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| Everything else I wrote...but also this. |
What do you make of FC Cincinnati losing its most complete game of 2021 at a great, big all they threw for themselves (and it considerable expense)? Sub-question: how does the argument that they lost to what sure as hell looks like a bad team to me make you feel?
Now the real question: can FC Cincy get better with the roster they have?
I’m not going to spend much time on what happened when - here goes (or just watch): Inter Miami CF scored early on (no way!) a succession of defensive errors by Cincinnati’s defense (Joe Gyau) and midfield (Calvin Harris); a little momentum followed in the other direction…and then Miami scored again, and on a worse breakdown; a great big mix of running and nothing happened from there, very specific complaints came down from the broadcast booth, etc., then Ronald Mataritta found Alvaro Barreal behind Miami’s defense (their turn!), putting Cincinnati one goal closer to a comeback; some smartly-channeled aggression followed that didn’t look like it’d go anywhere then Nick Hagglund powered home an equalizer from a corner kick, the crowd went wild, the Fox network got some excitement for the TV, and so on…then, one minute later, Hagglund misplays a pass out of the back and Gonzalo Higuain finishes a counter he started, game over at 3-2 to Miami - because the specifics don’t really matter here. Or, more accurately, some long-term realities swallow up those specifics and return the conversation to one immovable question: can FC Cincy get better with the roster they have?
If your answer is no, my best advice is to step watching Cincinnati for another year, but probably two. Nah, make it three years. Probably safer.
Personally, I think they have the pieces for a decent functioning team in the current roster. There’s no question Cincinnati has some dead wood on the payroll, but I think I see some pieces that I’d stick with for a while and build around to best of your ability.
That said, pardon me while I address the dead body on the floor and the relevant co-morbidities. Miami looked like crap in their mid-week loss to Montreal (Full disclosure: I only watched the condensed game) and they looked…well, a lot like crap against Cincy today. Three or four sharp movements in the first half aside - which lead to the first goal, but not the second - they didn’t look much better moving the ball than the home team, their tackling kinda sucked (related, I am powerfully underwhelmed by Gregore), and nothing I saw today, very much including Cincinnati’s comeback, would lead me to echo talk of “a strong response” to Montreal loss that came from the broadcast booth. Nothing makes me doubt my….let’s call it contingently assured belief that Cincinnati finally has a functioning roster than my fairly clear sense that Miami can best be described as Cincinnati, but with more coherent talent.
That’s the team Cincinnati lost to. On the day they opened their new stadium/symbol of wealth and/or ambition. On a blank sheet of paper, that makes some sense - see above, e.g., “coherent talent.” Meanwhile, in the real world, Cincinnati had advantages, up to and including, two weeks to rest, get fit, get shit together, scout Miami, review video (including that Montreal loss), and game-plan, all of which time/preparation took place at home, meeting a Miami team playing at short rest. Now, add in all the stupid mistakes, the loose passes, and the easy turnovers Miami made today. To finally make the point I’ve belabored, I’m measuring the rest of this post against what feels like a short ruler measured in favorable circumstances. To put it another way, playing better opposition could render moot all the good things I saw from certain players today. With that long caveat out of the way, here are the players I’d like to see Cincinnati build around:
Geoff Cameron: Yeah, I know one game and apportion fault on Miami’s winner as you will, this game answered my worries about Cameron’s mobility, and I have a pretty good sense of what he can do on the field and he held down a job in England for years, so, yeah, pair him the best defender you’ve got and call it a central defense.
Ronald Mataritta: No, he didn’t perform perfectly and hasn’t this season, but he’s stable and has the right traits and enough attacking upside that I trust him to hold down Cincy’s back left foot.
Allan Cruz: That was the best performance from a player in the central midfield position this season - by far as I see it. It was nothing like mistake free, but Cruz provided two things from that position that I haven’t seen since the MLS Is Back tournament: 1) aggression and 2) help in the attack. More than that, he looked like the player most committed to getting the win today - and that was after getting sidelined for how long? I’m open to who Jaap Stam pairs with him (or which two players he sits with Cruz in a 4-3-3), but I want Cruz in the 11 when he’s available.
