FC Cincinnati 3-2 Houston Dynamo: Tortoise and Hare Metaphors, Strained

Knew I wasn't the only one who mixed that metaphor....

To start with the big question, what the hell just happened out there? If I’m allowed a follow-up (yes, go ahead), did I like it?

The answer to that hinges on what I really think about the Houston Dynamo’s apparent decision to sit out the first 50 minutes of the game. Could head coach Wilmer Cabrera really have sent them out under instructions to cool their heels through 50 minutes, even if hell and high-water washed over it all, and that they’d start playing then and only then? I don’t want to take anything away from FC Cincinnati, who won every header and clogged even more passing lanes over the same period, and they absolutely deserve credit, both for that and finishing their chances (Rashawn!) on their way to a 3-0 lead (not that one, this one). All the same, Houston struggled to build out of the back, and with lack of trying front and center. Midfielders played the ball backwards over and over again throughout the first half, and without any visible pressure around them; both of their d-mids, Juan Cabezas and Matias Vera, dropped centrally to act as an outlet, but Houston’s defenders bypassed that option again and again, in favoring of shoving the ball up the wings. And Cincinnati’s midfield players – led by Emmanuel Ledesma – chewed that shit up every time.

The Dynamo applied its first (remotely useful) spell of pressure around the middle-50s, when they finally pinned Cincinnati into its defensive end and set up a siege that, ultimately, came very, very (very, very) uncomfortably close to forcing a draw, or…let’s just call it God forbid. The thing that undid Houston was ‘keeper Joe Willis letting a weak shot to roll between his legs just as Houston got its momentum going (see "this one," above). There was no reason to assume that would prove the difference when it happened – honestly, I expected Cincinnati to score one more until about the 80th minute – but Houston flipped a pretty big switch once they found it. When the Mark (probably) Gantor (probably; no offense; I love referees) blew the final whistle, the game ended in a desperately-needed 3-2 win for FC Cincinnati. I call this a great result, and without reservation. After the worst loss in franchise history any win is an unqualified good thing, don’t look gift horses in the mouth, and mind where the Pope has a shit, and so on. (Wait…I always get the thing with popes and bears turned around.)

And yet, how does one shake the feeling that Houston thought they could sit out the first 50 minutes of the game? I’m fine with anyone challenging that thesis, because there’s ample reason to do so; getting Kendall Waston back mattered, and the same goes for the highly-/usefully-active Allan Cruz. Cincy’s movement was good too, and steady, enough to make that 80th minute assumption noted above look like anything but daffy. In their best moments of transition, Cincinnati’s players shifted around to find space and provide options, and all that work meant less spazzing in the end. To top it all off, Mathieu Deplagne had himself a game against Alberth Elis, and on both sides of the ball. All that was so great and it felt true enough for me to come up with a title/theme built around a tortoise-v-hare redux, i.e., the case that Houston decided they could dilly-dally on their way to beating Cincinnati, perhaps in the service of resting tired legs. That didn’t hold up in the end (hence the change), but the truly unnerving thing – and let’s just go ahead and call it a pisser – is how close the Dynamo came to proving the theory.

I don’t know what you call it (internalized inferiority complex?), but it felt like things came too easy when Houston decided to step up. The simple reality is that, once their players started to do things they didn’t in the first half – e.g., something simple as Houston’s Adam Lundkvist taking the chance at playing around Ledesma instead of passing the ball backwards – they got behind and around Cincinnati again and again. In so many words, Houston looked lethargic until a combination of half-time and going down two goals forced a reckoning. Up to that point, the bulk of their passes ranged from poor to hopeful (at best), and they made the (again, apparent) decision to limit their counter-attack to long-balls to an isolated Elis, and Deplagne ate that shit up like a toddler playing “airplane” at dinner. While I’m sure Cincinnati dialed back its (impressively effective) high pressure as the game went on, the moment with Lundkvist described above happened around the 90th minute. Basically, once the tide turned, it never rolled in the other direction. In the basic, big-picture, I can’t decide whether Cincinnati won this game or Houston lost it, but fuck it, I’m happy Cincy won it, if for no other reason than four wins steers them past at least one dismal record (see DC United; also, apples to apples).

On a brighter note – and despite the mid-week unnecessary airing of weird linens, I do see a near-term foundation coming in for FC Cincinnati – and, to the extent I’m repeat myself, I apologize. As well as he’s done for them, Justin Hoyte (age 34) will probably age/skill out within a year or two and it’s precisely BECAUSE he’s done as well as he has that he becomes a hole to fill (despite giving up tonight’s penalty kick). The brighter spots shows up with Kendall Waston (just 31), Leonardo Bertone (age 25), and Cruz (just 23). Kekuta Manneh is still young (24) and, at age 26 (and in spite of tonight’s own-goal), Nick Hagglund amounts to solid, generally reliable depth and long-time fans of MLS should know what that’s worth (call it a quantity of birds, hand-v-bush scenario).

The player who impressed me more than anyone else tonight was Ledesma – and that had everything to do with his defensive presence. Because Cincinnati has so many two-way players – Cruz, Bertone, and Victor Ulloa among them – Ledesma’s attacking qualities really do stand out. He’s directed traffic in the attacking third almost as much as any player on the roster and that feels worth paying attention to. Sure, his assist to Manneh required only one kind of precision (weight, mostly), but having him serve as the brain on one side, while Deplagne acts as the brain of the other feels like something that could work reasonably well. The larger point is that it’s arguably the gaps between those players that FC Cincinnati should, or could, look to fill during the reported rebuild.

As bad and/or reactive as Houston was for most of tonight, I’m opting to enjoy this win more than anything else. All the way up until the point when they were decidedly not, FC Cincinnati was the better team for most of the night. If nothing else, they scored three goals – literally one-sixth of the goals they’re scored over 19 games. So, again, not a terrible night, no matter the circumstances.

And, in that specific sense, I’ve been thinking more about realistic goals for the rest of Cincinnati’s inaugural MLS season. The post-season feels out of reach due more to expected progress from all the teams above them – e.g., the improved New England Revolution alone, plus a stubborn Orlando City SC team - than it follows from the nine-point gap between them and the playoff line. So maybe the animating idea becomes making Nippert Stadium a fortress going forward, or just taking the field as an absolute terror to any marginal team with a headful of misplaced playoff dreams.

The biggest contrast I saw between this game and the last…just distressing loss, was an aggressive defensive posture. If nothing else, Cincinnati should strive to make the defensive effort in this game its defining feature for the rest of 2019. Whatever happens in the near-future, ending this season on any kind of positive should be the primary mission.

Oh, and they have a gift in Spencer Richey that they’d be unwise to overlook. All for this week.