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| Of course it involves a chess metaphor... |
When you support a team that isn’t competitive (e.g., the Portland Timbers), it sharpens both what you see in, and your appreciation about, another team you follow. Even though they lost 0-2 to Los Angeles FC, FC Cincinnati kept their chances…more or less alive in the game (or on life support), all the way to where you could hear the echo of the final whistle. And, in the context of “already presumed world champion” versus “guileless expansion team,” that’s a decent result for Cincinnati.
More to the point, it was a decent game for FC Cincy. They might not have made so many chances outside the only one I bothered to note (in…my notes), but they had chances. Sure, they got out-played on the math side of things, but, more importantly, they managed to play the game in the middle of the field for the most part, or at least that’s where their press showed up, and that worked for (literally) most of the night. At the same time, I think there’s an issue: if the rest of the league studies where defenders are when that midfield pressure breaks, Cincy might have at least a handful of slack-jaw goals in their future. LAFC’s late, back-breaking goal gives a glimpse of what I’m talking about, but, in my darkest visions, I’m talking about driving around the Maginot Line.
To yank that thought out of my history books, think Cincinnati’s line of engagement has worked for them for most of the season. I believe it works pretty well against teams without a lot of talent at the forward position – e.g., the Portland Timbers – but, against LAFC and Carlos Vela/Diego Rossi, it plays out differently. For instance, Vela can go shoulder-to-shoulder with quality defenders (in this case, an impressively-sized Kendall Waston; for video, see "late, back-breaking"), and Rossi can pull them apart (even if he mostly did not last night), and that’s the difference between LAFC and Portland, and a lot of teams in MLS. Also, Cincinnati did not put up a ton of shots, and that tells you that LAFC didn’t give up a ton on the defensive side either (and now I'm really freaked about my first team (Portland) falling behind). In just about any way you can think of, this was FC Cincinnati against the best team in Major League Soccer, and on the road. And Cincy kept the game within one thin fuck up, or one quality opportunity, of sharing the points until the very end of the game. I’d call that not bad, not bad at all.
More to the point, it was a decent game for FC Cincy. They might not have made so many chances outside the only one I bothered to note (in…my notes), but they had chances. Sure, they got out-played on the math side of things, but, more importantly, they managed to play the game in the middle of the field for the most part, or at least that’s where their press showed up, and that worked for (literally) most of the night. At the same time, I think there’s an issue: if the rest of the league studies where defenders are when that midfield pressure breaks, Cincy might have at least a handful of slack-jaw goals in their future. LAFC’s late, back-breaking goal gives a glimpse of what I’m talking about, but, in my darkest visions, I’m talking about driving around the Maginot Line.
To yank that thought out of my history books, think Cincinnati’s line of engagement has worked for them for most of the season. I believe it works pretty well against teams without a lot of talent at the forward position – e.g., the Portland Timbers – but, against LAFC and Carlos Vela/Diego Rossi, it plays out differently. For instance, Vela can go shoulder-to-shoulder with quality defenders (in this case, an impressively-sized Kendall Waston; for video, see "late, back-breaking"), and Rossi can pull them apart (even if he mostly did not last night), and that’s the difference between LAFC and Portland, and a lot of teams in MLS. Also, Cincinnati did not put up a ton of shots, and that tells you that LAFC didn’t give up a ton on the defensive side either (and now I'm really freaked about my first team (Portland) falling behind). In just about any way you can think of, this was FC Cincinnati against the best team in Major League Soccer, and on the road. And Cincy kept the game within one thin fuck up, or one quality opportunity, of sharing the points until the very end of the game. I’d call that not bad, not bad at all.
At the same time, the approach taken by Cincinnati isn’t exactly sophisticated. I recalled them (or rather summoned up from my notes) relying too much on long diagonals to generate attacking momentum, and I don’t recall it working nearly often enough. By around the 70th minute, I scribbled that they looked like a team that can fight your team all day, only without necessarily winning the game. In that specific sense, the preseason knock on FC Cincinnati came true: they can defend (even if further upfield than the original theory held), but they’re going to scrap for goals against any teams they can't boss around in midfield, glass jaws, please apply, etc.. At the same time, why not interpret last night’s result as a way of placing FC Cincy into it proper spot within MLS? What if, for the time being, it makes perfect sense to call them the team that’s hell to play, but that won’t often win the game?
