FC Cincinnati 2-4 Columbus Crew: Sizing Pat Noonan for a Hairshirt

Wait'll I get this off, you little shit...

After the Columbus Crew scored their fourth goal, the camera panned to a young woman in the stands who alternated between glaring at the field in disbelief and shooting “what the fuck just happened” glances toward her father. Cincinnati’s staff should have escorted that young woman into the locker room (after all the players were dressed and decent, of course) to have her level that same withering glare at every player who suited up for FC Cincinnati on Saturday. Or maybe send in a six-year-old boy still in tears from watching his idols lose. Time for the autopsy…

FC Cincinnati 2-4 Columbus Crew
About the Game
Before getting my hands into the viscera (don’t worry; I don’t do snuff images), I want to preface the general comments with one quick note: the highlights looked worse and more hopeless than the full 90. The final stats weren't so bad, and Columbus held a slim 3-2 lead from the 60th minute and into second half stoppage and Cincy got…kinda sorta back into it with two…vaguely promising stretches of play in the late 70s and the late 80s. It wouldn’t have erased the 60 lost minutes that saw FC Cincinnati’s original two-goal lead evaporate, but a face-saving draw would have been nice, or at least nicer…

As anyone who turned off the world and turned on this game knows, FC Cincy took a two-goal lead before the Columbus Crew got their pants on (Pavel Bucha's opener; Cincy's second fit better down below). Sadly, once they got them on (about 15 minutes in) they commenced to thrashing the home team with their belts. All without their pants falling down…

Mistakes by Cincy’s defense added the final bricks to Columbus’ comeback – first, the deflection off Tah Anunga’s arm (right?), then the own goal/general clustercuss set off by Miles Robinson’s late defensive lunge – but Columbus laid the foundation with two things: by blowing through Cincy’s midfield going forward and smothering Cincy's outlets/transition. This hardly accounts for everything that happened coming at and going out Cincy’s defensive third, but I spotted two things that details that accounted for some of it:

1) when one of their outside center backs got on the ball at the back, Columbus often had two players drop toward them to provide options; if/when Cincy’s defensive mids didn’t track both runs (happened a lot), the center back had at least one reliable outlet to play to – and they often had two; and, going the other way

2) Cincy often plays out by feeding the ball to either Pavel Bucha or Anunga, then having them play it to either Luca Orellano(*) or DeAndre Yedlin, or the ball will go directly to Orellano or Yedlin from Roman Celentano or an outside back; Columbus collapsed two, sometimes three players on Cincy’s wide players and used the sideline as third or fourth defender, a tactic that allowed them to nip a lot of Cincy’s attacks in the bud over the aforementioned lost 60 minutes.

Disjointed as that summary is, it touches on the major points. Having more reliable outlets allowed Columbus to go at Cincinnati's defense again and again, thereby wearing them down, and it took Cincy/Pat Noonan too long to find new ways(**) to get the goal to Columbus’ goal. After that, the amount of traffic that went up Cincy’s left/Columbus’ right – * and Ibrahim Aliyu proved wildly greater than Orellano by game’s end – and a…generally reliable defense(***) getting battered at home were the only other remarkable things about Saturday’s distressing result writ large. With that, it’s time to move on to…

Let it focus your mind, Pat, sharpen your rage.

Some Strays re FC Cincy
1) Don the Hairshirt, Pat
I hope Pat Noonan digested this result in a profoundly personal way because, as I see it (and per perpetual in-house MLS hype) Wilfried Nancy coached circles around him. In the best of all possible worlds, Noonan takes the pain from this and channels it into a masterplan so diabolical and ruthlessly successful that it breaks Nancy for a month or two after their next round of chess.

2) Engaged Evander
From his elated celebration after his (thoroughly wonderful and impressive) goal through losing his goddamn at the refs over the first 30+ minutes of the second half (and with decent reason) to ** the way he was coming back to right side of defense to help Cincy build out of the back, Evander looks as engaged and committed as any time I’ve seen him between the two teams I follow. If that’s a function of playing for a team with a decent shot at a trophy, fine by me. It’s easier to chase the mechanical rabbit when you can actually see it, amirite?

2a) A Downside
Taking Evander out of the game – which Columbus did by a rotating cast of fouling bastards (think Daniel Gazdag was the only player ultimately carded) – remains a reliable tactic for throwing off any team he’s on.

3) *** Ain’t What It Used to Be
I had to confirm this, but Cincinnati’s defense is a shade better than the Eastern Conference average (31.7) and the MLS-wide average (31.3) in terms of goals allowed at 31. Average as can be, in other words. More to the point, the defense has allowed three goals or more four times this season (~20% of the time) and have allowed two goals five times more. Defense still carries them through their fair share of games, but the ol gray mare, etc. I realize some of that has followed from all the absences through injury, international duty and suspensions, but…

4) A Yes, But re Injuries
The fact Tah Anunga has played 289 minutes more than Obinna Nwobodo matters, sure; the same goes for the fact Robinson has missed six starts, Matt Miazga has missed nine, and Nick Hagglund twelve; Gilberto Flores filled in better than admirably for one of the two above over the first half of the season, as has Teenage Hadebe, as has Alvas Powell when the improv got real deep: and, yes, that goes some way to explaining Cincy’s average defense (and its average defense in the second half of 2024). That said, I’d find the argument for chalking Saturday’s meltdown up to injuries more compelling if it wasn’t for all the time/reps has had with the same problem for so much of 2025. Anunga has covered for Nwobodo for as long as I can remember and, as I see it, Noonan has figured out how to get the most out of him and Noonan had both Miazga and Robinson available besides. And, by and large, Cincy has adjusted…until they met a real contender in Columbus. And that’s the real cause for concern.

5) The Present Missing Piece
Orellano was just bad on Saturday. Forcing a dribble here, just kind of floating around there, two-thirds locked in, at most, for most of the game. His overall numbers aren’t so bad (one goal, five assists), but I have yet to see Orellano play first, or even second banana, in Cincy’s attack in any game so far this season. Noonan has moved him around, of course, playing him on the right for five-six weeks before flopping him to the left in recent weeks, but Orellano has had plenty of time to get going – he’s seventh for total minutes with 1399 – and he just hasn't. Feels like he could change Cincy's future if/when he does.

An Aside on Columbus
I genuinely buy into the argument that Nancy has them playing in a way that makes them a little better than the sum of their generally talented parts. Said better parts include players like Darlington Nagbe (literally amazing at what he does), Diego Rossi and Max Arfsten, but plugging better-than-average players like Steven Moreira, Dylan Chambost and, legit contender for MLS’s best utility man, Sean Zawadski into that system makes Columbus a team that can ass-whup your local team on its best day. The fact it’s good on 75% of all the other days carries them the rest of the way to contender status. The comfort of having every player on the roster know what to do on the field goes a long goddamn way, people.

Saturday’s loss sucked, no question, but it didn’t shake my faith in FC Cincinnati against most teams in the Eastern Conference and MLS as a whole. Barring a collapse in confidence, they’ll win more than they lose; the only question is how close that gets them to Cup or Shield.

All done. Swear to the gods, I’ll make these posts shorter some sunny day. As a programming note, I doubt I’ll have time to write up whatever happens at Inter Miami CF tomorrow night – damn shame too, because very big game and all of that – but I’ll do my best to roll notes from that into what I post about whatever happens at Real Salt Lake. Till then…