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| Three inches is generous, kind even. |
Well, wasn’t that as pleasant as a team-building “event” at the office? It took an absolutely mind-boggling amount of men doing things in uniforms for nothing to happen. Worse, the few things that did happen - e.g., a timely, deserved red card to DC United’s Moses Nyeman, aka, the same guy who scored the sharpest, yet offside, goal all day - didn’t change a damn thing.
If you’ve ever asked the question, what would happen if FC Cincinnati had a man-advantage at home with 38 minutes to go, you got your answer tonight. Nothing, a fucking pair of useless eggs, a 0-0 home draw against half a DC United team. Lorde, gimme patience. I guessed the right final score - without knowing the many, many players DC had missing (e.g., Paul Arriola, Brendan Hines-Ike, Russell Canouse, etc.) - but that only makes it all worse (see Thought No. 1). I know what Cincinnati is/can and cannot do, and I only had a loose sense of DC as a high energy, low-accuracy team: so long as Cincinnati matched their energy, it’d be on the hosts to score. I see the xG, and, based on what I watched, that’s generous…and I don’t think I’d feel any differently had Cincinnati finally scored.
If Cincinnati had better chances than Joe Gyau’s (of whom and others, see Thought No. 2) header off Ronald Matarrita’s cross and that Nick Hagglund header early, quality yet hopeful header, they don’t register (hold that thought; forgot this one); related, Brandon Vasquez’s late (equally hopeful) lunge represented a better percentage opportunity, but it was no less desperate and unlucky. Ye gods, where to begin when you don’t even want to start?
Cincinnati wrestled both DC and themselves for chances and came up empty. Going the other way, the only chances they allowed DC came via offside plays and Julian Gressel trying to make the most of free-kicks on the cheap and direct. But, again, this was just half a DC United team, and I’d call Gressel and Kevin Paredes (who I’d kill to have on any roster I watched) the two best, most effective and interesting players on the field tonight. DC made the better chances, even if they had to push against legality to make them happen.
That’s my summary of the game and, no, that’s not good.
Five Thoughts
1) Measuring Sticks Don’t Lie
I’ve come to think of the Major League Soccer regular season as a series of measurements for where any given team fits into the league hierarchy; a team can only adjust expectations by upsetting them. Setting aside the red card(s), FC Cincinnati hosted a DC team missing its better horses and….well, they did nothing with it. In his post-game comments, Jaap Stam somehow managed to say that Cincinnati deserved more from this game with a straight face - of which, impressive - but also self-serving horseshit. A team that can’t beat a diminished version of a middling team is on a crash course to nowhere in any league. All the people working in this organization have had two and a half years to come up with a coherent plan and, near as I can tell, not being the worst team in the league feels like the best possible outcome. As the gif says, not great, Bob…
2) Decisions, and the Players Who Make Them
I have two moments in mind. In the first, Alvaro Barreal surged into DC’s defensive third toward the right side of the field with the ball at his feet, the defense back-pedaling, space ahead of him, and (literally) five Cincinnati players clustered to the other side - with a decent vertical spread to boot. To offer an opinion, he could have kept driving to the right, with an eye to further stretching DC’s defense, and then cut the ball back to the most promising run out of two or three options; instead, he chose to cut the ball inside and back into traffic to put a reasonable shot that buzzed to the same side of goal (e.g., the right). Later, Cincinnati forced a turnover that got Joe Gyau behind on the left with space to run into; Luciano Acosta followed Gyau’s run, clearly looking for today’s left winger to layoff the ball to him and keep running; instead, Gyau decided to keep the ball, leaving Acosta no better option than to overlap to his outside and Gyau with not much to pass to inside: all that lead to was Gyau flailing a hopeful shot toward the general area of goal. Again. It takes good decisions to win games and, when the two guys getting your best leads make shitty decisions, it hurts the fucking team, now doesn’t it?
By contrast, Julian Gressel is the kind of player who, whatever his limitations (aren’t a ton), rarely makes a bad decision. Cincinnati needs more Gressels.
