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| What Pavel Bucha was up against... |
Why don’t you love your home, FC Cincinnati? So much love in the stadium, so little love on the field.
On the plus side, it hurt more coming than it did going – i.e., not all’s lost, even as the Supporters’ Shield looks further away than it did Saturday morning – because, with one nerve-racking exception, a couple results broke Cincy’s way this weekend and, in another lane, one spoiled team’s morale took a vicious shot to the pills. With next weekend off (it’s another damn international break, isn’t it?) and a little time to kill today, I decided to take a broader look at the Eastern Conference as the regular season rounds into the stretch. Sadly, the chances at a photo finish atop the conference dropped a bit, due to…
FC Cincinnati 0-1 Philadelphia Union
About the Game, Briefly and Broadly
In a game that moved 15% faster than every other one played this last weekend (made that up, but stick with me), Cincinnati spent too much of it struggling to keep up. The Union ran them over in midfield – Pavel Bucha, in particular, got mobbed like the freakin’ Beatles circa ’64 every time he so much as glanced the ball – and that kept the weight of the game leaning against Cincy’s back four-to-six. Anyone who checked just the score and final stats would walk away with a different impression – for all I know, a majority of Cincinnati fans might agree with them – but, for me, it was the visitors who signed their name on this statement game. If they scored the beautiful game by who won the most 50/50s, Philly took this one walking away.
To their very real credit, Cincinnati’s back four-to-six held firm through it all. They didn’t give up many easy chances – Tai Baribo’s step ahead of Nick Hagglund around the 30th minute might have been the easiest look for either team all night (check the highlights, nominate your candidate) – and thereby held up their end of the game. In a haunting call-back to recent home games past (more below), the Union’s midfield largely limited the Orange and Blue’s attack to hopeful little raids, most of those running into a thicket and harried on all sides. Evander smuggled through most of their chances – at times, with a whiff of tunnel-vision and an arguable failure to contemplate delegating – but both he and Kevin Denkey forced at least one hard save out of Philly’s ‘keeper, Andrew Rick. Dreaming now of what a little more calm and control behind them might have done for the effort…
The game required a moment, and the soccer gods provided, if with a dramatic twist. Matt Miazga is a master shit-stirrer, of course, but Bruno Damiani also looks like a player who knows his way around baiting and cheap shots. They jawed at each other and engaged in slap-fights on every set piece and in a way that felt like the game in miniature, no quarter given, up to everything the ref wouldn’t call. That only made it more fitting that, when the decisive moment finally came, it was Damiani that slipped past Miazga’s left shoulder and contorted his neck to nod home the winner on a cross by Philly’s new kid, Milan Iloski.
In a gentler world, Olwethu Makhanya’s 60th minute sending off (second yellow, totally reasonable) would have handed Cincinnati a 30- minute crack at salvation; back in this hardass timeline, they missed their best shot at a salvage operation when Brenner curled their cleanest look of the game around the wrong side of the far post at the 76th minute. Once that drifted wide and Miazga’s late looping header landing gently in Rick’s hands, FC Cincinnati had an experience one doesn’t often see in MLS: a regular season loss that matters. Even that has a back story…
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| Put out an APB, stat! |
1) A Damning Combination of Who and Where
While I doubt I need to remind even one fan that they have lost their past three home games, recalling who they lost to and how has started to take the shape of a police sketch of the perp behind all these damned robberies. While Cincy has compiled a respectable 5-4-1 record over their past 10 games – mind you, that stretch includes a road win over Orlando and a wholesome. home-cooked kicking of Messiami – all three of those home losses 1) came against the East’s better defensive teams (e.g., v CLT, v NYC, v PHI) and 2) left Cincy’s even-then-expensive attack sputtering. The front office clocked the same problem and, to their credit, set out to fix it. Brenner almost rescued a point on Saturday – see above and nothing to sniff at, obviously – but Cincy invested heavily in the attack, so seeing it fall silent at the exact point when it should be singing? Not great, Bob, and they’re very much on the clock for getting it in tune.
2) Can They Risk Any Risk?
Miazga was by no means solely responsible for Alonso Martinez’s goal last weekend, but I can’t think of anywhere else to point on Damiani’s and I’ve been worried about his lack of speed all season - to where I was already fretting about options after last weekend. I doubt Cincy can risk sitting him until Miles Robinson comes back (couldn’t find word on that with a quick search) and, even across those three home losses, the fault lies more with offense than defense, but…yeah, part of me hopes Pat Noonan, et al, are at least open to trying something different – even if that something different involves trying to push a CB higher up the field, maybe give Bucha a little more freedom to help in the attack…but that just begs the question of how much Cincinnati can gamble in that direction.
3) Is It All as Simple as Losing the Intensity Battle?
Not for the first time this season – and this very much includes how close they came to letting two points slip against the Portland Timbers – Cincy hasn’t looked entirely up for the fight. Just asking questions, and not in an Internet Asshole way.