Luciano Acosta: I needed him to impress me today and, by and large, he did. From the early diagonal he fed to Cruz (who rather inexcusably squandered it) to the cross on the equalizer, to some nifty work down the left, Lucho showed an ability to drive the offense from multiple areas on the field and a good, useful and general capacity to buzz about and make shit happen. Another keeper when healthy…no shit, right?
Alvaro Barreal: I admire his dedication to finding the game and trying shit. It’s not just the rocket he fired at John McCarthy in the 30th minute, it was seeing him drift all over the field looking for the ball (or getting switched there) and doing good things with it here and there. The more I watch him, the more I think Barreal could be a really good piece with the right players around him….
…but isn’t that the trick? Also, that’s my list. That’s my foundation. Basically, I have five guys on the roster I actually trust and one has played just one game so far.
My point isn’t so much that every other player on Cincy’s roster is garbage, but that I can see arguments for maybe trying something else. For instance, and to pick at my favorite spot, I don’t see any reason to play Yuya Kubo in midfield (or anywhere, unless a contract is involved - as I’ll explain below), but I think Stam will get a better sense of what his best possible midfield can look like if he makes his choice with Cruz beside him. To give Kubo credit, I’d call this his best performance in that spot tonight, but I can also see Haris Medunjanin giving the team one thing, Caleb Stanko giving it another and Kamohelo Mokotjo……..finally giving some clear signal of what he does(?). My point is, Cruz gives enough in running and bite to anchor the midfield; the question is what you want to add to that in any given game.
Also, no, I’m not an idiot: Brenner pretty much has to be out there, because money and expectation demand it, even if nothing else does; this picks up the "unless a contract is involved" argument, sunk costs and paying them, etc. And that’s the sharp end of the question: Brenner hasn’t got on the ball much so far and largely through no fault of his own…but, what has he done that really impressed you on the occasions that he did? If you need an answer to the question, “why Barreal?” this is it: Barreal found several ways to get involved tonight; did Brenner?
I have gripes large and small about the rest of the players I didn’t call into The Foundation - e.g., Joe Gyau dicks around with the ball far too much and to too little effect - but that doesn’t mean I see a better starter on the roster for that position; to stick with Gyau, he defends well enough (…YES, I saw Miami’s opening goal), but I think they need to get him to work on varying his game. It’s less that he doesn’t make fast decisions, but that dribbling inside seems to the one he keeps making very, very quickly. That said, I do have a couple players that I’d like to see put out to pasture ASAP: Jurgen Locadia and Kubo.
Kubo is a no-hard-feelings situation for me: I don’t think it’s working out for him in Cincinnati, something that means he’s wasting his time as well. I can visualize a team where his style works all right, even if dimly, so I’d start working on that now and while finding a replacement. I think Locadia’s loan ends in June (or July?) and I’d let him go without even half a thought. I have no doubt that he actually had one or three good seasons (and what would Wikipedia’s motive there?), but there is nothing I’ve actually seen in Locadia’s game that tells me he’ll succeed with Cincinnati or in MLS. Worse, he haunts the roster like a cautionary tale for Brenner, and who wants that right now?
I’m actually going to leave it here. If all the above strikes you as a tiny step forward, I agree. I also think getting the right set of core players in place is the first tiny step FC Cincinnati has yet to make. Every premise has a flaw - e.g., will Cameron play at the necessary level for two years, or even the rest of this one? - but I felt good enough those choices to type them, so I guess that’s something?
All in all, I’m not prepared to write off FC Cincinnati’s 2021 season yet. If nothing else, Chicago Fire FC might lay down under them. That said, and jokes aside (because laughing at Chicago is just wrong), I count a lightly-rotating cast of eight Eastern Conference teams who look like good bets to beat up Cincinnati; progress might be damned hard to see in what currently presents as yet another large collection of losses. I’d love to see Cincinnati avoid that fate - again, I’ve committed to watching them - but I’d take the fighting loss I saw today over, say, the complete pants-shitting collapse against New York City FC a couple weeks ago. Also, that game gets to why I worry everything I just typed might be a lie.
