCFC vs. Houston and Charleston vs. Atlanta, respectively. So let’s dive a little deeper into what make Atlanta and Houston tick and, more importantly, how they can be beaten.

Who takes the field?

The big x-factor in both these games is, of course, which players end up taking the field. The RailHawks’ 4th-round opponent last year, New England, decided on a 50/50 approach, mixing some lesser-utilized players with key starters like Juan Agudelo and Kelyn Rowe.

Unfortunately, we have zero precedent for Tata Martino’s early-round Open Cup tendencies for United. But the word coming out of Atlanta is that we should largely expect a reserve lineup that includes Andrew Carleton, Chris McCann, and, for the first time this season, 1st-round pick Miles Robinson.

Open Cup purists hate to see MLS teams trot out such lineups, but it’s pretty defensible in Atlanta’s case. They’re one of just six MLS teams to have played over the weekend, and guys like Tyrone Mears, Leandro Gonzalez Pirez, Michael Parkhurst, and Jeff Larentowicz could probably use a rest. But there are some murmurs that Josef Martinez may see the field, so at least there’s that.

This is actually Colin Clarke’s second time meeting Houston manager Wilmer Cabrera in the Open Cup, the first coming in 2014’s 4th round against Chivas USA. The then-RailHawks prevailed in penalties against a largely first-choice lineup for the Goats. Considering that the Open Cup constitutes only one of two avenues to the CONCACAF Champions League for the next two years, Houston may well field a solid lineup.

However, they’ll at least be missing centerback Aldolfo Machado, fullback DaMarcus Beasley, midfielder Boniek Garcia, and forwards Alberth Elis and Romell Quioto to international duty. And it appears they’ll be bringing seven RGV FC players to Cary. And that 2014 Chivas game? It came smack in the middle of the World Cup break, whereas this Dynamo team has to travel cross-country to play the Galaxy in a critical Western Conference matchup on Saturday night.

So we may see players like Alex, Cubo Torres, and Mauro Manotas… or we may not. But even if this ends up as an audition game from both Atlanta and Houston, we should expect both teams to continue playing roughly the same style.

How to beat Houston

Houston is one of the best and most exciting teams in MLS…when they play at home. Yet for some reason it all falls apart on the road.

I wrote about a week ago about how away teams are historically bad this year in MLS, and Houston is no exception: they’re one of four teams (along with Minnesota, Colorado, and New England) without a road win this year.

So what’s going on, and how can North Carolina take advantage?

Houston, both home and away, isn’t particularly interested in possessing the ball. They’ve only held the possession advantage three times: two 2–0 losses to New England and Philadelphia and the 2–2 home draw to Minnesota. But usually they concede the lion’s share of possession — it’s not too uncommon to see the Dynamo take just 40% of the ball in a multi-goal win.

A lot of it could simply come down to finishing. Near the end of a lost Seattle game, Alberth Elis found a golden opportunity to equalize.

This chance was the result of a bad pass in midfield and a perhaps overconfident Roman Torres playing too high up and getting caught. Dylan Remick intercepts Seattle in his own half, and four seconds later Elis should be bulging Seattle’s net.

This exact ploy is how Houston has sprung so many goals at home against unsuspecting opposition. They’re one of the fastest teams at converting dispossession into goal-scoring chances at home. The precision just doesn’t seem to be there on the road. Take this chance from earlier in that Seattle game:

Alex is looking to spark an attack off a Seattle turnover. However, Cubo Torres is both offside and well-covered by Torres and Chad Marshall, and Andrew Wenger is making a back-post run too early to matter, leaving Manotas to unleash a highly speculative shot on one of the league’s best keepers.

On the other side of the ball, Houston has generally been good at repelling crosses with Machado and Leonardo in central defense. But they lost the Seattle game on a marking mess, when Leonardo was covering a non-existent near post run and Ricardo Clark was left playing the second centerback role. Former Houston forward Will Bruin took advantage to pound home the game’s only goal:

It’s not surprising to see precision things like that go awry for teams on the road. And if Houston indeed can’t field many of their first-choice players, it’ll be up to NCFC to, as they’ve done often this year, execute offensively.

How to beat Atlanta

Much like Houston, Atlanta scores many goals on quick attacks. Unlike Houston, they still keep possession pretty well when they’re not destroying teams on the counter. And while Atlanta won’t be playing in the insane Bobby Dodd atmosphere, they’re still expected to sell out the 8,000-seat Kennesaw State stadium, creating a pretty good environment.

That matters because things, good and bad, tend to cascade in front of 50,000 screaming people. It’s how Atlanta poured in three goals in ten minutes against New York City, but it’s also how DC kept Atlanta frustrated for 80 minutes.

Charleston has to avoid those spurts that kill teams, and that’ll probably mean a spectacular save or two from Charleston goalkeeper. Both Bill Hamid and Luis Robles made ridiculous saves to keep the game within one goal to keep possible the eventual comeback win.

An MLS team taking a lead at home against a lower-league team usually spells doom. Not since the 2015 Cosmos in the 4th round has any lower-league team (home or away) come back from a deficit to advance, and the last lower-league team to come back and win on the road against an MLS team was in 2012 when the Dayton Dutch Lions found two late goals to knock out the Columbus Crew.

Atlanta is a candidate to be that first team since 2012. I wrote on Monday that Atlanta suffers from a lack of situational soccer awareness, having lost two home games in which they scored the first goal. They’re also one of the worst teams in MLS at scoring when trailing.

For example, take a look at the most recent Chicago game. Atlanta was perfectly positive in the first 30 minutes of the game, and would have been up had Hector Villalba remembered where the goal was:

Green and yellow arrows represent completed passes or shots on goal, red arrows shots not on goal

Here we see a perfect representation of Atlanta’s offense. Not necessarily a lot of play around the box, but plenty of incisive, to-the-point passes that tear defenses apart. Once Solignac scored, though, Atlanta just could no longer penetrate Chicago’s defenses, settling mostly for hopeless long shots:

Only one pass into the box in the 2nd 30 minutes.

So all Charleston has to do is get a lead. That sounds difficult but against defenders who don’t play that much and a style of play that allows goals where you can break the backline at the midfield stripe, it might not be impossible.

Outlook for tonight

Games against MLS teams can be daunting, but both North Carolina FC and Charleston Battery have solid Open Cup records against MLS teams. There’s no reason to believe we won’t be seeing our Carolina teams advancing to the Open Cup’s Sweet Sixteen.