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| All due respect to TQL Stadium, this is Cincy's home. |
This game was (much) more and (a lot) less of a projection of what I saw in FC Cincinnati’s 2021 season opener: Cincy doesn’t know how to move the ball forward fer shit and, once they lose control of a game, they’re looking at [X minutes] of emergency defending. They failed very, very badly to contain the damage this week, and went all the way down 5-0 on the road against New York City FC. And, with the way NYC played through, over and around them over the last half hour of the game, it could have ended 7-0.
I’m not going to futz around much with the stats or the box score - what does it matter with that final score, for one? - but instead will talk about some obvious, present realities.
Cincinnati Failed to Address Its Greatest Need (…even if it wasn’t obvious)
I’m not talking about the central defense here, though that obviously remains an issue; a starting tandem of Nick Hagglund and Tom Pettersson will only carry them so far - and Maikel van Der Werff and a 21-year-old kid from Ecuador don’t look like saviors to me.
It is still what remains in front of them that most worries me, i.e., an incoherent midfield scheme made WTFAYFKM (that’s “what the fuck are you fucking kidding me”) worse by way of just baffling personnel decisions. I’ll expand on Kamohelo Mokotjo below, but can Jaap Stam kindly pull the fucking plug on the Yuya Kubo central midfielder experiment and light that plug on fire, please? An idea that looked fucking stupid turned out to be fucking stupid: just about anyone should have seen that coming. Kubo is not a central midfielder; on the evidence, he’s barely a forward or a winger. Next…
I’ve sat on judging Mokotjo to see what he could do and the current returns ain’t good. They absolutely suck, in fact, and to flag just one thing in the stats section, please see the passing map around No. 15 and those thin, short forward lines. For my money, the root of Cincy’s problem with moving the ball forward follows from playing Kubo and Mokotjo together; neither has shown they know how to do it - or even how to get to the ball to other players who can (more later). Worse, neither shows any capacity to stop traffic from running back toward Cincinnati’s (again) sub-standard defense. With the ball rolling the wrong direction for the (overwhelming?) majority of both games, it’s a miracle humping a miracle that Cincinnati didn’t start 2021 with two losses.
Until Cincinnati gets central midfield sorted out, they are dead. And if playing Kubo out of position is Stam’s best idea to sort it, Cincinnati fans better find a way to love the wooden spoon.
Breaking the Bank in One Area…
A lot of people, both in and out of Cincy fan circles, got geeked up when the team broke the bank to sign Brenner, a forward with a (crucially) short, yet promising career. And when they added Luciano Acosta, the assumption was (and, I’m guessing still is) that, between them, they’d get the Cincy attack rolling. My main thought on that is simple: see above. If Cincinnati can’t get the ball to either of them, what does it matter? Even when Acosta was on the field last week, the general inability to move the ball forward saw him drop miles from goal to get it and, based on what I remember of Acosta with DC, getting the play rolling from the depths isn’t his game; he’s more of a near-the-box disruptor, i.e., someone who makes things happen by beating a player or two thereby making the players around him better. And, until Stam/Cincinnati can find a way to get Brenner, Acosta and anyone who wants to join them closer to the goal, I don’t see the attack improving. Of course I hope I'm wrong...
…And What It Means
I only know how much Cincinnati spent on Brenner and Acosta in a general sense (a lot?), but the likely upshot of that is that they’re not likely to spend big any time soon. Hopefully, I’m wrong about that and they’ll pony up some Frankie Amaya Buckz to buy their way to a working midfield and very, very soon. Even if they get new players, it’ll take time to sort out how to use them and, worst-case, though, this is a close, painful approximation of the team Cincinnati has for 2021…
…and before anyone gets excited at the idea of the front office spending more, keep very much in mind how well they’ve spent so far. And manage expectations accordingly. (My advice: keep ‘em low.)