Still, some version like roster that started today looks capable of making those fighting losses happen and, God willing, to turn them in to draw and, against the right teams, wins. It’ll be a long walk to get there, but I think Cincy fans will know when they’ve rounded the corner.
Now the real question: can FC Cincy get better with the roster they have?
I’m not going to spend much time on what happened when - here goes (or just watch): Inter Miami CF scored early on (no way!) a succession of defensive errors by Cincinnati’s defense (Joe Gyau) and midfield (Calvin Harris); a little momentum followed in the other direction…and then Miami scored again, and on a worse breakdown; a great big mix of running and nothing happened from there, very specific complaints came down from the broadcast booth, etc., then Ronald Mataritta found Alvaro Barreal behind Miami’s defense (their turn!), putting Cincinnati one goal closer to a comeback; some smartly-channeled aggression followed that didn’t look like it’d go anywhere then Nick Hagglund powered home an equalizer from a corner kick, the crowd went wild, the Fox network got some excitement for the TV, and so on…then, one minute later, Hagglund misplays a pass out of the back and Gonzalo Higuain finishes a counter he started, game over at 3-2 to Miami - because the specifics don’t really matter here. Or, more accurately, some long-term realities swallow up those specifics and return the conversation to one immovable question: can FC Cincy get better with the roster they have?
If your answer is no, my best advice is to step watching Cincinnati for another year, but probably two. Nah, make it three years. Probably safer.
Personally, I think they have the pieces for a decent functioning team in the current roster. There’s no question Cincinnati has some dead wood on the payroll, but I think I see some pieces that I’d stick with for a while and build around to best of your ability.
That said, pardon me while I address the dead body on the floor and the relevant co-morbidities. Miami looked like crap in their mid-week loss to Montreal (Full disclosure: I only watched the condensed game) and they looked…well, a lot like crap against Cincy today. Three or four sharp movements in the first half aside - which lead to the first goal, but not the second - they didn’t look much better moving the ball than the home team, their tackling kinda sucked (related, I am powerfully underwhelmed by Gregore), and nothing I saw today, very much including Cincinnati’s comeback, would lead me to echo talk of “a strong response” to Montreal loss that came from the broadcast booth. Nothing makes me doubt my….let’s call it contingently assured belief that Cincinnati finally has a functioning roster than my fairly clear sense that Miami can best be described as Cincinnati, but with more coherent talent.
That’s the team Cincinnati lost to. On the day they opened their new stadium/symbol of wealth and/or ambition. On a blank sheet of paper, that makes some sense - see above, e.g., “coherent talent.” Meanwhile, in the real world, Cincinnati had advantages, up to and including, two weeks to rest, get fit, get shit together, scout Miami, review video (including that Montreal loss), and game-plan, all of which time/preparation took place at home, meeting a Miami team playing at short rest. Now, add in all the stupid mistakes, the loose passes, and the easy turnovers Miami made today. To finally make the point I’ve belabored, I’m measuring the rest of this post against what feels like a short ruler measured in favorable circumstances. To put it another way, playing better opposition could render moot all the good things I saw from certain players today. With that long caveat out of the way, here are the players I’d like to see Cincinnati build around:
Geoff Cameron: Yeah, I know one game and apportion fault on Miami’s winner as you will, this game answered my worries about Cameron’s mobility, and I have a pretty good sense of what he can do on the field and he held down a job in England for years, so, yeah, pair him the best defender you’ve got and call it a central defense.
Ronald Mataritta: No, he didn’t perform perfectly and hasn’t this season, but he’s stable and has the right traits and enough attacking upside that I trust him to hold down Cincy’s back left foot.
Allan Cruz: That was the best performance from a player in the central midfield position this season - by far as I see it. It was nothing like mistake free, but Cruz provided two things from that position that I haven’t seen since the MLS Is Back tournament: 1) aggression and 2) help in the attack. More than that, he looked like the player most committed to getting the win today - and that was after getting sidelined for how long? I’m open to who Jaap Stam pairs with him (or which two players he sits with Cruz in a 4-3-3), but I want Cruz in the 11 when he’s available.