4) Dominik Marczuk
He looked fine under the circumstances – i.e., the balance of the game played through his left and in the wrong direction, so I don’t think Cincy fans got a great look at what he can do yet.
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| Low fat, high HGH. |
As I saw it, the Union pressed Cincy with a 4-2-4 shape, with the two jamming Bucha in the central space, the front four putting pressure on the back line and the outside backs and the defensive four stepping up to stuff everything Cincy tried to move up the wings. Maybe that’s just a learned-helplessness read on the dynamic, but every Philly player looked like he prepped for the game with several bowls of Wheaties sprinkled with HGH. The high aggressive work-rate from players like Danley Jean Jacques and Jovan Lukic, and even a high-stepping Jakob Glesnes, put key players like Iloski, Kai Wagner and, arguable Man of the Match, Quinn Sullivan in good places to cook, even with Cincy’s defenders biting into their time and space. Bradley Carnell has the whole team playing with a berserker’s intensity at just the right time – and they look like a fair bet to keep it up, at least long enough to get the Shield. Whether they can carry the same through the playoffs feels like a different story.
To put a bow on all of the above, the Cincinnati 2025 Project is by no means doomed and I appreciate the upgrades, I really do…all while thinking Obinna Nwobodo can’t possibly come back soon enough. Cincy’s still 2nd in the East, on even terms for games played with most of the immediate rivals and a two-point edge, but they also dodged one wildly misfired bullet this weekend and they still have one of the hottest, if not the hottest team in MLS breathing down their necks.
Quick Whip Around the Eastern Conference
To start with the wildly misfired bullet, I didn’t put any time into Nashville SC’s stunning 0-1 home loss versus Atlanta United FC beyond the highlights and the stats, but most signs – up to and including the 5-1 mauling they dropped on Orlando City SC just one week prior – point to a fluke. Nashville threw everything from a Sam Surridge “goal” called back for a handball, to another by him off the post, to a few quality, desperate shots by Hany Mukhtar at erasing to Ronald Hernandez’s game winner, but…nope. Here’s to hoping some lucky fucker dropped a bet on Atlanta beating Nashville at home - I’m guessing that paid out handsomely – but that’s still Cincy one fluke away from third place.
Of greater concern, and therefore study, was (now) red-hot Charlotte FC’s 2-1 road win at the New England Revolution. In isolation, the result doesn’t deserve a ton of glory – e.g., the Revs aren’t much better than Atlanta – but this makes eight straight wins for Charlotte – a stretch that includes the six-pointer v Cincy noted above. Charlotte had to survive a barrage of shots to stand it up (including one from Carles Gil that got a full stretch out of Kristijan Kahlina) as well as an injury to Djibril Diani (Eryk Williamson came on, did well enough). Still, the game played like a prelude to a burial early, with New England barely touching the ball and Charlotte setting up a siege in their end, and even after the Revs equalized (on a lowish percentage goal by Ignatius Ganago), the rush for the winner pitted the Revs playing frenetically in the general direction of Charlotte’s goal against the visitors nibbling at the Revs soft spots (mostly) through Wilfried Zaha. It took nearly all the time they had, but Idan Toklomati ultimately bagged the winner and blessed it with a twerk (that’s good goal-celebrating, people!). Eight-game winning streaks don’t happen much and seeing Charlotte allow a pittance of goals over that stretch (just four) makes it look all the more ominous.
Not much else happened in the East last weekend – Red Bull New York knotted the Columbus Crew in a goal-less game that I ignored and I doubt even Toronto and Montreal fans gave half a shit about the points those teams split in a 1-1 draw – but another shocking result set me to poking around parts of the Eastern Conference table I’d committed to ignoring just one week ago. I don’t think I was alone in putting a pin in New York City FC’s recent form (now 6-3-1) and games in hand (27 gp, to 29 for the leaders), so seeing a freshly eliminated DC United kick them 2-1 square in the Bronx (sounds like a euphemism for balls) raised an eyebrow. Had all other results played out the same, a win would have lifted NYC above Columbus and a Leagues-Cup-occupied Miami and even on points with Orlando. Losing to DC (DC!), meanwhile, keeps them just five points ahead 10th-place Chicago Fire FC. So suddenly I’m left wondering whether Chicago can get just two more points out of their seven remaining games (v NE; v NYC; @ MIN; v CLB; @ MIA; v TFC; @ NE, aka, a lotta New England) than Red Bull can get out of their five (@ POR, @ MTL, v NYC, v CIN, @ CLB). NYCFC should stay ahead of that scrum, but, hey! Where do they go next but…Chicago!
That makes for something of a running theme for the East in the next week or two – e.g., Cincinnati plays Nashville next, who plays Orlando (again) the week after that (and Orlando plays at DC the week before) – so, once you go above the five doomed teams at the bottom of the East (e.g., DC, Montreal, Toronto, Atlanta and the Revs), the rush to Decision Day could get frenetic.
I, like you, get next weekend off, but I’m looking forward to see where things go from there.
And, wow, did Cincy v Nashville turn into (yet) a(nother) nailbiter…
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