Orlando City SC 3-0 FC Cincinnati: Training Wheels Forever

Sometimes it takes a while...

I watched as much of FC Cincinnati’s latest loss as felt worthwhile - a little more than I should have, honestly, and, yes, “latest loss” is the phrasing I’m going with. Orlando City SC only beat them 3-0 in the end, a final score that felt like mercy after Cincy went down by two goals inside the first 20 minutes.

I’m not going to spend much time to picking through the entrails of this one, and on the grounds that, 1) the beast is well-dead and there’s not much mystery as to the cause of death, and 2) I don’t think it has much to tell Cincinnati fans about the future that they don’t already know. I do, however, have one thought to impart to a justifiable restless fan-base: what about this match up would make you expect anything but the result that happened? To put that another way, why would you expect a team that has most of its shit together - that’s Orlando - give away anything at home to a team that has yet to figure out even some of its shit?

Look, Orlando is a well-coached team with good players - e.g., Nani (who had time to thoroughly embarrass Yuya Kubo when scoring Orlando’s second goal), Mauricio Pereyra, Chris Mueller, Junior Urso, Pedro Gallese, Ruan, and, mind, that list is incomplete - that is both strong at home (heard some stat about one loss at home in their last 11 from the broadcast booth) and damned hard to score against (one goal allowed in three games this season and, again, I heard something about less than 1.0 goals per game allowed during the Oscar Pareja era). There’s nothing wrong with feeling (constant, borderline existential) disappointment with a result, or even rage, but there is something very unhealthy about, to torture an example, expecting to get a unicorn pony for Christmas when absolutely nothing in your prior experience points to ever getting one. Basically, keep a little perspective as you watch Cincinnati struggle out of the quicksand.

Given all the above, yeah, the game probably was over by the 35th second, when a clumsy back-pass by Nick Hagglund teed up the game-winner for Orlando’s Tesho Akindele. Cincinnati tried to settle down after and recover, naturally, but anyone who saw this game saw what I saw - a lot of tentative passes forward chased backwards by a middling Orlando press, a lot of kicking the ball around Cincinnati’s back-line, a lot of errant passes upfield, a number of desperate dribbles, and far too many instances of Orlando catching a Cincinnati player in possession (Kubo, often as not) and rushing a counter toward Pzremyslaw Tyton’s goal…and why the hell doesn’t MLSSoccer.com show saves as a stat anymore?

FC Cincinnati 2-0 New York Red Bulls: The Incredible Power of Being Under-Estimated

Stunningly, this is not an oft-used phrase...

When I first started writing about the Portland Timbers the second time around, there was a guy in the blogging community who named his site Possession with Purpose. Before going on, I want to make one thing very clear, he was a good guy (met him once or twice), I had no beef with his content, etc. etc. It was the name of his site that got to me, specifically, the implication of possession itself as an objective good. I found that unbelievably distracting, and with the emphasis on unbelievably. Possession is fine when, obviously…when it works.

Before I start obsessing about the New York Red Bulls, I want to make one more thing very clear, clearer even than the point above: FC Cincinnati deserved its sleepwalk-of-2-0 win over New York. More than that, I want to talk about what they’ve accomplished over…two short games (I mean, obviously, what happened against Columbus, 1) stands tall against the point I’m making and, 2) was extraordinarily agonizing to watch…like a bully beating his victim, I tell you.). The 2019 season saw (for those who need reminding, aka, no one) Cincinnati post the record for the most goals allowed in Major League Soccer history; they turned in the worst-ever goal differential, and by a wider margin. Cincy’s defense was fucking horrific last season - and yet they’re headed into the knockout rounds of MLS Is Back with just a -1 goal differential. Yes, both Atlanta United FC and the Red Bulls sucked far, far worse than anyone (or most people) expected and that’s part of it. I’ll get to that, trust me. Sticking with Cincinnati…

My wife came down mid-way through the second half and, things being as they were by that time, of course I drifted out of the game now and again (and again) talking to her, sometimes about completely different subjects. When I looked up, though, the same broad plot-lines stood out. First, Cincinnati rarely had possession, but they always looked sharper and, this is big, more certain in possession when they had it. I wouldn’t even call it counter-attacking soccer, either, and that’s as a good thing. Once Cincy established possession and got their heads up, they started moving forward, creating passing options and looking for them. By the time went up two goals (56th minute), and forgot all about the trap-door they’d stood on going into the game, I’d even say that got a little jiggy with it, e.g., throwing in the odd back-heel, stepping over the ball to dummy it to another player; they looked like a team having fun, and why not? I’m not arguing it was random, or that it came from nothing, so much as I’m praising its composure.

Montreal Impact 0-1 FC Cincinnati: Taking Care of (Super-Belated) Business

Elvis would be super-belatedly proud.

I won’t pretend that was enjoyable. My phone became infinitely more interesting around the 20th minute, but I more or less hung in there (hanged in there?), with allowances for prep-cooking and my cat doing something vaguely interesting. FC Cincinnati was reasonably good for its 1-0 win over the Montreal Impact. In Montreal, too. I’m not sure that matters, because neither of these teams has a future that extends beyond October 6.

