Having announced in August that he’ll retire after Atlanta United’s 2024 season, Dax McCarty is staying present and trying to savor every second of the final days of his distinguished 19-year MLS career. It helps greatly that it’s been extended by the most enjoyable circumstances possible: the Five Stripes’ unexpected underdog run in the Audi 2024 MLS Cup Playoffs.
McCarty says matchdays feel stranger, though, when every successive one could be his last.
“It's always a weird one, going into a game not sure how to feel, believing that you're going to win and keep it going, but also realizing that there is a small chance it could be your last game,” the 37-year-old midfielder told MLSsoccer.com after ATLUTD’s Wednesday training session. “This weird dichotomy of elation if you win, and then also a little bit of uncertainty.
“I feel like I'm playing with house money a little bit. So I'm just rolling with it and trying to contribute to the team’s success and do what I've always done.”
Late push
It’s been like this for a month now. Atlanta were stuck on the outside looking in as the regular season wound down, and traveled to Orlando City on Decision Day needing to beat a rival 15 points ahead of them in the table, plus hope that either D.C. United or CF Montréal lost their home finale, in order to sneak into the Eastern Conference playoff bracket.
Understandably, McCarty made sure his closest family members were on hand in his hometown to witness what seemed statistically likely to be his swan song. And when the results unfolded in the direction ATL needed, his wife Jen and their two young sons Callum and Owen kept racking up the air miles, first to Orlando, then to Montréal for the Wild Card game, and now back and forth to South Florida.
And why not?
“My kids are loving it. They're like, ‘Wow, we get to travel down to Orlando!’” he explained. “They got another home game in Atlanta, where they got to go on the field with me for starting XI walkout. My wife has been at every game. My cousin lives in Atlanta, has been to the games. My parents get to come to these games.
“As a professional athlete, it's part of a job that just is the unfortunate side where your family, they kind of live in these really high moments with you and these really low moments with you. So right now, it's a great moment. The kids are loving life. My wife, it's a little anxiety-inducing, but she's my biggest fan and supporter, and she knows how much this means to me. It's a little bit of a roller coaster for everybody.”
Upset-driven
Next stop for the Clan McCarty? Another round trip to Fort Lauderdale.
Having forced Game 3 of their Round One series vs. top-seeded Inter Miami with last weekend’s hugely dramatic 2-1 win at a packed, exultant Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Dax and his teammates could do something nigh-unthinkable just a few days ago with a win at Chase Stadium Saturday night (8 pm ET | MLS Season Pass): End Lionel Messi & Co.’s first MLS playoffs run several weeks ahead of its widely expected schedule.
For all the glitz and star power many still associate with ATLUTD thanks to their run-and-gun arrival in MLS seven years ago, this resourceful underdog run is made of markedly different stuff.
“That's where we're kind of surviving, is just relying on each other and being a group, being a team, being a collective to get the job done. Because nobody expects us to advance,” said McCarty.
“Going back to Miami, we know exactly what the game is going to look like. They will have the ball, they're going to press us high, they're going to do all those things that made them successful in the regular season. But I feel like as a group, we're ready for it, and we're not scared of what's to come. We know it's going to be a massive challenge, but we're excited for the challenge.”
What makes Dax’s last dance that much more powerful is that it’s an unlikely cap to a frustrating season overall. He started just 10 matches in the regular season, logging about half as many minutes as he did last year with Nashville SC – the least he’s played since the dawn of his career back in the Aughts, when he was a Generation adidas youngster at FC Dallas.
New role
While he knew going in he’d be more of a role player, ATL’s wider struggles deepened the sting of it.
“Both personally and from a team perspective, it's been highly disappointing,” he said. “I knew that going into this season I was going to have a little bit of a different role than I've had basically throughout my entire career, other than my first year in the league in 2006. I knew that I was going to probably be a bit-part player and a role player, and a guy that probably came off the bench more than he started, and I accepted that.
“It's one thing to accept that and to play that role and to do that job when the team is absolutely fantastic and the team is flying,” McCarty explained. “When the team struggles a little bit, and you're still not playing as much, that was a really difficult one for me to take mentally. So you just have to continue to support your teammates. You have to continue to try to do the right things day in and day out, and you've got to try to stay ready.”
After bringing McCarty off the bench in the Orlando and Montréal matches – he converted a penalty kick in the shootout that decided the latter – interim head coach Rob Valentino gave him the start against Miami, perhaps impacted by exhaustion elsewhere in the midfield as much as anything, given it was Atlanta’s third game in six days.
He stayed there for Game 2, anchoring a three-man engine room behind Ajani Fortune and Bartosz Slisz intended to bog down the Herons’ high-octane attack and provide cover for playmaker Alexey Miranchuk. With the experience, precision and soccer IQ he’s brought to the side (Saturday will be his 34th career MLS playoff game), it’s not hard to make the case that McCarty’s reemergence has elevated his team’s prospects of an upset for the ages.
“It's difficult when you get old, because it definitely feels like at any moment, you could feel like a mere mortal,” he said. “You could feel like your legs are starting to leave you a little bit. And I've maintained throughout the season that I've felt really good. Knock on wood, I’ve stayed fit, I've stayed healthy.
