Atlanta United FC 2-1 FC Cincinnati: A Different Feeling in My Stomach

Explaining a nonsense phrase below...

I’m going to use Atlanta United FC’s second goal as exemplary evidence that they are a better team than FC Cincinnati. The latter’s defense earned every shot you want to take at its shape, but Emerson Hyndman, 1) spotted the space, 2) Ezequiel Barco found it, and with a well-weighted pass and, more than the first two points, 3) Hyndman’s touch took him around the defender and opened Spencer Richey’s all the way up. A professional player 10 yards from goal with the ‘keeper on or near his line ends badly nine times outta ten, and that’s how one team breaks down another team, or vice versa, and whatever that means.

As people paying careful attention already know, Atlanta beat FC Cincy last night by a final score of 2-1. Cincinnati pulled one back with a slicing shot from Yuya Kubo ("golazo"? srsly, MLSSoccer.com; are expectations so low?), and they had a couple chances besides – good ones, too – but Atlanta already had one crack in Cincy’s defense in the bank before the second one happened, and that left the Orange and Blue playing out of a hole for the second week running…

…and yet, I feel good. Bah-nah-nah-nah-nah.

For anyone watching at home, no, you didn’t imagine it: Cincinnati put up a fair number of shots last night, and more than Atlanta. In fact, Cincy nearly doubled Atlanta’s necked shots total (i.e., just shots not shots on goal; eight for Atlanta v 14 for Cincinnati), but two key thoughts follow from that:

1) Did Cincinnati ever appear entirely in control of last night’s match?

2) The box score from Atlanta’s season-opening win over Nashville SC looks much the same, and the result looks exactly the same.

The question is, what you draw from all that?

For me, it’s hope. To repeat a point, Atlanta has better players in key positions on the field; when they receive the ball in a tight space, each player either senses or knows where to push his first touch to keep the play moving forward; gravity-altering moments like that keep a defense chasing and open up options wherever the player in question is facing, and so the attack carries on, with chaos following chaos. That has a lot to do with why Atlanta has the savvy and talent to play through a bunkered defense, and you can see the ideas coming together even when it’s misfiring; the runs, the little drop passes, all of it designed to find the widest possible path to the opposition goal. When you can do that, the quality of your shots will erase whatever concerns you have about the quantity.

If I can take a quick interlude, Cincinnati’s midfield once chased the Barco across the width of the pitch, hounding him while he tried to find a better option; Cincinnati eventually forced him off the ball, and the whole thing ended with Jurgen Locadia being something less than he all could be for a final shot, but that shows there are limits to Atlanta’s upside. Going the other way, Barco’s one hell of dribbler (i.e., very quick, keeps the ball close), and damned solid on inter-play to boot; think Darlington Nagbe, only with attacking intent. All I’m saying here is that Cincinnati had a lot to cope with against Atlanta and, to their credit, they pretty much did.

It’s here where I flip the script. So long as Atlanta United FC is a good team – whether with Josef Martinez, or without – Cincinnati gave them plenty to think about last night, and on Atlanta’s home field. I made the mistake of reviewing the MLS15 highlight reel before typing all this out, and that sucked the wind out of the sails a little, because Allan Cruz’s header still looks like Cincinnati’s highlight, but I saw plenty to be encouraged by out there yesterday. In no particular order:

- Locadia looks more like a traditional “big man” every time I see him, but he also went wide and played did some good things on the edges of the area. A big forward who can roam around causes all kinds of problems. That kind of movement alone provides something Cincinnati fans never saw out of Fanendo Adi, and that means (clear) UPGRADE!

- After hearing talk of Kubo’s quickness with the ball at his feet, I saw a couple examples tonight. His goal was the highlight (duh), but he had a pair of moments out wide where he shook past a defender and did something useful one way or the other.

- For all that, I'm most piqued by Adrien Regattin, who looks more like the free radical who can scramble a defense to make space for those two players and more every time I see him. For one, he’s quick like Kubo, but also faster; add his close control to the mix, and suddenly you’ve got the player with a fair shot at beat the first defender, maybe even the next one, and, if/when he pulls it off – poof! – there goes the other side’s defensive shape. If Cincy can weaponize that...

Switching to the defense….well, that’s a little trickier. With only a two-game sample in hand, I’d call tonight’s defensive performance better than the first half against the New York Red Bulls. While I’d never call them in command, or even proactive, they didn’t get pulled completely apart a ton (here’s a rare exception), and that’s a good-to-great thing, obviously. Moreover, before the latter half of the second half, the motto/slogan that best described Cincinnati’s posture would have been “beat us.” Atlanta’s response to that was both complicated and indicative: based on what I saw out of them tonight (and it matches some half-forgotten memory to boot), Atlanta generally moved the ball upfield and into dangerous places with interplay between the wing and the channel. That allows them to get the ball into dangerous places around the attacking third; the barbarians appear at the gate in short order, basically, and it’s all about coping from there.

To finish the thought, Cincinnati gave up more ground than shots (see above) and that, at the end of it all, kept them not just competitive, but within one scrappy shot of leaving one of the toughest venues in MLS with a point. And that’s a pretty solid day at the office…which is to say, even if some asshole co-worker stole all your ideas and got the promotion around you, at least you have the pleasure of knowing you’re on the right track.

I’m not prepared to say that FC Cincinnati is there yet. If nothing else, the way Atlanta plays – i.e., see notes above about interplay between the wings and flank – means that they generally played around the position I still believe is weakest for FC Cincy: defensive midfield. In the here and now, I’m making no definitive statement as to whether that’s an actual problem, or that I just want it to be so I have something to talk about; I’m mostly saying Atlanta didn’t play in a way that tested the proposition.

To wrap things up, I really would call this an impressive performance – one that only looks better for the way it built on the second half of MLS Week 1. Cincinnati heads home for their next game – they host DC United next weekend – and, based on what (frankly little) I’ve seen out of DC, that presents a decent chance to show the world how much they’ve improved.