Columbus Crew SC 2-2 FC Cincinnati: Hell Is Full of Mistakes

The caption reads, "epic butt goal." On par.

Since I'm a day late at least, and since everyone who cares to knows that the first “Hell Is Real” match ended with FC Cincinnati drawing Columbus Crew SC 2-2 in Columbus (wee victory!), I’ll rein in the usual narrative excess and just spit out some bullet points. Here goes:

- This was a bad result for Columbus. Leaving the closest thing you get to free points in MLS on the table puts them where Cincinnati has been since the middle of the summer – i.e., thinking about 2020. Moreover, they throttled their own modest momentum.

- One last note on Columbus: they’re surprisingly wasteful. An uncomfortable quantity of their forward passes end as unfinished thoughts and they resort to the pointless cross too willingly. And yet, even when they do getapileofchances to put away the game (see the link under "a" for the most egregious and heave out another sigh of relief) and stay in the conversation for seventh in the East*…let’s just say I could hear the choking sound all the way over here on the West coast and a day and a half later.

(* aka, the only open conversation left to the teams below the playoff line in the Eastern Conference, as I see it.)

- Every goal in the game followed from a clear defensive lapse. For starters, I’d argue Pedro Santos’ goal was nothing more or less than a beautiful ending to a bad play – i.e., Cincinnati’s failure to manage a quick restart (and I’d put real money on Santos missing that shot 8 times out of 10). As for the rest: Maikel van der Werff had no reason to nudge Gyasi Zardes off the play; Columbus gambled so hard on covering Kendall Waston that they left Darren Mattocks free for Cincy's first; and Roland Lamah’s cross had no business finding Emmanuel Ledesma through that crowd (but nice run by Mattocks on that play, even if he didn’t finish it). These are the things that happen to bad teams.

- That said, I continue to believe that FC Cincy has rounded into an approximation of competence. They’ve figured out where and how to play the pieces they have, they have more moments of productive play that doesn’t look accidental and, here and there, they can get another team on its heels. At the same time, this just got a little trickier.

- I’m talking, of course, about the multiplicity of debuts that took place during Saturday’s game: head coach Ron Jans’ first game in charge, Andrew Gutman’s starting debut, and Joseph-Claude Gyau’s and Derrick Etienne Jr.s’ debut as subs. To take each of those in turn…

Jans: I didn’t notice a difference. You?

Gutman: I started tracking his “stand-out moments” – e.g., those times he did something visibly impactful (in offense) or important (on defense) – and counted six by the end, four of them on the attacking side, two of them defensive. Both defensive plays were solo efforts, and that’s a big deal, but I got most geeked up about the way he cut inside scrambled Columbus’ defense.

Also, starting Gutman frees Mathieu Deplagne to start at right back, a problem spot for Cincy. Nothing stood out. I mean nothing. Still, I’m hopeful about the future.

Gyau/Etienne: Don’t read too much into this, but, when these two came on, it undid the whole business of “figuring out where and how to play the pieces they have” noted above. Figuring out where (or whether) to play both of these guys, not to mention who to pair them with, will always require a learning curve. Each of them showed flashes, so that’s something to look forward to. My one tentative thought for now is whether you play Gyau and Etienne Jr. at the same time.

- To stick with Gyau, I heard something about injuries hampering his career abroad and I can’t pretend that doesn’t concern me. It’s the same story as Greg Garza: an oft-injured player is an oft-injured player; you can sign Lionel Messi, but if he’s hurt all the time, he stops being Messi and becomes the team doctor’s accidental best friend.

- If I had to name anyone FC Cincy’s MVP, I’d go with Victor Ulloa, and for a very specific reason. When they’re out of possession – especially when playing a lead – Cincinnati tends to defend deep and invite the opposition to break them down; even when they force the other team to play the ball back to look for fresh angles, Cincinnati didn’t push up its line, at least on Saturday. Columbus obliged in the end, but I don’t like that posture regardless. Ulloa was the player I saw pushing back and out most often. There’s a time to sit back and stay organized, but it shouldn’t last 60 minutes.

- Finally, I’m still torn on Tyton Przemyslaw. Some of that follows from what I perceive as Cincy’s needs in the system they play – i.e., they use the ‘keeper to play out of the back, which means you need a guy with good feet back there. I give Tyton full credit for his latesaves, in particular (and he had a couple others besides), but I don’t know that he’s better or worse than Spencer Richey as a shot-stopper. Bottom line: all things being equal, I’d start the guy with better feet.

- Whoops, one more: I saw van der Werff doing a lot of organizing back there, and that’s a good thing.

That’s all I’ve got on this one. Till the next 90, cheers!