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| Hopes/dreams. |
This preview as an expanded part of the larger project of offering my current best opinion/narrative on every team in Major League Soccer at the beginning of the 2019 regular season. That post will go up tomorrow (probably), and with much shorter entries for each of those teams – because I know less about them than I do FC Cincinnati, the subject of this post.
At the same time, I don’t have a deep, rich history with Ohio’s newest team. I only started watching them June 10, 2018 and, until just this past weekend, I had never seen them lose a game. Like nature in Jurassic Park, they always found a way…until they didn’t…
Preseason (domestic results only, and games that I watched): 1-1-0
Even if I digested FC Cincinnati’s win over the Charleston Battery with a little more insouciance than justified, the fairly large part of me that hates being wrong larded that post with caveats. “It’ll get harder,” “Chicago is basically a USL team”: those are classic dodges, and I love them for it, but not even all of those psychically and emotionally-protective qualifiers prepared me for the full-eclipse darkness of what Columbus Crew SC…did to FC Cincinnati [a woman screams] in its final preseason game of its MLS existence (and I didn’t even get cool glasses).
As argued in the write-up, I interpreted Cincinnati’s win over Charleston as a reasonable result of having better individual players. To take two steps forward, I went into the game against Columbus with a headful of whispers that FC Cincy died over the first 70 minutes in the prior game against Chicago, but with more of a make-shift line-up (also, checks out). The team came back, I was told, on the strength of a rush of first-teamers and a wonder goal by Roland “Huzzah!” Lamah (look, just run with it, someone?). When the game against Columbus didn’t start so good, it all tracked as, “Columbus is better than Chicago, so this is expected, but, look! Lamah made a play! Green shoots!”
Trouble is, it never stopped looking not so good, and the green shoot got sent off for a two-footed tackle from behind. Cincinnati looked helpless before that, and utterly lost after it. Had Columbus played that game (and that game alone) for the kill, God help us. Or them. By which I mean FC Cincinnati. Here’s why:
Overall
All the above constitutes the sum of my knowledge of how FC Cincinnati actually stacks up against MLS opposition. It’s a tiny sample, but, on the evidence, their depth is nowhere near ready, and something close enough to the first team looked like turtles on their backs against a team that (with a fluff!) tied for 4th place in an arguably weaker, and definitely unbalanced, Eastern Conference last season. As much as I understand the decision to emphasize defense in Year of MLS I: 1) it is possible to over-emphasize it…honest; and, most damningly, 2) will it even work?
I have one very specific, cloying fear about, well, everything: if Cincinnati played a 3-5-2 against Columbus and they did nothing to push-back on possession, there is a flaw. You can have the best defenders in the damn league, maybe even the planet, and they will still get fucked all the way up if their midfield can’t prevent short, precise passes into space through the final third. Ideally, this is an issue driven by unfamiliarity, and not by personnel, the kind of wrinkles that reps will iron out. Going the other way, and sweet JESUS, if you sign that many defensive midfielders and none of them work? Now you’ve got scouting issues…
There Are Questions. In no particular order:
What’s My Greatest Fear? That this team will be profoundly boring to watch. Whether by grinding out a 0-0 draw hideous as neon sandpaper, or getting everything this side of the mercy rule in a succession of blowouts, I am terrified that I’ll endure 25+ borderline unwatchable games this season. And, hell, no, I will not pretend to enjoy it for even one minute.
Am I Still Open-Minded? Yes. Yes, I am.
What About a 4-4-2? I’m not a massive formation guy, so I appreciate that I might get aggressively checked this theory, but why not a 4-4-2? For goalkeeper…honestly, I don’t care so long as they visibly don’t suck, I’ll take him/her/it, so, moving on to the positions that matter (practically, aesthetically), I see a defense of Alvas Powell, Mathieu Deplagne/Nick Hagglund, Kendall Waston, and Justin Hoyte/(healthy) Greg Garza. The four-man midfield would go Emmanuel Ledesma, Victor Ulloa, Leonardo Bertone, and Roland Lamah. Up front, I’d have Fanendo Adi either knocking down for Darren Mattocks, or knocking it back to Bertone/Ulloa for re-circulation. The fullbacks would ladder up as needed to change the look, etc…
Will that work? Eh, we’ll only know if the manager ever tries it. If not, who knows? I can imagine some upsides, if nothing else. You can get fairly defensive or offensive in short order with that set up. And if this team cannot connect the defense to (and this is crucial) enough players in the attack, the season will be over before it starts. I use Ledesma and Lamah as contrasting players, guys you can flip to stretch one side of the defense here, while trying draw it out and play around it there.
Absolutely everything written above comes from glancing at a canvas with a few preliminary chalk lines scratched into it. I don’t expect much from FC Cincinnati’s 2019, but I won’t lie: I do hope to be entertained – and that’s whether by glory, guts, or consistent, extravagant, therefore comic, failure. As posited above (the thing about being open-minded), I can picture a counter-narrative. For now, though, let’s put markers down on either side of what FC Cincinnati’s best (plausible) and worst (just the worst) scenarios over its first 10 games. First, those games:
@ Seattle Sounders
@ Atlanta United FC
v. Portland Timbers
@ New England Revolution
v. Philadelphia Union
v. Sporting Kansas City
@ Los Angeles FC
v. Real Salt Lake
@ New York Red Bulls
@ Philadelphia Union
Projections
I can conjure a path to 10 points in there, but, honest to God, if this team in this state gets 10 points from its first 10 games, choruses of dolphins shall chirp in heretofore unheard notes to celebrate the miracle. That’s a tough schedule for any team in MLS, never mind an unbalanced expansion team. To be clear about what they’re up against, I count six almost automatic losses in there. With that in mind…
A Realistic, Positive Haul for Points: Anything above nine should make them feel very, very good, but I’d take anything north of six. Again, that is a tough run. If they go below four to start the 2019 season, though – and mind the goal differential, especially after those first two games…oh, dear God…
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