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| Most things improve with practice... |
The entire experience of watching FC Cincinnati take down
the Tampa Bay Rowdies at Nippert Stadium would have felt less like sitting
through my kid’s Christmas concert had I watched it last night instead of just
an hour or two after watching the World Cup final, but I digress…
After a first half filled with the soccer equivalent of kids’
attention drifting, forgotten words and flat notes, FC Cincy took charge in the
second half, and almost immediately. Cincinnati’s Corben Bone made a great case
for game MVP (wait for it), throughout the second, but he started early with a
pin-point cross to Emanuel Ledesma’s mysteriously elusive run. He nodded home that goal in the middle
of 10+ minutes of steady pressure and increasing chaos in the Rowdies' defense.
While it didn’t spin totally out of control, Tampa’s defense never recovered.
In more ways than one, the Tampa Bay Rowdies played the kid who just stands
there for the length of the concert, silently picking his nose while he stares
at his parents. That’s with respect to Junior Flemmings, who did his damnedest
to make the hosts earn it.
FC Cincinnati wouldn’t get its insurance goal until very,
very near the end - that came in the 84th minute, when Emery Welshman dished a
smooth pass to Danni Konig one thin minute after Welshman stepped onto the
field - but Bone should have bought the policy 30 minutes earlier when he made himself
a sitter that he bounced off the crossbar. And, as always, anyone who’s interested
can see all the above in the highlights (or see it again), as well as picking
through the United Soccer League’s random-access dog-pile of statistics at the Match Center for this game. Still, the story for this game was pretty simple:
Cincinnati won it 2-0, and the only real question in play was whether or not
they would score. Tampa battled hard, but also clumsily - by which I mean I’m
calling bullshit on their (alleged) 66.2% passing accuracy, or questioning the
methodology at the very least.
After that, there’s not much to say about this game, beyond
cautioning anyone with even the slightest interest of doing so against watching
that first half. After writing “10 minutes of dead air” around the 13th minute,
I decided against writing “see above” at 10 minute intervals; the chuckleheads in
the broadcast booth backed that up around the 35th minute when they noted that
neither team had managed as many as five consecutive passes. FC Cincy got
rolling, thank god, while Tampa Bay…well, see the kid picking his nose above,
then add periodically smacking the heads of the children around him.
It’s worth underlining the perception that Cincinnati played
only marginally better during that first half. Their first even loosely competent
attack came around the 30th, and it took them just over 40 minutes to pull
together something actually coherent - and, significantly, that was Bone to
Konig. Also, my notes on that moment read, “Bone looks like the best player on
the field.”
Bone arguably dominated the second half - and for more than
the shot/assist combo noted above. His quick stab at the ball poked it out of
Cincinnati’s defensive third and past Tampa Bay’s press (which, too often
amounted to Stefano Bonomo doing a one-man headless-chicken routine) on the
counter that (finally) gave Cincy its second goal. Beyond that, he came inside from
his right flank position more often in the second half - as if, at the half,
head coach Alan Koch, told him “to do whatever, yolo” - and that did (or might
have done) two things: 1) cause Tampa Bay’s defenders to lose track of him, and
2) create a super-fucking highway for Cincy’s left back, Blake Smith, to run up
and down. What I can say is that, time and again, Smith would get the ball deep
in the Rowdies* half, then Bone would drift wide again to support the ball, but
not too wide. That left Bone free to choose between running inside or teeing up
a cross in, really, far too much space for a player who’d been that effective,
that often. With the way Tampa Bay played, it only took one time too.
(* This is why teams have mascots: so I can alternate
between calling them “Tampa Bay” and “the Rowdies.” Just…don’t forget us
scribblers out here, professional franchises.)
Those with good memories and/or attention to detail will recall
that I left a parenthetical “wait for it” hanging higher up in this post. I did
that in order to give FC Cincinnati’s defense its due at the right moment. In
some ways, the defensive crew of Smith, Forrest Lasso, Dekel Keinan and Justin
Hoyte - and with Michael Lahoud running a bristling shield in front of them - deserved
a shout in the MVP running before Bone. After all, they are the foundation that
buys Koch time to tinker and Bone time to adjust. This defense has given up
eight goals over the last 10 games - which doesn’t sound so great until you
realize it gave up no goals at all in 6 of those last 10 games. Even then, they
gave up five of those in just two games - a 3-3 away draw to TFC II and a 2-2
draw against Bethlehem Steel - and I can fart around with numbers all day, but
the actual point is, Cincy’s defense has been good - lately, in particular.
Whoops, I did want to add one quick note on Blake Smith: he’s
a safe, sound left-sided fullback, and that’s something any professional team
could use. Again, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him make the jump to MLS. Then
again, his crosses yesterday jumped over into the wilds of “atrocious.” I’ll
wonder for as long as I watch them this season, which players will get that
single red rose that will keep them from getting booted off the island (shit….I’m
mixing up my reality TV shows, right?), so, I’ll say this and leave it here: I’m
not sure that that number is growing, but I think the bulk of them might be
defenders. And that’s not a remotely bad idea.
That’s all I’ve got on this game - something which, I’ll
confess, comes at least in part from needing to get elsewhere, like, right now, five minutes ago.
Then again, I had more to say on this game than I thought I would…
Till Wednesday and Charlotte Independence!
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