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| Sometimes you use it to break your opponent... |
I can tell you the exact moment my spirit broke – and it came well after Columbus Crew SC’s two goals in stupid-quick succession in the first half. That…long, long moment came immediately before Columbus scored its third goal on the night in the form of a three-to-four-minute span of baby-seal-in-a-pod-of-orcas collective helplessness from FC Cincinnati as they strained…horrifically to pass the ball out of their defensive third without giving in to despair and/or the hapless long ball. This game ended the second Columbus understood they could give Cincinnati the collective vapors with a little aggressive man-marking in Cincy’s defensive third. It also ended 4-0 in Columbus’ favor.
In the bigger picture, with literally everything in the starting line-ups breathily hinting toward a Columbus win, what reason did anyone have beyond COVID-layoff-and-a-prayer to think that Cincinnati would win this game? Columbus hardly shined in 2019 (no playoffs, 10th in the East), but they had a better foundation on which to build and they added better-pedigreed pieces – e.g., Lucas Zelarayan, who, incidentally, came more than a little good last night. More than anything else, Columbus added pieces between 2019 and 20 to make a midfield that looks coherent. Artur with Darlington Nagbe behind Youness Mohktar, Zelarayan and Luis Diaz made sense on paper – and even more sense when you saw it work in practice, e.g., a 5-7 minute of terror by Diaz in Cincy’s left channel. The point is, Columbus has a well-constructed midfield scheme, a system where every player makes some sense where you see them, even if only conceptually.
Going the other way, every theory I saw on the midfield that FC Cincinnati threw (up) onto the field tonight just did not make sense. The 4-1-4-1 line-up MLS’s site shows for the line-up wasn’t miles off, but the scheme that worked…at least for as long as it did – and that’s 15 minutes, maybe 20 – looked more like a 4-3-3, and I say that admitting I had a hell of a time finding Haris Medunjanin out there. That said, even if you allow for a line-up that had Frankie Amaya, Siem de Jong and Medunjanin playing behind Yuya Kubo, Kekuta Manneh, and Adrien Regattin, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense either. Call me crazy, but it’s like Cincinnati built a bad roster at some point and still haven’t recovered from that original sin…
To touch on Columbus one more time, while there’s some dispute as to whether it took 10 or 20 minutes, most observers seems to agree that both teams spent some time feeling the other out. After Zelarayan broke the spell by curling a free kick into Przemyslaw Tyton’s net, the story of this game was Columbus finding Cincy’s like a psychic masseuse and exploiting every breakdown. They pinned Cincinnati from that point forward, whether by holding possession and passing around and (way too often) through them, or through a man-marking high-press that visibly panicked a Cincy team that’s learning a new system, a new coach, and navigating a pandemic. Nagbe and Artur look like a league-elite deep midfield and, with Zelarayan, Diaz and Mohktar showing flashes of what they can do and players like Pedro Santos and Fanendo Adi waiting in the wings, Columbus’ ceiling keeps pushing up. That said, Vito Wormgoor, new addition for 2020 and heavy-metal icon (obviously), limped off in the first half and he seemed important to Columbus’ plans for 2020. Cincinnati couldn’t test that (can we rewrite the rules to that a team can get points for reaching the midfield stripe?), but who’s to say that Atlanta United FC and the New York Red Bulls won’t, because my guess is they will...
As for FC Cincinnati…Jesus Christ…
For one, it’s bad bones. I wouldn’t bet my house on the Tyton, Saad Abdul-Salaam, Greg Garza, Tom Petterson, Kendall Waston defense, but, after watching all of the goals Cincy gave up (see above, plus this, this and this), I also don’t see Cincy’s back-stop as the biggest issue. Even if the decisive break that lead to each of the four goals lasted just a couple seconds, as noted above, every one of Columbus’ goals followed from a period of sustained pressure, a time of poking and prodding Cincinnati one way or the other. The whole thing ended with Columbus players (and Zelarayan with disturbing frequency) having tons of space in which to run amok when Cincinnati’s shape evaporated. I’d call the second and fourth goals especially embarrassing in that regard…hold on, I’m getting word that the third was also embarrassing, but also probably should not have happened because the ball rolled out, but think how much you’re missing when you argue that point.
In the bigger picture, with literally everything in the starting line-ups breathily hinting toward a Columbus win, what reason did anyone have beyond COVID-layoff-and-a-prayer to think that Cincinnati would win this game? Columbus hardly shined in 2019 (no playoffs, 10th in the East), but they had a better foundation on which to build and they added better-pedigreed pieces – e.g., Lucas Zelarayan, who, incidentally, came more than a little good last night. More than anything else, Columbus added pieces between 2019 and 20 to make a midfield that looks coherent. Artur with Darlington Nagbe behind Youness Mohktar, Zelarayan and Luis Diaz made sense on paper – and even more sense when you saw it work in practice, e.g., a 5-7 minute of terror by Diaz in Cincy’s left channel. The point is, Columbus has a well-constructed midfield scheme, a system where every player makes some sense where you see them, even if only conceptually.
