 |
| It can also be a soft, cushioned lie. |
I want to start with a question: if you’d never seen people
play soccer before, how would you know that, say, Bayern Munich, or glory-days
Barcelona FC were good-to-great teams? On one hand, sure, if you watched 90
minutes of a game and just followed the reaction of the crowd (even on the
simplest level of hearing the elation that follows a goal), you’d understand
those teams to be better than their opposition…
…but if you don’t know the quality of the opposition, all
you could really say is, “that team in the blue and red vertical stripes sure
looked better yesterday! Do you like your blorpduckle with a splooge of kepetzal?
(That’s me doing alien cuisine, the point is I’m an alien observing a soccer…never
mind.)
For as long as I’ve followed FC Cincinnati this season - and
period that started with the June 9th road win against North Carolina FC,
and includes everything up to tonight’s surprisingly (probably?) tight 1-0 home win over Penn FC, but not last week’s draw against Nashville FC (busy) and the
friendly, because fuck friendlies, if you can prevent a player from skiing,
they shouldn’t play exhibitions by the same logic, but I digress. (Also, for
the curious, here’s my origin story as relates to FC Cincinnati, aka, I come by
this semi-honestly.)
Over that period of time, FC Cincinnati has generally looked the better team on the field in those games
(for the record, this is now my 8th game, and I’ll work on the sidebar. someday),
and today was no exception. Another general trend: FC Cincy seems to take 15-20
minutes to come into a game, and today was no exception. The chances piled up
in the end, until Emanuel Ledesma - always the man most likely to - ricocheted
a free-kick off the back of the Lucky Mkosana (i.e., the ironically-named dreadlocked
dude who posed a moderate active threat for Penn FC tonight), and into the goal.
And that wasn’t even Ledesman’s best chance, because that came in the 54th
minute when he made space for himself and pounded a powerful lefty off the
post. Still, Ledesma scored the winner, as he has for much of Cincy’s 2018.
They’ve got players like that all over the roster too, attacking players
contributing steadily, whether it’s Danni Konig, Nazmi Albadawi, or even Corben
Bone.
Before shifting to the meat of this thing, I also want to
acknowledge the remarkable consistency of Cincinnati’s defense: they can rest any given player without missing a beat, and while earning
a semi-conscious shut-out. It's almost too easy. Even when they get beat - as Forrest Lasso
did against (and I’m guessing…Jorge Rivera; the highlights didn't include the moment) -
they recover, and all the way. There was another time when Lasso just plain
fucked up twice in the same sequence, only to have the ball ping in the precise
direction that would bail him out of trouble. Still, on a straight quality
level, as well as multiple occasions today, I saw Lasso and his partner at
centerback, Patrick Barrett, “out-athlete” the attacking players they were
called upon to manage. Both Barrett and Lasso looked a step
above just about everyone they had to defend, in other words, and that’s going to lead
to the obvious outcome and three points to FC Cincinnati more often than not.
Their fullbacks, Justin Hoyte and Blake Smith, look just as
steady, and, to finally get to the point I am dying to see that back four - and
I mean that exact back four - play against MLS teams week in and out. That will, at long last, give me a chance to see them in a setting I understand. They are excellent in the
USL, imperious even. Because the USL refuses to top-line the right numbers in
their standings, I can't readily note how many goals FC Cincy has allowed this season,
but I do see that they have the second-best goal differential in all of USL, and,s urely, that’s a good-to-great thing. And, by translation, FC Cincinnati
has a good-to-great defense for the USL. But that won’t be the question for
very much longer, now will it?
And here’s where the plot turns. For those who haven’t read
anything I’ve written, or who don’t care to read the origin story above (don’t
blame you), I’m a Portland Timbers fan during the day shift, so I’ve seen a bunch
of Fanendo Adi. He’s good, damn good in the right circumstances, but I didn’t
fully appreciate his Rosetta Stone qualities until his brief appearance as a
sub in today’s game. By that I mean, for the 10 minutes Adi played tonight, I
had a small-sample chance to see how he stacked up against the same defense
Ledesma and Konig had run at all night, if in with lightly-altered
circumstances (e.g., fatigued defenders).
The thing that stood out most in Adi’s game was speed; while
he never looked slow against MLS opposition, he looked like Usain Bolt against
Penn FC defenders (much like Barrett and Lasso did against Penn FC attackers). He
spent most of his time relatively isolated, but his strength showed; even his
decision-making made a bit of a cameo: Adi created openings against two Penn FC defenders at least
twice tonight; even as I’m saying that probably won’t be his normal, even in
USL, his talent, awareness and physical attributes looked a step above most of
the players on the field. Then again, so did Ledesma’s (Konig, though, had an
off night; he struggled to get free, for one, and struggled when he did).
Moreover, there is much, much less overlap in personnel between MLS and
USL than I’d expected when I started following FC Cincinnati. Where I expected
to find three, maybe five former MLS players per team attempting CPR on a moribund career,
I instead find one, maybe two players per USL team leading whatever side they’re on
into a better future. FC
Cincy has a great example of this in Corben Bone. He may never play in MLS
again (and that would be…kinda fucked up; I saw the halftime show), but Bone
doesn’t feel like a cast-off on Cincinnati, but he also doesn’t feel like a
star. He is, however, a classic utility player, someone who might stick to the
roster precisely because you need guys like that on your team.
All the same, will that still apply when this team “carousels”
up to MLS? (Logan’s Run? Anyone?) Rest assured, I’m very much living in the
moment when it comes to FC Cincinnati, and with how this 2018 USL season ends
for them, but I’m also conscious of the fact that they’re in the process of
trying to organize a team that will be competitive in MLS’s Eastern Conference
(probably?) in 2019. While those goals aren’t discrete and separate…look, I don’t
know where I’m going with that besides anxiety over the fate of players who I’m
only just getting to know. Even swaddled in as much bullshit as it is, this is
as close as American soccer fans will come to seeing a team get the equivalent of promoted in U.S. soccer. There will be blood before FC Cincy moves
up…probably? I mean, you’d think, but, to give a specific example, I’d love to
see Cincinnati’s back four line up against the New York Red Bulls, or New York
City FC, just to see how they hold up. The answer: as well as Columbus, or
better? I’m not sure, and that’s eating me more than a little.
To wrap up, if you bet me which player is better between Adi
and Konig, I’d put money down on Adi. That doesn’t mean I’m right, that’s just
where my money would go. All the same, FC Cincinnati’s defense isn’t the only
part of the dream. For instance, does Manny Ledesma have even a Shea Salinas
future in front of him? That’s something I’d love to see. How would Bone do as
a shuttler in a diamond formation? I’d love to see that too. Could Albadawi
play a box-to-box role in MLS, or does he need to play closer to goal - and is he good enough to do that? That’s
my favorite obsession right now, right alongside the weirdly specific belief
that Russell Cicerone (who I’ve mentioned before) could rock as a right back.
All the same, how many players look like world-beaters at the USL level, but look
totally different in MLS? I mean, ask Kenney Walker. (Who, for the record, I’m
back to trying to figure out.)
On the plus side, for FC Cincinnati, building for MLS and
hunting the USL Championship trophy aren’t mutually exclusive goals. That said,
one can prioritize one (continuity for the championship) over the other (hitting
the field running in MLS in 2019) without even realizing it…
…to float a personal opinion, I’d focus on the USL
Championship and figure out MLS later. No team ever knows when they’ll win a
goddamn trophy, but the odds will very likely tank when they join Major League
Soccer. Now, though, they’re at least demi-gods.
No comments:
Post a Comment