FC Cincinnati 2-1 Austin FC: It's All Coming Up Evander

Mistakes can be made, that's all.

Today has been unexpectedly Cincinnati heavy. Before wrapping up FC Cincinnati’s broadly satisfying 2-1 win over a visiting Austin FC, I caught the tail end of an episode of the Partridge Family titled, “I Left My Heart in Cincinnati” that was positively drunk with old footage from Kings Island. Seeing the Blue Racer running against the Red one and The Banana Splits took my back to a world both of and before my time and it did me good (awww) and bad (so, so old).

About the Game
Cincy somewhere between a couple and a few chances to run riot over Austin over the opening 20 minutes. They took an early lead at the 12th minute when Yuya Kubo ran against a retreating Austin back-line that seemed open to giving him whatever option he wanted. After some briefly bobbled connections, the ball found Lukas Engel still farther to Austin’s right, who slipped a one-time pass into Evander loitering around the left side of the 18. I went with the verb “loiter” to capture the easy freedom of Evander’s positioning, but the opening goal showed the danger of leaving him there without an army of angry chaperones. And that puts Chehkov’s gun on the table for future reference.

Luca Orellano had come close two minutes before the opener and Kevin Denkey spurned a good opening with a shot straight at Austin’s Brad Stuver a mere three minutes on the other side of it. Consult the full highlights for some more highlight-reel adjacent moments – e.g., Denkey and Evander danced as well as they have all season Saturday afternoon – including what would have been an easy candidate for Goal of the Week (have that at around the 20th minute) had Evander clipped the curl on his one-time shot from 35+ yards out a degree or two shorter. Despite a bevy of invitations, Cincy’s second goal wouldn’t materialize for some time.

Austin pushed back, of course, and threatened to pull back a goal as early as the 17th minute on a cross that Brandon Vazquez should have put somewhere between on goal and away (which doesn't appear in the highlights due to the enshittification of MLS's video product), but, per the official stats they didn’t create a ton of chances and fired just two of them on Stuver’s goal. I don’t know how all that useless energy translated for Austin fans, but I’m guessing it felt like Purgatory for Cincinnati fans, or worse, the last episode of Lost. If you found this post, I don’t need to explain the perils of 1-0 lead to you, but seeing Cincy come within a desperate lunge or two of coughing up a stupid equalizer for the simple, stupid reason of failing to decisively clear a long ball provided a sobering reminder of said perils. It takes just one mistake, right? Say, an arm left thoughtlessly hanging when covering a cross from Cincy’s left?

A good way to lose a game.

Austin equalized on a Vazquez penalty awarded for a Teenage Hadebe handball on the edge of the penalty area, but referee Tori Penso had no cause to hesitate and that’s how two points can slip away…unless, that is, Austin does your local team the solid of leaving (freakin’) Evander alone right around the same neighborhood from where he scored the opener. With Austin’s defenders geeked up about being one of the next one or two defenders he depantsed on the dribble, they laid off him – again – thereby allowing him to tee up an assist on Gerardo “Kid’s Done Good” Valenzuela’s game winner with an inch-perfect cross (the ball must have tickled the tips of Biro’s follicles), outside of the boot cross to the back post. Utterly lethal stuff, but also at least one difference between the two teams contesting the points. No disrespect to Owen Wolff – who rose a little in my estimation after this one – but he’s not Evander. Talent matters and smarter investment finds better talent. With Cincy’s trip through Purgatory duly acknowledged and entered into the record, this game was stacked against Austin from the opening whistle and the chips fell where they should.

An Aside on Austin
They played a better attacking game than I expected – with Jon Gallagher’s solid afternoon up the right supporting both Wolff’s and Vazquez’s better moments – and that’s final official stats rightly reveal an imbalance instead of a bloodbath. That doesn’t change the fundamentals for an Austin side that, to this point, can only grasp at chances and hope they make the most of every shot. I doubt even Vazquez would call that his best work, but he found his openings and that’s the beginning of a relationship, even if it falls short of beautiful. The relative absence of Myrto Uzuni strikes me as the bigger concern, but my main hang up will stick to Austin’s lack of a clear path to feeding the forwards for which they paid so heavily. On the plus side, they seem poised to remain a pain in the ass defensively – to flag one bonus, Besard Sabovic did a swell job of dropping back to cover what would have been lethal passes into the heart of Zone 14 – but they’re also slipping down the table and the goals against have piled up in a way that can only be described as unsustainable since mid-April (i.e., 12 goals allowed in five game, or 2.4 goals/game). They’re presently 8th in the West and their chances of staying there, never mind rising, turn almost entirely on them finding goals at a faster clip than two-thirds of a goal/game.

Some Strays on Cincy
Because this was kind of a weird match up and Cincy getting one point seemed inevitable after they scored first, I don’t want to go too deep on analysis that won’t translate against teams that (no offense to Austin) they’re actually competing against. Still, here are some positives and concerns, and in reverse order.

1) Matt Miazga, the Poor Bastard
I feel for the man, especially as a professional athlete tickling the tail-end of his prime years, but that’s more about (sincere) empathy than concern for the broader FC Cincinnati project of winning silverware. Pat Noonan has at least two capable replacements – including one I’m pretty damn hyped on in Gilberto Flores – so my only note here is to wish Miazga a speedy and, this time, thorough recovery. I’m counting the days until Obinna Nwobodo comes back, but that’s a separate conversation. Related…

2) Kubo/Bucha v Anunga/Bucha
I’m not sure I have a preference between those choices, but I don’t think Austin provided the experimental parameters to properly test it. Cincy benefitted from having Kubo around to exploit the moment when Austin’s first line(s) of defense cracked ahead of Cincy’s first goal – and, just to note it, Nico Estevez pulling them out of that aggressive posture probably saved his team from disaster – but I suspect that Kubo would face stiffer headwinds going forward and that Tah Anunga would have more to do in games that aren’t against Austin FC.

3) The Most Encouraging Thing
I think Orellano’s still finding his legs in the post-Lucho-Acosta era, but I was delighted to see Evander and Denkey – and, later, Evander and Valenzuela running off one another and genuinely (finally?) echolocating off one another in a game. The whole “but Austin FC” still pertains, but Cincy could very well rise to the lofty heights of lethal if Denkey and Evander get rolling.

That’s it for this post and I’ll have another one coming…gods, either Wednesday or Thursday. Gonna have to pick them or the Timbers, what with the midweek thing kicking off. Till then…