Luciano Acosta: I needed him to impress me today and, by and large, he did. From the early diagonal he fed to Cruz (who rather inexcusably squandered it) to the cross on the equalizer, to some nifty work down the left, Lucho showed an ability to drive the offense from multiple areas on the field and a good, useful and general capacity to buzz about and make shit happen. Another keeper when healthy…no shit, right?
Alvaro Barreal: I admire his dedication to finding the game and trying shit. It’s not just the rocket he fired at John McCarthy in the 30th minute, it was seeing him drift all over the field looking for the ball (or getting switched there) and doing good things with it here and there. The more I watch him, the more I think Barreal could be a really good piece with the right players around him….
…but isn’t that the trick? Also, that’s my list. That’s my foundation. Basically, I have five guys on the roster I actually trust and one has played just one game so far.
My point isn’t so much that every other player on Cincy’s roster is garbage, but that I can see arguments for maybe trying something else. For instance, and to pick at my favorite spot, I don’t see any reason to play Yuya Kubo in midfield (or anywhere, unless a contract is involved - as I’ll explain below), but I think Stam will get a better sense of what his best possible midfield can look like if he makes his choice with Cruz beside him. To give Kubo credit, I’d call this his best performance in that spot tonight, but I can also see Haris Medunjanin giving the team one thing, Caleb Stanko giving it another and Kamohelo Mokotjo……..finally giving some clear signal of what he does(?). My point is, Cruz gives enough in running and bite to anchor the midfield; the question is what you want to add to that in any given game.
Also, no, I’m not an idiot: Brenner pretty much has to be out there, because money and expectation demand it, even if nothing else does; this picks up the "unless a contract is involved" argument, sunk costs and paying them, etc. And that’s the sharp end of the question: Brenner hasn’t got on the ball much so far and largely through no fault of his own…but, what has he done that really impressed you on the occasions that he did? If you need an answer to the question, “why Barreal?” this is it: Barreal found several ways to get involved tonight; did Brenner?
I have gripes large and small about the rest of the players I didn’t call into The Foundation - e.g., Joe Gyau dicks around with the ball far too much and to too little effect - but that doesn’t mean I see a better starter on the roster for that position; to stick with Gyau, he defends well enough (…YES, I saw Miami’s opening goal), but I think they need to get him to work on varying his game. It’s less that he doesn’t make fast decisions, but that dribbling inside seems to the one he keeps making very, very quickly. That said, I do have a couple players that I’d like to see put out to pasture ASAP: Jurgen Locadia and Kubo.
Kubo is a no-hard-feelings situation for me: I don’t think it’s working out for him in Cincinnati, something that means he’s wasting his time as well. I can visualize a team where his style works all right, even if dimly, so I’d start working on that now and while finding a replacement. I think Locadia’s loan ends in June (or July?) and I’d let him go without even half a thought. I have no doubt that he actually had one or three good seasons (and what would Wikipedia’s motive there?), but there is nothing I’ve actually seen in Locadia’s game that tells me he’ll succeed with Cincinnati or in MLS. Worse, he haunts the roster like a cautionary tale for Brenner, and who wants that right now?
I’m actually going to leave it here. If all the above strikes you as a tiny step forward, I agree. I also think getting the right set of core players in place is the first tiny step FC Cincinnati has yet to make. Every premise has a flaw - e.g., will Cameron play at the necessary level for two years, or even the rest of this one? - but I felt good enough those choices to type them, so I guess that’s something?
All in all, I’m not prepared to write off FC Cincinnati’s 2021 season yet. If nothing else, Chicago Fire FC might lay down under them. That said, and jokes aside (because laughing at Chicago is just wrong), I count a lightly-rotating cast of eight Eastern Conference teams who look like good bets to beat up Cincinnati; progress might be damned hard to see in what currently presents as yet another large collection of losses. I’d love to see Cincinnati avoid that fate - again, I’ve committed to watching them - but I’d take the fighting loss I saw today over, say, the complete pants-shitting collapse against New York City FC a couple weeks ago. Also, that game gets to why I worry everything I just typed might be a lie.
Still, some version like roster that started today looks capable of making those fighting losses happen and, God willing, to turn them in to draw and, against the right teams, wins. It’ll be a long walk to get there, but I think Cincy fans will know when they’ve rounded the corner.
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