FC Cincinnati 3-0 Charleston Battery: Wire to Wire, and Beyond

It's greased lightning!

It’s rare to see a 2-0 win as dominant as the one FC Cincinnati dropped on the visiting Charleston Battery (and, yes, I realize the game actually ended 3-0 - and FC Cincy deserved all of that third goal - but it goes against a premise, so…ssshhhh, bear with me). The orange and blue (that’s FC Cincy, who needs a snappier nickname) controlled every aspect of the game, but without looking likely to run up the score. They thoroughly contained the Battery, sometimes in their own half for soccer’s equivalent of eternity, and, with one exception (Ataulla Guerra pinging a bomb off Spencer Richey’s crossbar), Cincinnati’s defenders never gave the visitors more than a glimpse of daylight (e.g., Forrest Lasso rotating/sliding to snuff Patrick Okonwko’s and/or Charleston's best second-half chance).

Both teams came in boasting unbeaten streaks that I can’t stop visualizing as cars rumbling up for an evening of street racing (see The Fast & the Furious, Grease, and maybe Rebel Without a Cause; haven’t seen that one): 15 for Cincinnati and 11 for Charleston. The home team ended the visitor’s streak with confidence-eating finality. The Battery kept their shape by and large, and I think I’d find that distressing - i.e., falling 3-0 when you didn’t shit the proverbial bed (that’s probably not a proverb). Think failing a test when you actually prepared for the thing.

Box scores don’t always put the details in proper relief, but I’d hold up two, maybe two and a half stats (in the match center, where you’ll find highlights too) that capture what decided this game: FC Cincy’s 2-of-3 advantage in duels and their huge advantage in shooting accuracy (75% to 16.7%) - and the latter goes back to another number, e.g., the slim margin in the total number of shots. Those numbers underline two things: 1) how well the Battery held its shape for nearly the full 90*, and 2) how little that mattered, thanks to how well Cincinnati threw around its weight.

* The few honest breakdowns Charleston did suffer produced the result - more specifically, the final score. The third goal - of which, yes, it did happen - concluded the only period of pressure that saw the Battery tremble on the verge of cracking. That came late - around the 85th, and lasted till the final whistle - when Fanendo Adi and Justin Hoyte put at least three clean shots on goal, and Nazmi Albadawi played the dangerous ball that led to Skylar Thomas’ soul-bruising stoppage time own-goal. The other goal came in first-half stoppage time when Albadawi chased down a loose trap by a Charleston player (who, incidentally, had just intercepted a Cincinnati pass), and then combined with Emory Welshman, and Corben Bone, who would finish off Albadawi’s assist, to score.

That second goal highlights one of those duels that FC Cincy won, and Albadawi had his share of interventions, but the attacking player who won the most and all over the damn field - and who should go down as match MVP - was Emanuel Ledesma. He scored one of the best goals I’ve seen (so far) this week for a glorious opener (worth finding just for the move he uses to make the opening), and that’s fabu, but no word better captures Ledesma’s Saturday evening than “omnipresent”; I saw him combine with Justin Hoyte in the right corner of Cincinnati’s defensive third to wrestle the ball of a Charleston player after the 80th minute, fer crissakes. Between them, Hoyte and Ledesma made their side of the field as thoroughly safe for Cincinnati as they rendered it uninhabitable for Charleston. “Comprehensive” gets that aspect of the game about right, and nothing contributed as much to this result as how hard and effectively the orange and blue defended the entire field. Welshman at forward and Ledesma, Bone and Albadawi made possession uncomfortable as all hell for the Battery.

To give Charleston its due, they managed a couple moments - I’d call (roughly) the 60th minute to the 75th their best patch - and Okonkwo gave them a real lift when he came on in the mid-60s. The worst part of their game happened in the area occupied (on paper) by and between Jarad van Schaik, Neveal Hackshaw and Vincenzo Candela. Again, they got their asses whipped in their duel with Ledesma and Hoyte, most of FC Cincy’s shots came from that side, etc. All the same, their heads didn’t drop till after the own goal, and that’s damn near the end of the game. If you watch the body language after each of the other two goals Charleston surrendered, you’ll see Battery defenders, and the goalkeeper (Joe Kuzminksy) in particular, lose a lot of his shit. That and the streak they carried into this game tells you how surprised they were to give up those kinds of goals - the second one especially.

Some other things of note: Fatai Alashe, formerly of the San Jose Earthquakes, made his debut (I think) in this one and, after an adjustment period (when his feet appeared faulty), he looked solid and paired with Kenney Walker with “pork-chop-and-chianti” decency. Welshman started as the lone forward in a 4-2-3-1, and went over 70 minutes before Adi came on the field. I can’t recall Welshman putting a shot on goal, but he played a defensive role that I can’t see Adi filling - just to note that. Adi, on the other hand, definitely upped Cincinnati’s threat level - though I can’t say how much to credit him for that (better runs, maybe?) versus tired legs on a Charleston defense that’d had a lot to do yesterday.

And, to wrap up where I always do - what happens when this FC Cincinnati club joins MLS in 2019 - Ledesma looks ready and like a good bet: he has skills on the high-side of USL, a good noodle in his skull, and that willingness to work should get him over the bar - maybe even comfortably. The team has a good rotating spine with Alashe, Walker and Michael Lahoud (and…and…Richie Ryan (right?)), and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a lot of their defenders continue to start in MLS next year - not just Lasso and Patrick Barrett, who paired in central defense last night, but also Dekel Keinan. The same holds for fullbacks Hoyte on the right and Blake Smith on the left. In all honesty, I’m getting impatient on this shit, like a kid who found out he’s getting the latest, greatest gaming console for Christmas, only it’s the day after fucking Thanksgiving and that’s a month before he can touch the damn thing.

That’s when I have to take the same step back as I’m sure FC Cincinnati’s players take every day: they’ve got this season, and a trophy at the end of it, to play for, and that’s plenty. Adding a win like this to an unbeaten streak that already feels like it’ll never end is a damn fine way to do that. Helluva win, and a better game. Till next time.