3) Proving Possession Is an Irrelevant Stat, One Game at a Time
I’d describe Cincy’s attack as one step forward, four steps back, and I assign blame all over the roster and over into the coach’s box. Because I’ve watched every Cincinnati game but one on TV, it’s hard to see what the players see in front of them, but I also can’t blame camera crews for holding the focus on Cincy’s backline, because the ball seems to spend a lot of fucking time going back and forth in that general area. If that's how you want to "win" the possession stat, have it, I guess. So very much related…
4) I Really Do Try Not to Repeat Myself….
He might not be the worst of Cincinnati’s problems, but Yuya Kubo simply isn’t built for a central midfield role. He doesn’t see enough of the field, his brain faces forward to a fault (i.e., he has trouble seeing anything but what’s in front of him) and in a position that benefits from seeing multiple options and playing to a good one as quickly as possible, but, far too often, he spends too much time looking for a great pass that isn’t there, only to dish the ball laterally or backwards, and that lets the other team fall back and get organized, and Cincinnati doesn't do so good breaking down an organized defense. Look, Kubo is one nagging symptom among many. Honestly, I blame the guy far less than I call him out, and this gets to…
5) The Stain of the Original Sin
I’d say that DC forced Cincinnati to hold back players for the first 15 minutes of its one-man advantage; the threat of Yordy Reyna or Paredes getting isolated against…oh, just about any individual player provided enough of a threat. With the title to No. 4 once more acknowledged, Cincy built its original roster on an over-selection of defenders and, specifically, defensive midfielders. And that failed. For all the players brought in, reassigned and otherwise misused (again, how the mad hell is a winger/forward a starting d-mid?), and dismissed, this team has never figured out how to defend well enough to attack with any visible comfort. You don’t even have to ask whether such a thing is possible; Nashville SC gives a weekly reminder that such things are possible, sometimes bi-weekly. JHell, I'm not even sure Cincy has launched its first version and Nashville's already on their 2.0. If that's not a indictment of the "brain trust," I don't know what is.
Watching this team every week has made me question the bare concept of progress. I see people calling for mass firings, and with justified regularity, but I also look at the personnel just as often and I don’t even have one good idea about how I’d make it better.
It’s bad. Very bad.
If you’ve ever asked the question, what would happen if FC Cincinnati had a man-advantage at home with 38 minutes to go, you got your answer tonight. Nothing, a fucking pair of useless eggs, a 0-0 home draw against half a DC United team. Lorde, gimme patience. I guessed the right final score - without knowing the many, many players DC had missing (e.g., Paul Arriola, Brendan Hines-Ike, Russell Canouse, etc.) - but that only makes it all worse (see Thought No. 1). I know what Cincinnati is/can and cannot do, and I only had a loose sense of DC as a high energy, low-accuracy team: so long as Cincinnati matched their energy, it’d be on the hosts to score. I see the xG, and, based on what I watched, that’s generous…and I don’t think I’d feel any differently had Cincinnati finally scored.
If Cincinnati had better chances than Joe Gyau’s (of whom and others, see Thought No. 2) header off Ronald Matarrita’s cross and that Nick Hagglund header early, quality yet hopeful header, they don’t register (hold that thought; forgot this one); related, Brandon Vasquez’s late (equally hopeful) lunge represented a better percentage opportunity, but it was no less desperate and unlucky. Ye gods, where to begin when you don’t even want to start?
Cincinnati wrestled both DC and themselves for chances and came up empty. Going the other way, the only chances they allowed DC came via offside plays and Julian Gressel trying to make the most of free-kicks on the cheap and direct. But, again, this was just half a DC United team, and I’d call Gressel and Kevin Paredes (who I’d kill to have on any roster I watched) the two best, most effective and interesting players on the field tonight. DC made the better chances, even if they had to push against legality to make them happen.
That’s my summary of the game and, no, that’s not good.