“I always told myself that I would rather retire a year too early than a year too late. Because it was really difficult for me to accept being on a team for a year and knowing that my legs were shot, or I was the worst player in training and I couldn't contribute on the field to help the team win. That would hurt me, and that would irk me that I continued to play if that happened. So I feel really good about where we are as a team. I feel great personally for being able to contribute to some of these moments.”
Evolving game
There’s an old soccer aphorism to the effect that a young player runs 15 yards and passes the ball five yards, while an old player runs five and passes it 15. McCarty is living something along those lines, reading the game at an elite level that maximizes his physical output.
“I have to be very selective in where I choose to sprint and where I choose to go forward and where I choose to recover,” he noted. “These are things that you have to always constantly be assessing, especially when you get a little bit older. So in this formation and shape that we're playing currently, I think it definitely tends to help me be a little bit more of that connector and that deep-lying metronome, if you will, where I've got two fantastic players on either side of me that are both younger and both have tremendous engines in Ajani Fortune and Bartosz Slisz.
“They allow me to save my legs a little bit for when I need them. Because the reality is, I do feel great physically, and I do feel like I still cover ground, but probably not as much as I did when I was 25. That's the reality with Father Time and getting older … I've got to try to use my experience to block passing lanes and win second balls.”
IMCF pummeled Atlanta in the series opener in Florida, generating 3.4 expected goals with 11 shots on target, the visitors hanging on by the grace of Brad Guzan’s excellent goalkeeping before falling 2-1 on a Jordi Alba thunderbolt. That exhilarating win at MBS has their confidence soaring, not just in emotional terms, but in a tactical sense as well.
“In the second game, we had energy, we had our home crowd behind us; we had life. You could see how much more even the game was and how much actually you can hurt them on the other side of the ball,” said McCarty. “They’re a team that, they want to have possession. They want to constantly kill you with possession of the ball. And if you can actually wrestle that away from them and try to make them chase it for a couple minutes at a time, you're going to be able to have a lot more control of the game.”
Messi matchups
Few in MLS have accumulated more faceoffs with Messi’s Miami than McCarty. Saturday marks his seventh match against them since the GOAT’s arrival last summer, which aids his task, if only to a point.
“That experience is invaluable, because the more you play against this team, the more you can assess their tendencies and what they're trying to accomplish,” said McCarty. “Let's be very clear – it doesn't matter how many times you play against them and what you try to do to stop them. You are only going to be successful doing that so many times, because they're such a good team, they have such good players, and they have so much quality. They are going to hurt you in moments in the game. I mean, that's the reality. That's something that I've had to accept, is that it's not like a normal MLS game, where your tactics defensively can sometimes completely neutralize a good attacking team. It's just not possible with that team, with the players that they have.
“How do you stop Messi? The answer is, well, first of all, you pray he has an off night. But then if he doesn't, it's a collective effort. You have to try to defend him with two or three players and just hope that you're sharp enough in the defensive end to limit their chances. That's really all you can do."
McCarty has run the full gamut of Messi experiences – humbling losses, sweet victories, a couple of draws and even some social-media fame, for getting nutmegged by the Argentine legend and tracking him down for a jersey swap after Nashville’s agonizing shootout loss to IMCF in last year’s Leagues Cup final.
“Considering all the things that I've seen in this league, it's not lost on me that this is a special moment in I think MLS’s young life, also in my career. So I just take every moment as it comes, man,” he said. “You can't play this game for as long as I have and not experience some lows and also experience some highs. So when you beat a team of Miami’s caliber, and you beat a player of Messi’s caliber, that's reassuring, it feels good. It makes you feel like you can still play at a really, really high level.
“Then when he embarrasses you and he gets the best of you, it's just a little bit of acceptance, like hey, he's done this to thousands of different players throughout his time playing this game, right? And so you have to take the good with the bad, and you've just got to try to live and feel and experience every moment you have a chance to step on the field. Because I know that I won't have many moments like this coming up.”
Savor the moment
McCarty's circumstances have come to resemble the plot of a classic sports movie: The grizzled veteran on his final ride, willing his flawed yet plucky team onwards, shaking off the aches and pains in pursuit of one more moment in the sun. Even the thrill of bottom-seeded ATL’s Cinderella run hasn’t given him second thoughts about hanging up his cleats.
“No,” he responded. “I'm certain I've made the right decision. Now if you phrase the question to me, ‘Do you feel like you can still keep playing?’ The answer is unequivocally yes, I really do. I do feel like I can play at a high level still, and I would be able to play at a high level still, even next year. But that's what my brain tells me. My heart tells me that it is the right time to walk away.”
While he’s already waded into the media world with a role on the Major League Journeymen podcast with MLS alums Alan Gordon and Dan Gargan and has had “some great conversations with people” in the broadcast and business facets of the sport as his next chapter draws closer, he’s planted firmly in the here and now, with his boots and game face on.
He knows he has no business expecting this adventure to last beyond the weekend. But that’s why they play the games.
“The most games I can play from here on, going forward, is four games. I hope I have four games left, because that would mean we're making it to MLS Cup,” McCarty said. “But the next game could be my last one, and any one of these games coming up could be my last game. And so you just really live in the moment. You keep your feet on the ground, you try not to let the moment get the best of you.
“Don't worry, I don't have any Tom Brady-type contracts waiting for me on the other side of it, unfortunately,” he wisecracked. “I wish I did. But I'll just take each day as it comes, and I'm going to keep an open mind with regards to what's happening in the future.”
