Orlando City SC 1-2 FC Cincinnati: With a Nod to a Hero of the Salem Witch Trials

Translated to the modern idiom, "eat shit, prudes."

Had you asked me to pick the game FC Cincinnati would win from its first three, I would have picked away to Orlando City SC last. Had you told me they won it courtesy of a Brandon Vazquez brace, I would have asked for a taste of whatever you were on at the time of asking.

Chase the doubts and disbelief away because, I’ll be damned if FC Cincy didn’t roll into central Florida and win its first game of 2022. The game ended 2-1 and, numbers be damned, I thought they looked all right doing it. That’s to say, forget stats like possession and passing accuracy, look beyond Cincy’s thin passing network with its faintness of some far-off constellation, and scroll all the way to the bottom of The Mothership’s stats page to drink in the one number that gives a fair read of the game as it played out, the xG data.

In terms of timeline, Cincy stunned Orlando a mere 13 minutes into the game when Vazquez, a man not renowned for finishing his chances, buried a tidy li’l chip into the right corner of Pedro Gallese’s net. With the wake-up call duly delivered, Orlando proceeded to pile pressure on every available side of Cincinnati’s 18 yard box. The chiseling finally broke through the walls 30 minutes later when Orlando’s Junior Urso charged buck-naked onto a Facundo Torres cross to Cincy’s back-post at which point, I, like everyone who wishes Cincinnati health and happiness, commenced to listening desperately for the first-half whistle. The game, in short, had threatened to get away from Cincinnati.

After watching the way Orlando had a rich tapestry of ways to threaten the side fringes of Cincinnati’s 18-yard box, Cincy’s newbie head coach, Pat Noonan, made some adjustments to the defensive shape. On came Isaac Atanga to take up the right (left?) side of the three in a 4-2-3-1 and back went…I’d say fullback Ian Murphy (who several faulted to Orlando’s goal) more than Alvas Powell, into the four-man defense to better defend said side fringes. And then, somewhere between out of the pale blue sky and before all that had time to settle, Yuya Kubo sent newly-minted winger Dominique Badji into a foot-race against Orlando’s left back Ruan; Badji shouldered him off the ball (and to the ground), turned the ball inside behind Orlando’s defense and, effectively, ricocheted his cross off Vazquez’s head.

FC Cincinnati 0-1 DC United: That Unfamiliar Familiar Sting

This, but maybe with the left hand.

90 minutes with a hard kick to the balls at the end. That’s my dozen-word description of FC Cincinnati’s slow-death 0-1 loss to DC United at TQL Stadium.

After absorbing an early onslaught - and high-five to Tyler Blackett for nodding out a sure goal - Cincy got hold of the game in a way I either haven’t seen or can’t recall since gods know when. And that’s the real hairy bitch about the whole situation: today’s (comparatively) glorious effort came just one week after a season opener where it looked like just about everything surprised them one way or the other. Today, though, Cincy didn’t just connect the odd pass or three; they built sequences that knocked DC from the front-foot to the back in the blink of an eye. Sweet transition, baby. I’d direct any FC Cincy fan casting about for something to hold onto after a game that felt like a betrayal to the fact that they created actual, full chances in open play. That beats the hell out of trying to squeeze a ball through that familiar, rapidly-closing window Cincinnati fans knows so well. That’s not even the best thing that happened today.

Miracle of miracles, Cincinnati fielded a fully-functional midfield today, one that, as I saw it, actually controlled the midfield space. Credit newcomer Junior Moreno and Yuya “Mr. Plug-‘n’-Play” Kubo for putting in a pair of damn good shifts (and hold that thought), and (probably) Pat Noonan (or his shadow-master, Dominic Kinnear) for sorting out a better set-up, I only know it was refreshing to see an adjustment - any adjustment - pan out into anything besides fresh disaster. Kubo, in particular, looked like an entirely new player; he kept his work-rate dizzyingly high, but he looked totally different going forward, as if he understood where to find space and where to find, whether by turning into it on the dribble (the man got away with a scandalous number of spins today) or passing usefully out of it. All in all, Kubo did a helluva job getting the ball out of defense and into the attack - and I think that was the reason why Cincy’s transition game worked today…not that it mattered.

The passing improved all over and, better, just about every man dressed in orange looked like a full, dues-paying professional soccer player out there today. And yet, it wasn't enough. Cincy's best stuff came during the game’s first 50 minutes or so (dammit), all the way down to the butter-slick goal they scored just after the 20th minute, even if it got (rightly) called back for offside…ah, Brandon Vazquez, he does it wrong even when he does it right. My best guess is that DC worked out where or how to stall Cincy’s transition game at half-time, a shift that allowed them to shift the action toward the middle of the field and away from their own goal. Prior to…whatever happened around the 50th minute, other new arrival, Dominique Badji, either got or found some real quality looks at goal - just by smart runs, too, and he should have scored one of the two truly good ones he had - while fellow-frontrunner Vazquez chipped in with a handful of half-/quarter-chances. Now, brace yourself, because things get darker from here on out…

A Premature 2022 FC Cincinnati Preview: Because I Can't Watch the Preseason Games

Whoa, whoa, whoa. I thought the choice was about kids?

FC Cincinnati have hired and fired three coaches in as many seasons, not counting the two interim coaches - Yoann Damet and, just last season, Tyrone Marshall - they sacrificed to appease the Soccer Gods who had clearly cursed them. Ron Jans struck me as the most competent, but he turned out to have the social skills of a man born 50 years earlier, and not one of the bright ones, and that became his legacy. With the others, I'd like to entertain the reverse of a thought experiment: I wonder what either Alan Koch or Jaap Stam could do with a better roster - i.e., one not built on a philosophy that parallels a Supermarket Sweep shopping spree of just grabbing shit in a half-conscious panic.

FC Cincy have also tried swinging big on designated players (DP), and at a clip of about two per season during their time in Major League Soccer. The 2020 crop - Jurgen Locadia and Yuya Kubo - was particularly disastrous, even if that only applies to the latter based on what he was hired to do (i.e., generate offense). Luciano Acosta and Brenner Souza da Silva made up Cincinnati’s latest DP class and, even if didn’t mean much to the team’s fortunes writ large, both Acosta and Brenner will almost certainly unseat the current all-time leading scorer, and 2019 DP, Allan Cruz, a couple weeks into 2022. That record, by the way? Nine goals. Nine. Still, trending up every so slightly beats flatlining.

Flatlining describes FC Cincinnati’s history in MLS as well as any word. The phrase “wooden spoon” got thrown at them at the end of every season they’ve spent in the top flight, but it takes surfacing some blunt numbers gets at how hard. Cincinnati has won just...14 games over 2 2/3 season (the 2/3 comes from 2020, when they played just 23 games). That's just north of 15% of the time...ouch, and that earned them a total of 60 points. For perspective, three teams either tied or topped that “haul” in 2021 alone (the Colorado Rapids, the Seattle Sounders and, of course, the record-setting New England Revolution). I’ve obsessed/marveled over their repeated runs at all the wrong single-season records enough that I won't do it again here, but the cold, hard reality is that you can’t dig into Cincinnati’s numbers without hitting a sewer line. While you're down there, here's another one: would you believe Cincinnati produced its worst points per game total (0.59, people) just last season? Hence the point about Brenner, Acosta and fortunes writ large.