FC Cincinnati Weekly, Part I: Flooding a Sinking Ship

Thanks, Mary!

What was better: Evander’s snap strike from the right channel to open the scoring, or the ball he clipped through the closing window between Chicago’s Sam Rogers and Jeff Gal to set up Kevin Denkey’s tap-in?

Answers may vary according to taste, but both moments mattered in a game that turned on little moments of quality. (And the answer is the assist.) To quickly kick around what happened…

FC Cincinnati 2-1 Chicago Fire FC
Cincy had the Fire pinned into their half for the opening 10+ minutes. The weight of the siege didn’t translate to any great chances and Chicago ultimately broke out, first by a couple long balls, then by getting on the ball and playing out. The snap strike flagged above came in the 19th minute, a mere five minutes into the Fire’s revival, which left them chasing the game on top of finding the beat. The rest of the first half reflected those opening 10+ minutes like an elongated mirror: the Fire found more of the chances, with Hugo Cuypers running down a ball over the top and forcing a sprawling save out of Roman Celentano probably giving them their best, and things settled into a spirted, if controlled back and forth until the halftime whistle. Cincinnati put another length between them and the Fire with Denkey’s goal at the 50th minute – again, just an incredible pass by Evander (and didn’t this look a lot like one of the goals versus Orlando? Yep!) – which obliged Chicago to take another deep breath and kick a little harder. Philip Zinckernagel did pull one back at the 58th minute – decent goal, too – and with plenty of time left and the Fire dutifully fired away to the end. A lot of those came from range – maybe talk to Mauricio Pineda about patience – and those forced some further saves from Celentano. Set pieces, corner kicks in particular, caused their share of chaos, the ball touched the ground too many times, etc., but Cincy’s make-shift back three scrambled it away every time and various Fire players nodded the ball over the net every time they didn’t.

It wasn’t a dominant performance from Cincinnati, by any means, but still one I’m confident most fans will bless; with an “Ave Maria” thrown in for getting ahead in the Supporters’ Shield race. And I’m also sure Chicago wonders what might have been had anyone stepped to Evander at the 19th minute, but the final numbers tell a tale of a reasonably-balanced game between two teams separated by eight places and fourteen points in the Eastern Conference standings – which begs the question, what to make of Chicago?

Still dry, still believe.

One broad metaphor starts with a boat with a hole in its hull and a squad of men named Cuypers, Zinckernagel and Gutierrez bailing out the inrushing water, with Andrew Gutman handing down fresh buckets from above deck. They’re doing just enough to keep ahead of the leak (9th place! a play-in game!), but the boat can’t stop talking on water until that hole gets plugged. I’ve seen better games from Gutierrez (not that he was bad) and more involvement from Gutman, but Zinckernagel gives teams a lot to manage between his talents and the way he moves around and I had no real sense of how fast Cuypers is until yesterday (because, damn!). The Fire has some good pieces besides – e.g., the right back Leonardo Barroso looks sturdy and fast and I like Rogers too - but giving up 1.8 goals per game asks a lot, probably too much, of any attack. 

That’s it for the game. I’m going to wrap up today’s work with some strays on FC Cincinnati and the state of their personal project. Later this week (leaning toward Tuesday), I’ll circle back with an update in which I scout Cincy’s next opponent and then kick around thoughts about the rest of the Eastern Conference.

Some Strays on FC Cincy
1) The Bless’d and Holy Rotations
2025 continues to be a year of managing injuries (Obinna Nwobodo, Nick Hagglund) and absences (Miles Robinson) and, fortunately and/or to his great credit, Pat Noonan has been up to it. I doubt anyone would call planting Alvas Powell and Lukas Engel on either side of Matt Miazga and calling it a defense their first choice, but it held well. For all his shortcomings (e.g., a bottomless faith in his ability to carry out of trouble), Powell remains an absolute junkyard dog in 1-v-1 battles and the recovery speed is there, while Engel’s just a smart fucking defender. The defense performs better with the regulars, sure, but all personnel have been drilled to cover the incoming passes and crosses, they reliably have at least one guy at where he needs to be (Miazga excels at this), etc.

2) The Thumb in the Dam
What with me and the “leak” metaphors today? At any rate, Tah Anunga has officially played more minutes in 2025 than Nwobodo and, again, Cincy has managed. A lot of that follows from, maybe even requires, respecting what Anunga can and can’t do on the field – and yesterday provided a great example. If you need someone to run interference for the back line, or run down an attacking midfielder lingering too long on the ball, Anunga’s your guy, e.g., his half dozen timely muggings in yesterday’s match. Give him time on the ball and options for moving Cincy into the attack? Holy telegraphed passes, Batman. Per the title of this section, Anunga is a stop-gap and the folks in the village downstream should be thankful he’s there, of course, but they’re still gonna want to fix that dam.

1a/2a) Repairs and Timing
The question in all of the above is how long Cincinnati can keep the vehicle running on duct-tape and replacement parts. What happens come playoff time or, gods forbid, in the final sprint to the Shield if Nwobodo’s not available? Or, to look at that from another angle…

3) The Freshmakers!
As has been established by his time in MLS, Evander can yank all kinds of magic out of his backside, assists, goals, maybe even a mid-sized hybrid SUV with real smart leather on the seats. Between that baseline and (as I see it) Denkey getting better with each passing week, Cincinnati has at least two paths to surviving slips at the back, plus all the various permutations one gets when you mash those two together. How much does that subclause matter, ultimately?

4) Quick One re Kamara
So…has Kei Kamara ever played for a trophy-winning side – I mean one of the big ones, e.g., Cup or Shield? Before discovering the “Honours” section at the bottom of his Wikipedia page, I ran the teams he played with and when against the winners of both the Cup and the Shield and have landed on…no?

Right. That’s it for the first installation. Till later this week!