FC Cincinnati 2-1 Sporting Kansas City: Progress and Precarity

Not entirely apt, I just like it.

The three points look the same in the standings - and, hello, top row - and FC Cincinnati got the expected win over a Sporting Kansas City team that has at least seven reasons to feel desperate. And yet, their 2-1 win took a lot more magic than it should have. And that matters when you think about Cincy playing taller competition.

About the Game, Briefly
Cincy looked like the cat idly swatting around a mouse over the opening 10 minutes, but the mouse started nipping at the paw from there, maybe even broke a little skin. Those little nibbles took the form of half-chances, most of the early ones through Dejan Joveljic (once, it took a hastily-assembled mob to keep him from turning a Tah Anunga giveaway into a sitter), but SKC also fired the first shots on goal and generally looked like the better bet to open the scoring…until a play that came out of the backside of nowhere turned the game on its head. Whether by choice or gamble, the visitors left Lucas Engel free on their right for most of the first half and dared Cincinnati to find a use for him. The cat bit back (a little heavy on the metaphor, sorry) when the ball finally found Engel where he could get a clean look on goal. His power/placement shot forced a save/rebound out of John Pulskamp who pushed it directly to the well-compensated and, in that moment, unmarked Kevin Denkey. He finished what might have been Cincy’s first shot of the half that ended the first half at 1-0 to the hosts. SKC shook off the blow and came out as if playing for their jobs. They knocked Cincinnati back on their heels over the opening 20 minutes of the half and even made Cincy sweat a little with a Daniel Salloi shot from no more than eight yards out and someone (probably Safi Suleymanov) coming within a foot or two (at most) of clipping an own-goal off Anunga’s heel (have to think at least one of those shows up in the full highlights). With Cincinnati bringing 80% of SKC’s energy, Pat Noonan moved to bury the game around the 65th minute by bringing on a recovering Obinna Nwobodo (for Anunga) and setting Sergio Santos loose up top; the fact he pulled (the still-recovering) Matt Miazga for Santos speaks to the mindset. The impact was far from immediate – I suspect half of Cincy’s 14 shots didn’t come until those last 10 free-wheeling minutes before the final whistle – but, for my money, those changes tipped the game and brought a little more vigor and composure to a team/shape that kept bending and chasing to that point. Even then, it took something special from Denkey – we’re talking with a diamond-studded bow and like he read first your diary, then your mind to get it 1,000% perfectly-right – for Cincinnati to score the insurance goal they ultimately needed to take all three points. When Zorhan Bassong finally broke through for SKC, and on a goal that would have shined bright on any other afternoon, they got the goal their performance deserved. Not enough, but a much-needed sliver of hope for their next game.

A Little More on Cincy
FC Cincinnati
7-2-1, 22 pts., 15 gf, 12 ga (+3); home 4-0-1, away 3-2-0
Last Results: WLDWWWWW
Strength/Location of Schedule
v TFC (2-0 W); @ CLT (0-2 L); v ATL (2-2 D); @ NSH (2-1 W); v NE (1-0 W); @ DC (1-0 W); @ CHI (3-2 W); v SKC (2-1 W)

I don’t know why including my little information boxes/updates never occurred to me till now…

The stars looked baffled and/or disconnected and the entire team played a step behind for…I’m going with 2/3 of the game. Fuck it. The results keep coming, no matter how precariously, and that’s good enough to raise Cincinnati to the top of the Eastern Conference and within one point of a Vancouver Whitecaps team that everyone treats as the ice-cream shitting unicorns of the 2025. So…how bad can things be, right? Again, a sturdy defense goes a long way and Miazga, Miles Robinson and (especially?) Nick Hagglund held things together in front of Roman Celentano; and, no matter how close Anunga came to overwhelmed, he (and Pavel Bucha) did a decent impression of omnipresence to keep the score low. SKC doesn’t provide the stiffest opposition, of course, but each game is its own experience and they still put Cincy through it. My personal biggest area of disappointment followed from Bucha’s general invisibility and the broad disconnect between Denkey, Luca Orellano and, hold this thought, Evander. Getting Nwobodo back into the starting rotation will go a long way toward getting a little more bite and room for error into the midfield space – all the respect in the world to Anunga and gods bless him for stepping up, but Nwobodo >, buddy. I’m willing to call this a rare day off for Bucha, but I want to elaborate a bit on the main thing keeping Cincinnati a step or two away from greatness.

