Atlanta Soccer News: Art, Music and Culture: The Atlanta Beat are "the best soccer-playing side" in Women's Professional Soccer

The Atlanta Beat are "the best soccer-playing side" in Women's Professional Soccer, according to coach James Galanis.

The team's 1-10-4 record and minus-20 goal differential might indicate otherwise, but Galanis believes that all of the signs are there.

"It's not my imagination or the other players' imagination or the soccer purists out there, but we are getting a reputation of being the best soccer-playing side in the league as far as the way we are moving the ball around and playing the intelligent soccer that we're playing," he said. "We're just going to continue to improve on that. We want to come out of the season being the best soccer-playing side in the entire league."

In tonight's game at first-place Philadelphia, the Beat will have an opportunity to put that on full display.

Along with Atlanta's other two remaining games - a home-and-home series with Western New York, starting next week in Kennesaw - Galanis is focused more on player development than wins and losses.

"We want to develop players this year," he said. "We have. We have unearthed 10 players that never would have got a chance in this league. We develop these players this year and then pick up the big pieces that we need (next year)."

As much as tonight's game can serve as a development tool, it may also be a necessity for building confidence. The Beat have failed to score over their last five games, the longest such scoreless streak in league history. For the season, the Beat have netted just seven goals.

"We struggled in the attacking third," Galanis said of last week's scoreless draw with magicJack. "We want to score for our girls. We know about it. We're all aware of it, but we're not getting down about that. The way we moved the ball around and possessed the ball, we kept a lot of (magicJack's) big-time players quiet."

With regards to scoring goals, the players suggested that it might simply be about getting the first one in order to restore the team's confidence.

"It's very frustrating not being able to score, but you have to keep trying," midfielder Bianca D'Agostino said. "I think, for some people, it's just the first one. After you go four or five games without scoring, you kind of get back into a rhythm. And I don't know if we've gotten there yet, and unfortunately we're at the end of the season, but it needs to happen."

Getting the team's first goal since June 11 may be more difficult without the services of midfielder Carli Lloyd. Lloyd, who has scored two of the team's goals this season, will miss tonight's game due to a suspension for yellow card accumulation after earning her fourth yellow card of the season last week.

While the Beat will be without one of their veteran leaders, it seems that they will be more likely to play without their veteran players in the coming weeks anyway.

"Finishing up the next three games, I'm going to give players a go that haven't played a lot," Galanis said. "I'm going to play them a bit out of position to see what they can do. I'm going to play the young players because I want them to get experience. I'm probably going to start sitting veteran players and give all of the youngsters a go."

Read more: Cherokee Tribune - Record doesn t stem Galanis enthusiasm