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| Hell adjacent, but also a start. |
First of all, I’m gonna fuck up some names. Second, I don’t
really know this team, FC Cincinnati, either, because this was my first 90
minutes with them. A speed date, if you will. That said, I think I picked up a
reasonable sense as to who does what on FC Cincinnati, or at least this
specific version of their roster. Or against this specific opponent. Again,
this is the first step to me knowing what I’m talking about, and give it a month
or two.
Hold on, backing up: FC Cincinnati beat North Carolina FC 2-0 in the Containment Area for Relocated Yankees, North Carolina (that’s Cary,
NC). They looked reasonable for the win, but North Carolina gave them plenty of
breathing room by taking…just terrible shots, more around than on goal. And
that “around” was very general. As noted in my catch-up post on FC Cincy, they
have a decent knack for creating wide-open chances, and tonight was no
exception. There, I’m thinking their second, more than their first: when Nazmi
Albadawi found Emery Welshman in that much space on Cincy’s right, it isolated
the (surprisingly nimble) forward against (I’m guessing) Carolina’s left-sided
centerback, and Welshman sat him right on his can with a cut inside, fired the
shot, and, boom, FC Cincinnati bags their insurance goal in the 87(-ish)
minute, game very much over, and Cincinnati three points clear on top of the
United Soccer League’s Eastern Conference. (Just five points behind Western
Conference leaders Real Monarch SLC; also this puts Cincy level on points with
Timbers 2, but with a game in hand.)
To step back still further, it’s sort of a trip starting
with this team where I did - i.e., tonight - but I don’t think my personal
experience differs so much from an “O.G.” Cincinnati fan. (Again) This team is
two years old and counting, for fuck’s sake, and, at time of writing, I’m not
sure how new or old any of these twits are to the team. For instance, Emanuel
Ledesma, team points leader, came over from the New York Cosmos just this
season. Russell Cicerone, the player who stood out most tonight, turns out he’s
a rookie, an at least one-time MAC player of the year award, and, no, I’m not
looking that up, because who cares what you did in college, kid, but damn good
game tonight. You made that first goal, but, wow, didn’t Danni Konig literally
wrestle that fucker home? And that was Cincinnati’s first goal. Also, when did
Konig sign? Ah, just May 2017.
My point is, players can’t have deep roots with this team,
because this team does not have deep roots. There is no “street cred” with this
bunch. We’re all fucking newbies at this rodeo.
Now, to the game itself and what it told me about who does
what, I absolutely insist on beginning with the statement that you can’t
possibly know the tip of shit about a team by watching one game. There are too
many variables involved - starting with the quality of the opposition (wait for
it) - to allow any reasonable person to think he (or she) can make any kind of
firm statement about any player, the tactics, or just anything about a team
after just one viewing. With that firmly in mind, dig this…
Danni Konig looks like a sturdy center forward and, based on
today, something of a bruiser. I haven’t seen that many loose elbows since…I’ve
got nothing. (Who has loose elbows?) Still, he looks like a good presence for
holding the ball high.
I was writing something along the lines of “Cicerone looks
like Cincy’s most effective player” when he leaned past two Carolina defenders
and flummoxed Carolina 'keeper Alex Tambaxis enough to force a floater of a save out of him…one Konig
nodded over the goal-line after shielding…just some fucking guy off the ball.
(Defenders are anonymous, people, like the red shirts in Star Trek.) Anyway, I
don’t know if Cicerone is regularly vital to FC Cincinnati, but he played a good,
smart, forward-fucking-thinking game all night long, and all over the field.
Forrest Lasso and Patrick Barrett look like a rugged, if not
solid, central defensive pairing. Barrett’s built like an English-rugby-playing tank, while Lasso is big and, potentially, MLS-ready insofar as you think David
Horst is MLS ready, and I think he is, not least because he’s still playing in
MLS, like, right now. I don’t know if either defender levels up, but they look
very comfortable against USL-level competition, or just North Carolina FC. And
have I mentioned that Carolina came into the weekend well under the USL Eastern
Conference playoff cut-off, and that this loss - at home - puts them weller
under the playoff line? In other words, I see that FC Cincinnati tops the
table, so why wouldn’t they beat lowly North Carolina FC?
That’s another oddity about watching FC Cincy: their MLS
future is a constant point of reference. Per the commenting booth, Cincinnati’s
roster has players sitting on the bench who would start anywhere else - i.e., that they're already stockpiling talent with an eye to the leap. I’ll
admit I thought the same thing when I saw Welshman come on - and he had two moments
that backed up the argument - but seeing Corben Bone and the second-goal scorer, Jimmy
McLaughlin, come on really does beg the question of where USL stops and MLS
begins with this bunch. Cincinnati probably does have the better team, and better depth, but is
what they have MLS-ready? That’s what I’m trying to figure out, but, at time of
writing, no, not yet.
I haven’t watched a lower-division American game in a while
and it really is a different experience - i.e., you see good plays, but you don’t
see them as often; defenders play for naked safety a little more often; and
have I mentioned North Carolina’s finishing, because that looked a lot like the
difference between a career and a couple years of fun before normal life
starts for some of these players. To stick to the overall mission, though, Cincinnati didn’t look like a
different level from North Carolina. They do, however, have better parts than North Carolina does - and,
perhaps not coincidentally, 15 more points in the table - but North Carolina
created chances, plenty of ‘em. They pissed away a couple, but they
put a couple on goal as well, only to have Cincinnati’s, Evan Newton, knock
them down real good (one of the better ones after the 80th minute off Daniel
Rios). Still, for all the talk about Cincinnati having players on the bench who
could expect to start elsewhere (this is per the (quality) commentating crew),
this game was very much up for grabs, at least until Cincy put it away with
their second goal. And that came late.
OK, I’m going to close this with a couple more notes on
players - something I’ll have to do until I have some idea of what’s going on with
FC Cincinnati. The commentating team clearly respected a handful of FC Cincy
players: there, I’m talking Richie Ryan, Blake Newton, and Albadawi. Newton had
a couple moments late, but he didn’t have a lot to do in all the time prior, possibly
because his side of the field/defense was locked down well enough. Ryan,
meanwhile, looks like one of those anchor Number 6 players, the man who
destroys and distributes from the center of the storm. Or, rather, he sounds
like that player because I really was pretty much invisible out there. That’s
often a good thing, but I’ve seen enough players (e.g., Diego Chara) who show
me that it’s better to be seen out there, even in that position.
Albadawi, on the other hand, deserves a paragraph all of his
own. I spent a lot of the game wondering why anyone cares about him - and he didn't do much in the first half. He grew into the game (is this what they mean by "finding the game"?) and, by the end, he set Cincinnati loose on some of its more
dangerous, back-breaking attacks. To get back to the idea of roles, based on
tonight, I think Albadawi and Ryan set the tempo on different parts of the
field; I think Barrett has the biggest role in deciding what comes out of the defense.
OK, I think I’ve covered everything I feel comfortable
talking about somewhere up there. This felt like a good win, on top of a nice
introduction to what FC Cincinnati players can do - all except Emanuel Ledesma,
who didn’t quite suck tonight, but who didn’t go anything so eye-opening
either. All in all, I think I blundered onto the right bandwagon. And I mean
that, even if I think there’s a cliff ahead without some considered adjustments…
…holy crap, this is gonna be fun!
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