When Allan Cruz stabbed that lucky bounce home about halfway through the first minute, the only relevant question became whether Cincy could hold out for the 90+ minutes ahead (also, against pretty much anyone). Cincinnati answered by clogging the middle with a low-block, which L’Impact got worse at figuring it out as the minutes ticked higher. They found Orji Okwonwko on the weak-side a couple times in the first half, but he was offside or sloppy in the defining moment, and things generally descended into hope-and-a-prayer crosses by the end of the game, Ignacio Piatti looking about a month too early (for him) and too late (for Montreal), and a lot of aimless possession by Saphir Taider and Samuel Piette. Montreal never looked particularly threatening, so…yay, Cincinnati!

Cincinnati ground out this game and, based on the attack last night, and recent games generally, that looks more or less like the entire tool-kit. They don’t have an attacking upside to save them. Even with most of the season gone, you still see Cincy players make runs to the same space (Darren Mattocks is freakin’ awful about crowding the left), and don’t even get me started about transition – e.g., at least two breaks forward, and with numbers in Cincinnati’s favor. In both those moments (and maybe a couple others), the runs came straight out of a family Thanksgiving Day “Turkey Bowl” after “first dinner” and the first fifth of whiskey, and the final pass referenced neither run, so, no, I wouldn’t call transition Cincy’s long suit either.

They scored first, though, and that’s all that mattered last night. Well, that and Przemyslaw Tyton pawing away a rare, truly clean shot on goal by Montreal. Had that gone in – or even had Joe Gyau’s stumble into Bacary Sagna been called as a PK (I would have called it) – Cincinnati could have drawn, or, god forbid, lost this game.

Columbus Crew SC 2-2 FC Cincinnati: Hell Is Full of Mistakes

The caption reads, "epic butt goal." On par.

Since I'm a day late at least, and since everyone who cares to knows that the first “Hell Is Real” match ended with FC Cincinnati drawing Columbus Crew SC 2-2 in Columbus (wee victory!), I’ll rein in the usual narrative excess and just spit out some bullet points. Here goes:

- This was a bad result for Columbus. Leaving the closest thing you get to free points in MLS on the table puts them where Cincinnati has been since the middle of the summer – i.e., thinking about 2020. Moreover, they throttled their own modest momentum.

- One last note on Columbus: they’re surprisingly wasteful. An uncomfortable quantity of their forward passes end as unfinished thoughts and they resort to the pointless cross too willingly. And yet, even when they do getapileofchances to put away the game (see the link under "a" for the most egregious and heave out another sigh of relief) and stay in the conversation for seventh in the East*…let’s just say I could hear the choking sound all the way over here on the West coast and a day and a half later.

(* aka, the only open conversation left to the teams below the playoff line in the Eastern Conference, as I see it.)

- Every goal in the game followed from a clear defensive lapse. For starters, I’d argue Pedro Santos’ goal was nothing more or less than a beautiful ending to a bad play – i.e., Cincinnati’s failure to manage a quick restart (and I’d put real money on Santos missing that shot 8 times out of 10). As for the rest: Maikel van der Werff had no reason to nudge Gyasi Zardes off the play; Columbus gambled so hard on covering Kendall Waston that they left Darren Mattocks free for Cincy's first; and Roland Lamah’s cross had no business finding Emmanuel Ledesma through that crowd (but nice run by Mattocks on that play, even if he didn’t finish it). These are the things that happen to bad teams.

Toronto FC 2-1 FC Cincinnati: My Ongoing Allan Cruz Obsession

This is on the ceiling above my bed, and in 3 other rooms. No, 4.

To start with the good news, FC Cincinnati gave fans a couple things to chew on last night. And, for those who know how this schtick works, the bad news is that the game ended in (yet) another loss for FC Cincy, 2-1 at Toronto FC this time. Moving on now to ambiguous news, what does pushing this current iteration of Toronto FC to within one header of coughing up a point actually mean at this point?

First and foremost, this game recalled the home loss to the Los Angeles Galaxy as much as any recent game. It took Cincinnati too long to come into the game - during which dry spell they gave up a goal they can ill afford – but, once they did, they generally passed the eye test, looked the part of team in North American soccer’s top flight, and so on. In something that may or may not come as a surprise, Cincinnati wound up creating more/better shots by the end of the game – and that’s without some (“alleged”) stars missing. I’ll get to that, but the sad, blunt truth is that Jozy Altidore’s goal for Toronto put the game beyond realistic reach for the Ohioans.

Before focusing on Cincinnati, I want to say, this win should scare the crap out of Toronto and their fans. I think as highly as the next guy of Altidore, but that’s not a goal he scores every week; what’s more, he benefitted (a little) from the pass coming in slightly behind him, in that his touch backwards widened the space for that shot between him and the nearest defender (Hoyte, whose momentum carried him deeper toward Cincinnati’s goal). You can quibble with that – I mean, Wonderwheel (that’s Mikael van der Werff) had the angle to step harder to close down the shot – but, as the broadcast booth kept repeating down the stretch, all it takes is a moment, and Jozy fired that shot pretty goddamn fast.

TFC had a moment or two after that, but nothing remarkable – and certainly not anything like the unrelenting frequency of what Nick DeLeon and Richie Laryea did to Mathieu Deplagne’s flank during the first half. Had you watched only the first half of that game – or even if you shut it off after Jozy’s goal – you probably would have expected the gradual withering of FC Cincy’s resistance until TFC knocked in another goal or two to labor the point about which was the better team. That didn’t happen, and that’s how Cincinnati replicated and, as I see it, improved on that earlier performance against LA. And, Toronto, one of the most expensive teams in MLS, almost let that happen, at home and against the worst team in the league. These are not TFC's finest days...