Evander eat boat?

While I’m sure it’s getting lost in the larger framing, I have no memory of Denkey getting teed up for a good shot on goal this season – something that raises the value (and his) of being able to make his own, largely spontaneous miracles, as he did last Saturday. Orellano, meanwhile, looks a little better every game, but not enough to where I can stop jotting “Cincy needs to get him going” in my notes. To tighten up the thought, he’s doing good (enough) things on his own, but not enough of them on either the giving or receiving end of an attacking move and, again, remedying that will raise Cincy’s ceiling. That brings the conversation to Evander and his eternally mercurial habit of operating just outside of the frame. In his best moments, he made at least two (and maybe three) audacious attempts to connect with teammates through the traffic jam’s worth of clutter with which SKC surrounded him (also, recall that they know him better than most teams, thanks to his time with the Timbers) – and each of those count as attempts to connect with his teammates. Against that, and Cincy fans will see him do this again and again, Evander will stay on the ball on the ball and try to dribble through a snarling traffic jam as if that’s the point of the game. It is not. That said, the best part of Evander’s game follows from the fact(/argument) that his style of production actually centers on trying and failing a lot in order to find that defining moment of magic. This makes him unique, maddening and incredible all at once and any team that signs him has to balance Evander’s particular band of production against the connectivity he can and does take away from the total “team” frame as a result. It is, as they say, a choice.

A Little More on SKC
Sporting Kansas City
2-7-1, 7 pts., 16 gf, 21 ga (-5); home 1-3-1, away 1-4-0
Last Results: LDLLWLWL
Strength/Location of Schedule
@ DC (1-2 L); v MIN (3-3 D); v LAFC (0-2 L); @ FCD (1-2 L); v STL (2-0 W); v POR (2-4 L); @ SJ (5-3 W); @ CIN (1-2 L)

I blame Matt Doyle, personally and individually.

When a team is as far down as Sporting KC, they have to leave literally everything on the field and, to their very real credit, they did. I’ve watched SKC (far) more than I should have and can confirm that Jansen Miller, in particular, played his best game and Jacob Bartlett wasn’t far behind. There's an outline of a plan somewhere in the mix, but "bring BIG energy" feels like the animal spirit most likely to give it life. Their greatest challenge right now is punching points out of that formula. If they can strike the right balance between raw energy and collective commitment - and I think they did all right at the Big Tickle - I think they have a front three – again, Joveljic, Salloi and Suleymanov (plus one, in Erik Thommy) – to start picking up points against weaker and/or wounded teams, if in favorable settings…then again, looking ahead (on the desiccated corpse of the Form Guide), I don’t many teams after the Galaxy next weekend that meet the requisite criteria of “weaker team than Sporting Kansas City” until the end of June, and the wounded will remain a mystery until it happens. If they can become the team I see in outline – i.e., one where the young kids level up and the front-line can produce – they’ll raise the bar for what it means to be a “weaker team than Sporting Kansas City.” In terms of their chances for pulling that off, I rate their right side, aka, Suleymanov with converted right back Khiry Shelton operating with him. New midfielder, Manu Garcia, also looks like a sturdy piece for the ongoing rebuild, which makes going from dead to mid-table competitive means finding supporting pieces for those players. Those players don’t need to be great to get SKC out of…yikes, second to last in the West (and that link will expire in 3...2...1). Against that, there is not a ton of give below 9th place in the current standings. Their margin for error sucks and their ceiling in the Western Conference ain’t high, at least not so far, so maybe it’s time to relish destroying the dreams of your alleged betters and seeing if you can’t parlay that into higher aspirations.

That’s it for this one. The next game on Cincinnati’s schedule kinda sucks – i.e., New York City FC away (eww), they’re tough at home, stubborn and boring everywhere, etc. I plan on having a Scouting Report on them up by the end of the week, but I burned some time on a doomed concept (see Bluesky....wait, why am I telling you that?), I’m delusional, and on multiple levels, yada, yada, yada. The main thing is that I like FC Cincy’s chances in just about any game they play, even if I can’t always see either plan or design in what they’re doing out there. Till the next one…