Is it even worth the time to deconstruct this game on a detail level? Is it worth exploring the question of which of NYC’s five goals hurt most? Can a man of the match even be delivered with a straight face? (My vote: the poor bastards in central defense who, for all their mistakes, got hung out to dry for the entirety of the second half.)
Nah. Instead, I’ll allow a couple representative moments to speak for the game as a whole:
- The Keaton Parks give-away to (I think) Allan Cruz in the 17th minute. Cincinnati still couldn’t score. Not even when you hand it to them…
- In the first half, when NYC’s Maxi Moralez danced around, I believe, Cincinnati’s entire midfield (that’s Cruz, Mokotjo and Kubo) and ended it by drawing the foul. That exemplified the cat-and-mouse element of the game, where New York City toyed with them endlessly. They had all day to figure it out.
- Just after the start of the second half when Cropper played a back-pass out for a corner. He’d lunge wildly on a corner that led to NYC’s second goal just minutes later, which, I just learned, was an own-goal (shit!). That same goal saw Kubo marking Chanot…who, surprise, surprise, shoved Kubo aside like a rag-doll to give himself a clear look at the cross. Marking assignments should never look that fucking stupid; bad as Kubo has been in 2021, he’s also been set up to fail.
- Ismael Tajouri-Shradi pinging that great shot off the upper corner of the goal frame, which paired nicely with the goal Jesus Medina lofted over Cropper’s head for NYC’s fourth goal. It's rare you can say a 5-0 win flattered the losers...
All in all, the most painful thing about what happened today was the contrast between a team and players who know what they’re doing out there (NYCFC) and a team that, after two whole goddamn years of existence, manifestly does not. Even over the first half when NYC didn’t look so hot, they could at least keep hold of the ball (again, cat-and-mouse) and pace the game. Cincinnati, at their best, could only force errors and hope to profit from it. Which brings me to the game’s one bright spot:
Calvin Harris and Brenner had at least three moments in the first half when they showed some kind of connection; two of those gave Cincy their best moment of an otherwise fucking dismal day. Now, if they can get another nine players on board in the same game, maybe they’ll have something to work with. Until then, though, the eternal roster build continues…
Oh, and I watched Orlando City SC play Sporting Kansas City last night. I wouldn’t get your hopes up, Cincy.
I’m not going to futz around much with the stats or the box score - what does it matter with that final score, for one? - but instead will talk about some obvious, present realities.
Cincinnati Failed to Address Its Greatest Need (…even if it wasn’t obvious)
I’m not talking about the central defense here, though that obviously remains an issue; a starting tandem of Nick Hagglund and Tom Pettersson will only carry them so far - and Maikel van Der Werff and a 21-year-old kid from Ecuador don’t look like saviors to me.
It is still what remains in front of them that most worries me, i.e., an incoherent midfield scheme made WTFAYFKM (that’s “what the fuck are you fucking kidding me”) worse by way of just baffling personnel decisions. I’ll expand on Kamohelo Mokotjo below, but can Jaap Stam kindly pull the fucking plug on the Yuya Kubo central midfielder experiment and light that plug on fire, please? An idea that looked fucking stupid turned out to be fucking stupid: just about anyone should have seen that coming. Kubo is not a central midfielder; on the evidence, he’s barely a forward or a winger. Next…
I’ve sat on judging Mokotjo to see what he could do and the current returns ain’t good. They absolutely suck, in fact, and to flag just one thing in the stats section, please see the passing map around No. 15 and those thin, short forward lines. For my money, the root of Cincy’s problem with moving the ball forward follows from playing Kubo and Mokotjo together; neither has shown they know how to do it - or even how to get to the ball to other players who can (more later). Worse, neither shows any capacity to stop traffic from running back toward Cincinnati’s (again) sub-standard defense. With the ball rolling the wrong direction for the (overwhelming?) majority of both games, it’s a miracle humping a miracle that Cincinnati didn’t start 2021 with two losses.
