FC Cincinnati 0-3 Columbus Crew SC: A Collection of Negative Metaphors

Fucking adorable, but it still has to change...

In my youth soccer days, I had a coach who turned his back on us after getting fed up with how the team practiced. He insisted we continue, only without him watching. It didn’t bother me (seemed for the best, really; he was unhappy, we were unhappy, etc.), but my teammates cracked within minutes and started begging him to watch again. That was the goal, of course, and he gave everyone reminders on “goals and attitudes,” etc. I don’t recall if we did any better, but that was never the point of the exercise.

I don’t know why that story came to me, but watching FC Cincinnati get destroyed by Columbus Crew SC by an ultimately merciful 3-0 final score allowed me to sympathize a little with my old coach.

I’ve been waiting to see how FC Cincinnati stacked up against Major League Soccer competition since June 10, 2018 – that was the first time I saw them play (and, for the record, they beat North Carolina in that one). Between my commute and some questionable choices on the video streaming side by and among FC Cincy, the Chicago Fire and the good people who run the Carolina Challenge Cup, I missed the live, and only, video stream of Cincinnati’s draw against Chicago. Watching them play the Charleston Battery…I dunno, it felt less like something any of us needed to know than a lazy farewell fuck with an old flame. (Also, I’d already watched them play Charleston last year as well). Given all the above, and unless I blacked out them playing an MLS team in last year’s U.S. Open Cup, yesterday’s game against Columbus really did count as my first time seeing FC Cincinnati against MLS opposition and…yeah, where to begin?

Saying a team got “played off the park” is one of soccer’s most familiar clichés, but FC Cincinnati did something more disturbing in Charleston yesterday: they didn’t to show up. They looked every bit as unready for primetime as the “jerseys” in which they played. By the end of getting spun dizzy by Columbus, I’m guessing some of them appreciated that little taste of anonymity. A few of them might have appreciated a bag to wear over their heads. Beat on both sides of the ball, they didn’t defend well and attacked with the force of three kittens, that’s the kind of shit you see in the FA Cup when the Premier League teams come in to face the amateurs. Worse, Roland Lamah, the only guy to produce a highlight reel moment (and he managed two…ish) let his final highlight take the form of a two-footed tackle from behind and a deserved sending off…

…to turn to another cliché, yes, sometimes a team needs that spark and that's probably what Lamah was after. Sparks are funny, though, inspiration in one scenario, and step one to a dumpster conflagration in another.

 

To repeat what my coach sputtered at me all those years, this loss yielded no positives. If I had to name a Cincinnati player who covered himself in glory yesterday, it would be a kind of Frankenstein monster built from the moments when defensive players achieved basic professional competence. And, credit where it’s due, that one time Fanendo Adi almost cleaned up one of the few messes Columbus allowed on the defensive end counts as “forming the head” on the crappy, off-brand Voltron, which, in this case would be made of dumpsters, cars on blocks from the neighbors’ yards, and one of the more reasonably-sized piles of plastic spinning the middle of the ocean.

That takes care of the grand themes (e.g, it was Lucas on everything but his finest moment). Now, let’s dig into all the details that rise above, “for the love of God, don’t do that again.” Which takes this post to another “where to begin moment.”

I saw stray gripes about the defense on twitter as I tried to avoid watching the game, but I also really feel like the real, scary shit happened one line upfield – i.e., in the midfield. The issue went beyond Justin Meram and Federico Higuain and Pedro Santos finding a hippie-teenager’s overall’s worth of pockets between the midfield and defense, it was howCincinnati's midfielders reacted to the infiltrations. It was a ballet built on the tension of under- and over-compensating, aka, two or three players collapsing on the ball only to watch it disappear a half second later and piss off over to the gap that the compensation opened up. Or, in just one word, the midfield shape was reactive, and to a point where all those talented players could feed Gyasi Zardes from multiple directions. Or, to react to one tweet, no matter how highly I rate him, Forrest Lasso would have died out there just as hard as all the starters* or the Light Brigade, and more or less as hard as any defender FC Cincinnati that started. In a team built on a super-abundance of defensive midfielders, this just can't happen. If your strength is not your strength....I mean, holy shit, Barbara...

* OK, credit where it's due: Kendall Waston looked as good as anyone yesterday – and I crap on that guy all the time. So, yeah, there’s your bright spot, or , your bright spots: Waston, Lamah and Adi. Plus all the Frankenstein contributions that kept this game from 4-0, or 5-0, or 6-0, or a preseason projection that translates one pathetic loss onto an entire fucking season…still, this felt like anything but a building block. (For a counter-point, see here).

The deeper worry for FC Cincinnati is where it’s always been: can this team create goals in MLS? While yesterday was…distressing, Columbus’ possession-first approach to the game – as well as their deeper familiarity, and having the players to pull it off (Caleb Porter cries with joy every night knowing he’s got Higuain to work with) – posed a specific challenge to FC Cincy’s defense, and its capacity to absorb (relentless) pressure. That won’t be every team in the league – and don’t take comfort from that, by the love of GOD, because things will get better and worse against other teams – but Cincinnati’s “Defense First” approach could still work, if with a little more time and familiarity…but Columbus handing them their asses was sobering in that regard. Again, not showing up against a team that made the playoffs last season, but without looking like a contender, and in the generally less-steely Eastern Conference? That’s the goat’s entrails catching fire and transforming into those shitty black snakes you hate getting in the fireworks bundle-packs on the 4th of July.

Earlier today, I watched the Portland Timbers beat Real Salt Lake by the same score-line that Columbus dropped on Cincinnati. Neat, but the games couldn’t have been more different. RSL gave Portland a game where they could have equalized early, or clawed one back later, but they still lost 3-0. Had Cincinnati scored, meanwhile, anyone watching that game would have called it 20-rabbits-feet lucky. And that’s both the really distressing thing, and what I’m going to close on. FC Cincy looked helpless out there, and nowhere more than in the attack. They created a chance or two, but without managing to look threatening at any point in that game. I mean, ever. That's the eye-opening piece in this performance – and, from what I’ve gathered, in the first 70 minutes against the Chicago Fire. Yout best players frustrated on an island doesn't spell success. Or long-term relationships.

Bottom line: it looks like FC Cincinnati will defautl to defending deep this year and, if they can’t connect that to its decent forward line, they will have a shitty-to-hostile year. If their defensive midfield shape looks as bad this season as it did yesterday against Columbus, Cincinnati could very well take a run straight fucking past Minnesota United FC’s first struggling years and fall through the low bar that DC United 2013 set for any and all future MLS teams: can you end the season with fewer than three losses?

Do I bet they can manage clear that low bar? Yes, and with some confidence (and mostly because that is fucking low, people). With all the above in mind, though, it’s looking more and more like this team will need binoculars if they want to see the Promised Land in 2019.