Going the other way, every theory I saw on the midfield that FC Cincinnati threw (up) onto the field tonight just did not make sense. The 4-1-4-1 line-up MLS’s site shows for the line-up wasn’t miles off, but the scheme that worked…at least for as long as it did – and that’s 15 minutes, maybe 20 – looked more like a 4-3-3, and I say that admitting I had a hell of a time finding Haris Medunjanin out there. That said, even if you allow for a line-up that had Frankie Amaya, Siem de Jong and Medunjanin playing behind Yuya Kubo, Kekuta Manneh, and Adrien Regattin, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense either. Call me crazy, but it’s like Cincinnati built a bad roster at some point and still haven’t recovered from that original sin…
To touch on Columbus one more time, while there’s some dispute as to whether it took 10 or 20 minutes, most observers seems to agree that both teams spent some time feeling the other out. After Zelarayan broke the spell by curling a free kick into Przemyslaw Tyton’s net, the story of this game was Columbus finding Cincy’s like a psychic masseuse and exploiting every breakdown. They pinned Cincinnati from that point forward, whether by holding possession and passing around and (way too often) through them, or through a man-marking high-press that visibly panicked a Cincy team that’s learning a new system, a new coach, and navigating a pandemic. Nagbe and Artur look like a league-elite deep midfield and, with Zelarayan, Diaz and Mohktar showing flashes of what they can do and players like Pedro Santos and Fanendo Adi waiting in the wings, Columbus’ ceiling keeps pushing up. That said, Vito Wormgoor, new addition for 2020 and heavy-metal icon (obviously), limped off in the first half and he seemed important to Columbus’ plans for 2020. Cincinnati couldn’t test that (can we rewrite the rules to that a team can get points for reaching the midfield stripe?), but who’s to say that Atlanta United FC and the New York Red Bulls won’t, because my guess is they will...
As for FC Cincinnati…Jesus Christ…
For one, it’s bad bones. I wouldn’t bet my house on the Tyton, Saad Abdul-Salaam, Greg Garza, Tom Petterson, Kendall Waston defense, but, after watching all of the goals Cincy gave up (see above, plus this, this and this), I also don’t see Cincy’s back-stop as the biggest issue. Even if the decisive break that lead to each of the four goals lasted just a couple seconds, as noted above, every one of Columbus’ goals followed from a period of sustained pressure, a time of poking and prodding Cincinnati one way or the other. The whole thing ended with Columbus players (and Zelarayan with disturbing frequency) having tons of space in which to run amok when Cincinnati’s shape evaporated. I’d call the second and fourth goals especially embarrassing in that regard…hold on, I’m getting word that the third was also embarrassing, but also probably should not have happened because the ball rolled out, but think how much you’re missing when you argue that point.
Where does FC Cincinnati go from here? Good freakin’ question. First and foremost, I wouldn’t invest much pain or rage into this result, and for the obvious reason: this is Jaap Stam’s first game in charge, Cincinnati has a bunch of new attacking players, not to mention a big one who is now-absent (Jurgen Locadia). For what it’s worth, I’m more worried about the real/implied train-wreck in midfield. To put that more directly, nothing I saw tonight made so much as a reasonable case for starting Amaya, Medunjanin, and de Jong in any kind of midfield. Personally, I only started to feel better when I saw Allan Cruz, Caleb Stanko, and Fatai Alashe take the field. And there’s a very simple reason for that.
My faith in Cincy’s back-line tops out at reasonable. Between talent, age, and decision-making, I don’t see the Orange and Blue riding that defense higher than mid-table. More bluntly, they need some kind of defensive cover in front of them and I don’t see any one of Amaya, Medunjanin, or de Jong providing it, therefore, how was tonight’s line-ups designed to do anything else but fail, dammit?
My faith in Cincy’s back-line tops out at reasonable. Between talent, age, and decision-making, I don’t see the Orange and Blue riding that defense higher than mid-table. More bluntly, they need some kind of defensive cover in front of them and I don’t see any one of Amaya, Medunjanin, or de Jong providing it, therefore, how was tonight’s line-ups designed to do anything else but fail, dammit?
To plant my flag in one hill, if there’s one player I’d yank a ways out of the starting order it’d be Amaya. Given that most of the passes I saw from him tonight went backwards or backwards-at-an-angle, and given that he’s not the most talented at cutting out passes or stuffing players, I have a very hard time seeing Frankie’s upside. More to the point, nothing I saw tonight dissuaded me from the idea that Cincy needs three players in midfield, and that’s at a minimum: an enforcer/cop, a distributor, and someone to cover ground. They only landed one of those tonight – Medunjanin – but even that’s arguable, given that he never really found the game.
I haven’t mentioned Cincinnati’s attacking players yet, but all the above gives the reason. Manneh gave Cincinnati its best moments, but, one shot aside, he had one player between him and the goal every time. Kubo and Regattin couldn’t do much for most of the same reasons: they had too many Columbus defenders between the goal and them every time they found the ball. For what it’s worth, I don’t see that getting better until Cincinnati can line up the players behind those – plus Locadia – in a way that gets them the ball in a position where they have some tangible advantage. Again, if I had to tell someone why Cincy lost today, I’d say they rarely played an optimal pass.
So…that’s it, right? One game in the books. Columbus knocked it out of the park, obviously, while Cincinnati pulled up a stretch of turf and tried to die under it. C’est la vie, y’know? For what it’s worth, I think Cincy has another awful season in them. They just have a lot of incoherence to shake out of that roster, and that’s going to take time. In the meantime, though, figure out who you can get good things out of, yeah?
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