Until Cincinnati gets central midfield sorted out, they are dead. And if playing Kubo out of position is Stam’s best idea to sort it, Cincinnati fans better find a way to love the wooden spoon.
Breaking the Bank in One Area…
A lot of people, both in and out of Cincy fan circles, got geeked up when the team broke the bank to sign Brenner, a forward with a (crucially) short, yet promising career. And when they added Luciano Acosta, the assumption was (and, I’m guessing still is) that, between them, they’d get the Cincy attack rolling. My main thought on that is simple: see above. If Cincinnati can’t get the ball to either of them, what does it matter? Even when Acosta was on the field last week, the general inability to move the ball forward saw him drop miles from goal to get it and, based on what I remember of Acosta with DC, getting the play rolling from the depths isn’t his game; he’s more of a near-the-box disruptor, i.e., someone who makes things happen by beating a player or two thereby making the players around him better. And, until Stam/Cincinnati can find a way to get Brenner, Acosta and anyone who wants to join them closer to the goal, I don’t see the attack improving. Of course I hope I'm wrong...
…And What It Means
I only know how much Cincinnati spent on Brenner and Acosta in a general sense (a lot?), but the likely upshot of that is that they’re not likely to spend big any time soon. Hopefully, I’m wrong about that and they’ll pony up some Frankie Amaya Buckz to buy their way to a working midfield and very, very soon. Even if they get new players, it’ll take time to sort out how to use them and, worst-case, though, this is a close, painful approximation of the team Cincinnati has for 2021…
…and before anyone gets excited at the idea of the front office spending more, keep very much in mind how well they’ve spent so far. And manage expectations accordingly. (My advice: keep ‘em low.)
Is it even worth the time to deconstruct this game on a detail level? Is it worth exploring the question of which of NYC’s five goals hurt most? Can a man of the match even be delivered with a straight face? (My vote: the poor bastards in central defense who, for all their mistakes, got hung out to dry for the entirety of the second half.)
Nah. Instead, I’ll allow a couple representative moments to speak for the game as a whole:
- The Keaton Parks give-away to (I think) Allan Cruz in the 17th minute. Cincinnati still couldn’t score. Not even when you hand it to them…
- In the first half, when NYC’s Maxi Moralez danced around, I believe, Cincinnati’s entire midfield (that’s Cruz, Mokotjo and Kubo) and ended it by drawing the foul. That exemplified the cat-and-mouse element of the game, where New York City toyed with them endlessly. They had all day to figure it out.
- Just after the start of the second half when Cropper played a back-pass out for a corner. He’d lunge wildly on a corner that led to NYC’s second goal just minutes later, which, I just learned, was an own-goal (shit!). That same goal saw Kubo marking Chanot…who, surprise, surprise, shoved Kubo aside like a rag-doll to give himself a clear look at the cross. Marking assignments should never look that fucking stupid; bad as Kubo has been in 2021, he’s also been set up to fail.
- Ismael Tajouri-Shradi pinging that great shot off the upper corner of the goal frame, which paired nicely with the goal Jesus Medina lofted over Cropper’s head for NYC’s fourth goal. It's rare you can say a 5-0 win flattered the losers...
All in all, the most painful thing about what happened today was the contrast between a team and players who know what they’re doing out there (NYCFC) and a team that, after two whole goddamn years of existence, manifestly does not. Even over the first half when NYC didn’t look so hot, they could at least keep hold of the ball (again, cat-and-mouse) and pace the game. Cincinnati, at their best, could only force errors and hope to profit from it. Which brings me to the game’s one bright spot:
Calvin Harris and Brenner had at least three moments in the first half when they showed some kind of connection; two of those gave Cincy their best moment of an otherwise fucking dismal day. Now, if they can get another nine players on board in the same game, maybe they’ll have something to work with. Until then, though, the eternal roster build continues…
Oh, and I watched Orlando City SC play Sporting Kansas City last night. I wouldn’t get your hopes up, Cincy.
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