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| The scene from Geodis Park. |
About the Game
It played out as a test of wills, honestly, an occasion where either team could have walked away with three points or both could have left with one. The momentum went back and forth throughout – e.g., I thought Nashville held the advantage from the 15th minute to the upper-mid 20s, before Cincy yanked it back over the next 5-10 minutes – and, when the goals came, it didn’t have much to do with which house was ascendant. Cincinnati had the better opening shots (one each for Evander and Luca Orellano) and a nose ahead in the game state, only to see Nashville push them back with counter-raids over the following minutes (I think Hany Mukhtar's near-miss was the first in the full highlights). That threw a wobble into Cincy’s step for a while – for what it’s worth, I don’t think Obinna Nwobodo and Pavel Bucha ever got a firm handle in the middle – but they managed to settle and clamp things down…until Nashville broke the deadlock in the late 30s. Even after Edvard “Eddi” Tagseth got behind Cincy’s (over-committed) left, the set up didn’t look like much. Nick Hagglund (literally) threw himself at the cross (sacrifice the body!), but could only lean it out of danger and accidentally teed up Jack Bauer for a short-range blast from the right side of the area. With the dread prickling up – what would a third winless game mean for Cincy, never mind a defeat? – Evander stepped in to tamp it down as only he can – i.e., getting fouled within the same ZIP Code as the opposition goal and scoring saucily on the ensuing free kick. That sent the teams in the halftime locker room tied and raring to get back to it. Nashville came out the sharper and had multiple, early opportunities to get back on top. The first – and biggest – came when Kevin Denkey did the right thing – i.e., keep tabs on Walker Zimmerman in the area on a set piece – the wrong way – i.e., by wrapping him up not once, but twice. The ref called the penalty, rightly, before Roman Celentano smacked away the penalty kick, righteously. Celentano barely had the time to roll out of that headstand before he had to get back into position for a crazy sequence of saves that included 1) punching out the original cross, 2) kicking away a point-blank shot from the weak side, and 3 (maybe 4)) slapping away one or two follow-ups from still-closer range (maybe all those saves made the official snapshort? nope; MLS doesn't do justice by saves anymore). After that little heroic miracle, the second half settled into the game I expected: long periods of the ball getting tangled among flailing legs and rushing players all over the middle of the field - think Hungry Hungry Hippos where the ball keeps bouncing off the front of the snapping mouths. Here and there throughout that period, Cincinnati exposed themselves with nervous giveaways to Nashville players (more later). They contained most of them (again, more later), just as Nashville contained most of Cincy’s escapes from the midfield scrum. Given that frenzy in the middle, seeing Nwobodo limp off early felt like a potential game-breaker, but the gravity of that battling chaos sucked everything back into itself. To make what could track as a “homer” read, I thought Cincinnati got over Nashville a little over the last 15-20 minutes of the game. Orellano pinged the crossbar off a deflection in the middle of all that, but it was a semi-hopeful ball over the top to (substitute) Corey Baird that handed Cincinnati a golden opportunity to take all three points. After playing a damn near perfect game – it was his man-bunned head that knocked Orellano’s shot to the crossbar – Zimmerman flapped the ball away with his left arm and sent Denkey to the spot. I hate the stutter-step approach, to the extent I believe it should be banned (goalkeepers have enough disadvantages on penalty kicks), but I loved the goal: Denkey beat Joe Willis on the kick and Cincy beat Nashville on the day, the end.
An Aside on Nashville SC
Given it came against not just a rival, but a direct competitor in these early days of the season and at home, this was a tough loss for Nashville. They have some tricky games ahead – e.g., at a pissed-off Charlotte FC next, away to a stubborn Seattle Sounders team two weeks, followed by a wild-card of a game versus Chicago Fire FC – so they’ll want to get right with any gods they need to and right away. Any slips over that stretch could kick them down the standings, but, having watched more Nashville than expected over the early weeks of this season, I wouldn’t bet against them. That one slip aside, Zimmerman has lived up to his billing as a beast in the heart of their backline and he’s got a worthy second in Jack Maher and good fullbacks on either side of them regardless of who starts. The midfield has provided great cover – again, the midfield battle was epic, people – and Tagseth has handed them one of the liveliest two-way players of the young 2025 season. Their front three (as shown here) has every chance of improving with more reps for Ahmed Qasem and Mukhtar looks better for having fresh, new partners for goal creation. The system looks good, basically, and personnel capable of carrying it out. Looking ahead, I’m thinking we’ll have a good read on the state of Nashville’s 2025 Product by the middle of May.
To put all of the above together, this was one of those games where everything turned on who made the big plays when they had to (e.g., Evander and Celentano) and which team survived the mistakes it made. Cincinnati came out of the battle with the spoils in their chariot – and that’s a good thing
Time to wrap it up…
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| Gilberto Flores had a good one! |
1) The Heroic Hero
Hagglund deserves credit for giving the team another 45 minutes during what I assume is his continued return to full fitness – and that’s one form of heroism – but Gilberto Flores gets a loud honorable mention as the defender whose name belongs in lights next to Evander’s and Celentano. Flores covered the space behind Cincy’s defense like he’d put a down-payment on the entire property. He swooped in whenever another defender got beat, won every battle I remember, and still had time to yell at Alex Muyl when he got a little “kicky” at the end of Celentano’s save-fest at the start of the second half. With the injuries Cincy has had, Flores looks like one hell of a pick up…and just 21 years old. Chris Albright, man…
2) Embracing a Role (with Both Hands?)
To paraphrase something one of my coaches once said about me (way back when), Tah Anunga isn’t the best player you’ll see, neither the fastest nor the most talented, but he looks to have a clear and firm understanding of what Pat Noonan needs out of him in any given game. I touched on his essentially defensive role after the win over Toronto, but Anunga was handed a bigger brief yesterday and he got thrown into a game that was moving at top speed over a small, cluttered area. He did well enough to massage a couple knots out of my belly if Nwobodo needs to sit for a game or two.
3) An Unwelcome Little Extra
I noted Cincy’s issues with giveaways in unfortunate places and feel compelled to lay more of fault for that than I’d like at Pavel Bucha’s feet. Most of his dumber touches happened closer to Nashville’s goal, where they did less harm, but he got cute on the ball too many times in a game that didn’t have time for cute. I’m hung up on this because Cincinnati gets so much from Bucha shepherding the ball through midfield and they get so much more when he gets his feet right and plays clean. I think it’s worth Noonan getting in his ear for this, if gently.
4) A Mystery Around the Formation and Lingering Concerns
Apple’s broadcast had Cincy in a 3-4-3 while the official pronouncement shows them in a 5-3-2 and, insofar as it matters, I don’t believe any of it. I do, however, believe where they have Evander in terms of where he really plays on the field and that pairs with the note above about Bucha and what both of these players mean for Cincy’s ball progression. The way Evander drops back to get on the ball gives Cincinnati to solid players for getting the ball out of midfield and into the attack – and that’s a good, of course – but there’s still the question of getting the ball from midfield into Denkey (when he starts again) and Sergio Santos. This is far from an insoluble problem, but I’m a little concerned, maybe even irrationally, about how, say, a 12-goal season for Denkey will track against that big transfer of his. To turn that question around: are Cincy getting everything they can out of Denkey under the current set up?
5) An Update for the Shareholders
Orellano looked better this week than he did last, including menacing 1-v-1 moves from either side of the attack. That’s good progress.
That’s all for this one. A Scouting Report for the New England Revolution will go up later this week…who, based on yesterday’s video review, will have their work cut out.
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