Five Thoughts
1) Measuring Sticks Don’t Lie
I’ve come to think of the Major League Soccer regular season as a series of measurements for where any given team fits into the league hierarchy; a team can only adjust expectations by upsetting them. Setting aside the red card(s), FC Cincinnati hosted a DC team missing its better horses and….well, they did nothing with it. In his post-game comments, Jaap Stam somehow managed to say that Cincinnati deserved more from this game with a straight face - of which, impressive - but also self-serving horseshit. A team that can’t beat a diminished version of a middling team is on a crash course to nowhere in any league. All the people working in this organization have had two and a half years to come up with a coherent plan and, near as I can tell, not being the worst team in the league feels like the best possible outcome. As the gif says, not great, Bob…
2) Decisions, and the Players Who Make Them
I have two moments in mind. In the first, Alvaro Barreal surged into DC’s defensive third toward the right side of the field with the ball at his feet, the defense back-pedaling, space ahead of him, and (literally) five Cincinnati players clustered to the other side - with a decent vertical spread to boot. To offer an opinion, he could have kept driving to the right, with an eye to further stretching DC’s defense, and then cut the ball back to the most promising run out of two or three options; instead, he chose to cut the ball inside and back into traffic to put a reasonable shot that buzzed to the same side of goal (e.g., the right). Later, Cincinnati forced a turnover that got Joe Gyau behind on the left with space to run into; Luciano Acosta followed Gyau’s run, clearly looking for today’s left winger to layoff the ball to him and keep running; instead, Gyau decided to keep the ball, leaving Acosta no better option than to overlap to his outside and Gyau with not much to pass to inside: all that lead to was Gyau flailing a hopeful shot toward the general area of goal. Again. It takes good decisions to win games and, when the two guys getting your best leads make shitty decisions, it hurts the fucking team, now doesn’t it?
By contrast, Julian Gressel is the kind of player who, whatever his limitations (aren’t a ton), rarely makes a bad decision. Cincinnati needs more Gressels.
3) Proving Possession Is an Irrelevant Stat, One Game at a Time
I’d describe Cincy’s attack as one step forward, four steps back, and I assign blame all over the roster and over into the coach’s box. Because I’ve watched every Cincinnati game but one on TV, it’s hard to see what the players see in front of them, but I also can’t blame camera crews for holding the focus on Cincy’s backline, because the ball seems to spend a lot of fucking time going back and forth in that general area. If that's how you want to "win" the possession stat, have it, I guess. So very much related…
4) I Really Do Try Not to Repeat Myself….
He might not be the worst of Cincinnati’s problems, but Yuya Kubo simply isn’t built for a central midfield role. He doesn’t see enough of the field, his brain faces forward to a fault (i.e., he has trouble seeing anything but what’s in front of him) and in a position that benefits from seeing multiple options and playing to a good one as quickly as possible, but, far too often, he spends too much time looking for a great pass that isn’t there, only to dish the ball laterally or backwards, and that lets the other team fall back and get organized, and Cincinnati doesn't do so good breaking down an organized defense. Look, Kubo is one nagging symptom among many. Honestly, I blame the guy far less than I call him out, and this gets to…
5) The Stain of the Original Sin
I’d say that DC forced Cincinnati to hold back players for the first 15 minutes of its one-man advantage; the threat of Yordy Reyna or Paredes getting isolated against…oh, just about any individual player provided enough of a threat. With the title to No. 4 once more acknowledged, Cincy built its original roster on an over-selection of defenders and, specifically, defensive midfielders. And that failed. For all the players brought in, reassigned and otherwise misused (again, how the mad hell is a winger/forward a starting d-mid?), and dismissed, this team has never figured out how to defend well enough to attack with any visible comfort. You don’t even have to ask whether such a thing is possible; Nashville SC gives a weekly reminder that such things are possible, sometimes bi-weekly. JHell, I'm not even sure Cincy has launched its first version and Nashville's already on their 2.0. If that's not a indictment of the "brain trust," I don't know what is.
Watching this team every week has made me question the bare concept of progress. I see people calling for mass firings, and with justified regularity, but I also look at the personnel just as often and I don’t even have one good idea about how I’d make it better.
It’s bad. Very bad.
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