FC Cincinnati 1-2 Vancouver Whitecaps: Life at the Bottom of the Barrel

Call it a figure 3 1/2.

FC Cincinnati lost 2-0 to the Vancouver Whitecaps at home last night in a game in which they did everything right and everything wrong in the same 90 minutes. They dictated the direction of traffic most of the night and produced twenty of chances (literally), only to get burned by a couple randos going the wrong way up a one way. The second goal they coughed up – i.e., the one that put the break into the bend – followed from the kind of failures an overload forces by design. When Ali Adnan (Jr.; hope that’s right) ran into the channel, he begged the question that FC Cincy failed to answer: who marks the fullback when he runs into the channel between the fullback and the centerback?

I suppose “random” better applies to Vancouver’s first goal, a long-range knock-back from a player (Hwang In-Beom) scoring just his second in Vancouver white. The real pisser is that Cincinnati fired plenty of credible shots toward the Canadians’ goal – e.g., Justin Hoyte’s corker in the opening couple minutes, Emmanuel Ledesma’s near-post sneaker, another one from Ledesma around the 57th (note how the name repeats), Mathieu Deplagne’s one-time attempt at a lob (off the crossbar), and even Leonardo Bertone’s late free kick that kissed the outside of the post – but it’s also worth noting that, of all those shots, at least three of them weren’t at actual risk of going in. If one wanted to explain this game by numbers alone, that 20/3 split between shots and shots on goal for FC Cincinnati finishes the thought that started with the possession/passes/passing percentage number. If there’s some alternate timeline where FC Cincinnati ran up the score on those chances, Darren Mattocks didn’t start in it.

And to think it all started so promisingly. In a preview twitter thread, I singled out Allan Cruz as a potential key to the game and underlined the general importance of Cincy being the first team to score. Cruz delivered as early as the first 5-6 minutes (fine, it was six; five just has a certain ring to it) by capping off a…reasonably well-executed goal (per the cliché, they all count). Cruz almost did it again at the start of the first half, but Maxime Crepeau made the save, and thus ended two promising starts to as many halves. Sadly, as just as some guy whose name I don’t remember and who I’m not about to dig deep enough to find (also, if you read this, claim it!), the tweet that argued that Cincinnati struggles to close out halves. Based on last night alone he (pretty sure) wasn’t wrong.

These are the nights that every fan knows, only some more than others. You can’t really complain about a single, damning mistake – not unless you fault Kendall Waston for knocking the ball to In-Beom’s feet out of a scrum, or if you can name the one player who should have tracked Adnan’s run. FC Cincy lost this game as a team, and with different kinds of lack of sharpness on both ends of the field. And that leads me to say something counter-intuitive at best, naïve at worst: I’d call FC Cincinnati the better team last night; the problem is, they weren’t the winning team. And that’s precisely what’s killing them and their season in 2019.

To drill down from that negative, I didn’t see any cause to second-guess Yoann Domet’s starting eleven. With Fanendo Adi injured and Rashwan Dally looking…fine (and he could be injured; didn’t look), giving Mattocks a shot made perfect sense…until it didn’t. With his contribution to Cincy’s opening goal noted, Mattocks reveals the shortcomings of the “grab-everything-available” approach Cincinnati took in its first roster build for its MLS era.

Before…lightly tearing into Mattocks, I want re-emphasize my belief that this was a team loss. Mattocks did as many good and useful things on the field tonight as any player wearing orange and blue. That’s not to say he was perfect – frankly, Mattocks has the instincts of a road-kill possum when it comes to inter-play; too often, he passes on option after option as if to say, "only he can fix it" – but Mattocks did grow into the game and his role in it.

He also negated a lot of promising opportunities by taking up weird places on the field, and that broadens the discussion to the coaching staff’s role in Mattocks’ movements. My point is, some of it was deliberate – e.g., I saw enough instances where Mattocks set up to play an option on the left, while Cruz loomed centrally (I never figured out what either Roland Lamah or Ledesma did on those occasions; damn small screens) – and that positioning was a mixed bag on its own. Vancouver defended and that left Mattocks and Deplagne tripping over one another on Cincy’s left; that’s something Cincinnati never adjusted to for the length of the first half.

That slow strangulation defined the game, right alongside the chain of opportunities Cincinnati found by generally controlling the game. To analogizing soccer to a form of fighting (as I’m fond of doing, despite the fact I rarely watch any form of fighting), Vancouver managed the equivalent of slipping out of a submission hold. Only they did it twice, and one more time than FC Cincinnati managed to finish their collective thought and score a goal of their own. A team has to put the ball in the back of the net at some point, and Vancouver, legit, did it twice last night and Cincinnati did it only once. As always, the most basic math is the most harsh.

To give Vancouver their minute, I see them as a team built around individual talent pulling off the odd moment of grace/glory. Anyone watching this game saw both – deconstructive grace on their second goal, and the glory of In-Beom’s shot – but any team better than Cincinnati would have buried the chances that Vancouver, factually, left open for the worst, and the worst attacking, team MLS. The ‘Caps play low percentage stuff, really, and I expect this will be a rare result for them between now and the rest of 2019. The season for both teams amounts to a steady effort of throwing bodies between yourself and the bottom of the barrel.

That’s everything about the game. To close this out with a series of random thoughts – with a little for both teams:

- I had this dialog with a guy about Forrest Lasso on twitter that started…I think started around halftime. As I did a lot last season, he raised the question of how Forrest Lasso isn’t starting in MLS after watching him play for Nashville SC. I labored Lasso’s fate as much as I needed to on twitter, but I would argue the same thing applies to Caleb Stanko. He’s a small step over “goon” material in my book, but what I tweeted about Lasso in MLS applies equally to Stanko: “he wasn’t awful, but he was never a strength.”

I can’t name a single uninjured player on Cincy’s who can do what Stanko does out there (thinking/hoping Fatai Alashe comes healthy and around), but he’s also one of those, “that’s their ceiling” kind of players. He’s not a great passer, he’s not a great enforcer, so…nailing down someone for that role (in whatever scheme) CAN be something Cincinnati shops for next season.

- Lamah’s essential invisibility in this game may or may not say something about his future. He had a stronger second half than his first, but, one play aside, he didn’t impact the game. Of which, good segue…

- Ledesma should be one of the last players/positions this team upgrades. Or, in more practical terms, whatever failures you see in Ledesma’s contributions, they are far from Cincinnati’s biggest worries. Like every other player carried over from Cincy's USL roster, he's had to adjust to MLS. And he's done a decent job.

- Before I lose it, I have a quick interjection on Vancouver: Theo Bair has an upside, but I’m not sure Vancouver’s coaching staff has figured it (or anything else) out yet. In all honestly, this was your west coast doppelganger, FC Cincinnati.

- The situation at striker is appalling for FC Cincy. With everything in flux as it is – especially with Adi injured (and generally fucked up) - it’s hard to rank any of them against the other. At this point, though, my hierarchy goes Rashawn Dally, (injured) Adi, Mattocks. All in all, I rate Mattocks as too much of a self-aggrandizing wild card to be more than an occasionally useful player for any team. And every team needs better than that.

- Last question – and this will be a quiz – where in the flying hell do you see Frankie Amaya playing in the future? How does his skill-set translate?

Right, that’s me all out of thoughts and questions. Feel free to comment (I don’t bite, I elevate!).