On the plus side, “elite” is outside the norm in MLS, and I mean that culturally, aka, the idea that any team can attain excellence over time is new, and therefore necessarily tenuous in MLS. The New York Red Bulls have proved they could be among the best teams in MLS – and even after shipping Dax McCarty and Sacha Kljestan – and that’s held for half a decade, only to (lightly) fall apart this season. Until that happened, they were the very model of a modern great MLS team, which, I suppose isn’t so different from the Houston Dynamo and the New England Revolution being so good back in the previous decade…but weren’t those just teams built from better personnel as opposed to a superior system, and is it possible that Cincinnati falls into neither slot, at least not yet?
At some point over the weekend (time…she’s fuzzy), the model-breaking reality of Cincinnati’s whole damn existence finally came into focus. They have neither the personnel for trophy-winning success, nor a system in which to play it, and they could go either way at this point, but I doubt they'll go far from the middle. And, while I don’t know where they’ll finish at the end of the season, I think that their defensive spine and the rough competence of the way they play has a fair shot to carrying them to the playoffs. That's less a commentary on FC Cincy, than it is a commentary on the teams around them: if those teams can't beat the new kids, they totally deserve their final (yet always temporary) spot on the ash-bin of history. Basiclly, FC Cincinnati can only make the post-season if a couple other teams make way for them – e.g., and rather terrifyingly, both New York teams and Atlanta United FC, aka, an unhealthy balance of the league’s more ambitious, higher-spending teams. This whole enterprise feels tenuous, in that sense, but it looks like Cincinnati built the right model to exploit it.
As to the game itself, and to close on some happy talk, no one stood out and no one failed to step up. FC Cincinnati has shown by now that they can defend against several teams in America’s top flight, and that they have, factually, scored against every team they’ve played against with (literally) two exceptions in seven games. It’s the identity and state of the two teams that beat them where the questions come in. LAFC is definitely, and by consensus, league-elite, but is the Philadelphia Union? And I intend that question for 2019 alone because, whatever they did this weekend, Atlanta United FC hasn’t been league-elite in 2019 (and as for the Portland Timbers, yes, my mother died). The point is, take away those two games, and the shell-shocked loss to the Seattle Sounders to start the season, Cincinnati boasts an unbeaten record against the league’s struggling teams, as well as against a team that sought to cheat its way to victory. The point being, has FC Cincy already telegraphed its level to the rest of the league – e.g., good enough, but not league-elite?
I’m going to wrap up with some bullet points, both on Cincinnati and the game. As such, I’m going to start with the game…
- It never got into Diego Rossi’s head that cutting in from the left wasn’t working, at least not against FC Cincy. I’m not saying he believed his own press from last weekend, but I am saying that the competitive arena will always expose your level.
- Jesus Christ, have I not mentioned LAFC’s first goal till now? For as little sense as it made (e.g., Mark-Anthony Kaye did not rise up for that header), it was pretty good.
- Darren Mattocks has been Cincinnati’s best attacking player, IMHO. Is it time to build the attack around him, or is it time to build a new attack?
- Sorry to go back to LAFC again, but Jordan Harvey had one hell of a game. Those top-shelf, under-the-radar players make this league go ‘round, dammit, and God bless ‘em!
- Unless my fairly stoned notes lied to me, LAFC’s Tyler Miller survived two totally shit plays tonight. That’s also commentary on FC Cincinnati’s failure to capitalize on them.
Honestly, I like the whole idea of break-downs as a place to end this post. When given the opportunity, good teams are ruthless, lethal even. Carlos Vela has been lethal for as long as 2019 has been in business. FC Cincinnati doesn’t have a player like that. The players they have in most positions probably aren’t better than most of their type-to-type players across MLS. Does it matter at this point? On the one hand, one can argue that, with Atlanta finally picking up a win and both New York teams picking up draws in tough venues, that those well-funded teams will make the run they’ve threatened to make since the end of last season. Sure, that could be true…
…I’m just saying, see how Cincinnati manages the opposition, including those teams. They are built to frustrate. Also, I’m not sure how many teams in MLS are built to get around frustration.
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