Charlotte FC 2--0 FC Cincinnati: On Keeping the Powder Dry and, Oh, Well!

DC has a character called "Everyman." Huh.

While this constitutes extreme (literal) Tuesday Morning Quarterbacking, I do stand by the argument I made for resting players in my Charlotte FC Scouting Report. That’s less to say that Pat Noonan got it wrong than to suggest that giving key starters time to process the CONCACAF Champions League might have been better than immediately throwing them back in the deep end and yelling “SWIM” at them…

…then again, I saw the “Hell Is Real” episode of The On Side and now have no doubt as to which of the above options came naturally to Pat (would not want to golf with him, not as a youngster). With that, let’s talk…

About the Game
Pretty much what one should expect from Charlotte v Cincy in these dark days of the middle 2020s: a game decided by a combination of mistakes, saves, and chances yanked out of ye olde magician’s hat. About 20 minutes passed before the “real” game got started and, for a while, it featured two teams setting up, from wherever their first touch happened, and then sending a more or less successful attack at the opposition’s defense. A good, competent battle between two capable teams, in other words, and that dynamic held until Cincinnati made its first fatal mistake. The game didn’t necessarily end when Pavel Bucha’s ill-advised header gave Liel Abada and Patrick Agyemang(?) a head-start in the foot race toward Roman Celentano’s goal, but Charlotte's first goal did shrink Cincinnati’s odds of getting back into it to a 1:1 ratio with the reputation of Charlotte’s defense – more on that later. With Cincy in Democratic levels of disarray, Charlotte raised the pressure. It took all of three minutes – which, for the record, included time for celebrating the prior goal and the usual amount of milling about – for that to pay off with Charlotte’s second goal of the night and that's where things ended, 2-0 to the home team. Credit to Charlotte – and to Brandt “Every Guy” Bronico for the simple, yet slick assist on the insurance goal – for making all that work against one of MLS’s better defenses (the 2nd half of 2024 excepted), but the likely winner of this game was always going to be the team that scored first. The highlights reminded me that Cincy fired more good shots than I remembered and, on some level, I find that encouraging, even as I continue to have questions about the packaging*. I’ll dig into those details some more below, but I’m still hung up on why Noonan didn’t take 90% of the sting out of any loss out of this game by starting a rotated starting XI. Maybe plausible deniability means more to me than it does to Noonan, maybe he quietly committed to winning the Supporters’ Shield until the possibility evaporates, but the odds of Cincinnati winning this game sucked from the jump, and I thought the mental space of “sure, we lost to Charlotte in March, but we were missing a lot of guys” feels like a good psychological wild card to have later in the season. If nothing else, it beats dragging the regulars through 90 minutes of, again, likely futility. I suspect Cincinnati got their first glimpse of the real tendencies of a new player, but I’ll hold that thought till the talking points.

An Aside about Charlotte FC
The main thing: nothing you’ll see in the highlights, read in the (or most) analyses (presumably), at least outside the sweatiest fan-blogs you’ll ever read (honorary member over here!), gets at how fucking hard it is to play through Charlotte. That starts with the front line – and it has been the same three players all season – but the size of the holes in the sieve tighten with each layer until it reaches a brick wall called Kristijan Kahlina. Over-cooked metaphors notwithstanding, Charlotte really is one hell of a defensive team. Errors aside, Cincinnati’s defense matched them, particularly when it came to containing Wilfried Zaha – take a bow, DeAndre Yedlin – and that shoved some of the creative work over to the (so far) less used right of Charlotte’s attack, Pep Biel and Abada. Biel, in particular, played better than I’ve ever seen (if in limited viewings), but the supporting cast from the starting XI stepped up as one on Saturday and lifted Charlotte to a legitimately big, early win. At this point, it’s safe to say Dean Smith has his system and his best (current) XI to operate it. Charlotte’s currently in the East’s top four and I don’t see anyone prying them out with real work.

 

Charlotte picture at left, a snitching asshole at right.

Bottom line: take the L and move on. The thing I’m most worked up about is the so-close-yet-so-far-away vibe to Cincinnati’s offense. Barring injury or Acts of God (potential is literally endless and not all from God, at this point), I expect Charlotte to battle to the end of 2025. I’ll be stunned if Cincinnati doesn’t have to get through them during the season – in fact, it’ll probably happen more than once with both teams rising and falling by other results – and that makes this a result that Cincy fans should keep in the back of their minds. And now…

Talking Points
1) Introducing…Evander!
This goes back to the time I spent watching him play as a Portland Timber, but this was the “most Evander” performance that I have so far seen from him. I counted four shots from range, all four of them powerful and on goal, but also too close to Kahlina. His free kick off the post around the 70th minute stands out, but you got the “fuck it, I’ll do it myself” essence of Evander in each case. It’s less that he can’t play well with others than he consistently believes that he’ll do what needs doing best.

1a) * Connectivity, Connectivity. Connectivity, Connectivity.
And a knock-on effect follows from that – i.e., starting Evander requires subsuming the benefits of team play to…just letting the man cook. He’ll still get his assists, as he did with the Timbers, but his style of play does come with a side effect of turning his teammates into spectators.

2) I Forgot I Took that Left Turn at Kevin Denkey
I think I saw Denkey drop into the midfield to find the ball more often than I had in recent games and, based on everything I’ve seen so far, I don’t think he has a better option for getting touches on the ball and generally getting involved in the game. I expect his relationship with each of his on-field service providers will evolve and improve with time and reps, but those connections remain a work in progress for now – and to the extent that I’m not 100% sure I’m tracking Denkey’s best attributes as a striker, i.e., does he like to stretch field/run against the back-line, or does he prefer the back-to-goal/post-up style of play? And, closing out the attacking side of Cincy’s game…

3) Kubo and the Two Options
I get that 90% of Cincy fans love Yuya Kubo and he has given them plenty of reasons, up to and including his all-time best in-MLS production in 2024. His time on the field in 2025 has yet to rise to that level, but that just feels like part of the larger puzzle of getting the most out of the new-fangled attack. Because I’m still reorienting to the team, I don’t feel confident in arguing better options exist…I would, however, like to believe they do. Feels like he’s just running around out there sometimes…

4) Loving the Sinner, Hating the Sin
Watching him play over the past two games improved my opinion of Bucha and quite a bit. He made a bone-headed back-pass, no question, but his ability to hold and play the ball through midfield, even under pressure – see his (fun!) duels with Zaha - does wonders for keeping the ball not just at Cincy’s feet, but well under control. Players make mistakes, obviously, but those should be rightly balanced against all the good things they do.

That's it for this one. I'll get a Scouting Report for Atlanta United FC posted later this week. Till then....