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Overall
A game that started rife with opportunity (via fuck-ups), gave way to about 20 minutes’ worth of Houston Dynamo command and (less) control (more later), which then devolved into what I’m going to call a fan’s second half - which, here, means a fair amount of nothing with rare and late bursts of hopeful interest.
Or, shorter, FC Cincinnati choked out the Dynamo for a 1-1 road draw. They also never really looked the lesser team, which brings me to:
A Brief Note on the Dynamo
The one dominant thought: they’re sloppy. Even during their period of dominance, Houston stopped their own attacks as often as Cincinnati defenders did (…Geoff Cameron excepted; great game) by way of a combination of forced and/or mis-hit passes; if you're wondering how Cincy edged the home team in xG, that's my answer. They play to force mistakes for a reason, basically, and that means maintaining a certain pitch and ferocity of upfield tackling. Because Cincy was able to play out of that pressure fairly reliably, Houston’s game-plan fell apart. They’re spinning their wheels generally at this point, Cincinnati was just the latest obstacle they couldn’t get over. And am I alone in thinking Tyler Pasher looks like a young Bill Burr?
5 Thoughts on FC Cincy
1) They Did Their One Job
A personal or collective lack of composure was the one thing Cincinnati’s defenders couldn’t afford and, until Nick Hagglund’s weird late fuck-up, the worst mistakes made by the back four + ‘keeper Kenneth Vermeer came with the odd errant pass and Gustavo Vallecilla waltzing out of pressure only to shank his clearance out of bounds. The defenders found the midfielders fairly easily, then the midfielders found the seams to break the pressure. This allowed them to absorb Houston’s pressure until the home team all but gave up. Related thereto…
2) Better
Cincinnati has clearly and visibly improved since the 2021 season kicked off. The smart, clean ball movement is one part of that (more later), but Jaap Stam, et. al. have managed to establish the one thing that eluded Cincy since it stepped up into MLS: coherence. The players seem to know where to find the next pass, or passes, the defensive rotations click into place faster and more reliably, and so on. That whole set-up will face stiffer tests than a straightforward, sloppy and sporadically interested Houston attack, but Cincinnati has made real strides in looking like a proper soccer team. Now, back to the ball movement thing…
3) A Coach’s Dilemma
How much did Cincinnati’s clean ball movement come from having Haris Medunjanin on the field? I’ll confess I thought a Medunjanin/Yuya Kubo/Luciano Acosta midfield would get run over - and, factually, Houston’s Derrick Jones ran it over solo on his own four, five times - but, after leaving a pasture between defense and midfield thereby allowing the Dynamo’s go-ahead goal, the midfield compressed against the defense nicely. Now, if the midfield can work with Medunjanin on the field - still an open question in my mind…well, don’t you want him out there for the ball movement? If so, who and/or what gives way - e.g., do you sit Kubo and try Medunjanin in the midfield with Cruz and Acosta, or, do you try replace Atanga with Acosta and play a Cruz, Medunjanin, Kubo midfield behind them? Possibilities are opening up…
4) The Game in Human Form
Soccer produces a wealth/vareity of moments, but few are as telling as a player going in one-on-one versus the ‘keeper; it’s the gift a player has to put away, only with a lower success rate. That burden fell on Alvaro Barreal in the fifth minute and he carried it with aplomb, giving Cincy a well-earned point. On the shadier side of the ledger, Barreal gave the game a wicked case of the hiccups, breaking up the rhythm again and again with a well-timed roll on the grass. In other words, gamesmanship gets an assist in the draw and Barreal pulled most of the strings.
5) What Is a Brenner?
The young Brazilian turned in one of his best moments so far when he played himself into the area and forced a tricky save out of Marko Maric. Most of the time around that shining moment, meanwhile, saw Brenner serving as an outlet wide left near the top of Houston’s defensive third. Having outlets is good - this goes back to the point about finding the next pass - but that choice takes Brenner out of the heart of things. It’s not a useless tactic by any means - it opens space on the weak side for Barreal to operate, for one - but…well, it’s not what you’d expect for $13-15 million. Optimistically, that’s just Stam & Co. working through how to involve Brenner; pessimistically, they spent a shit-ton of money on a passing outlet.
Anyway, call that result more useful than entertaining, but it feels like a foundation coming in. Till the next one…
A game that started rife with opportunity (via fuck-ups), gave way to about 20 minutes’ worth of Houston Dynamo command and (less) control (more later), which then devolved into what I’m going to call a fan’s second half - which, here, means a fair amount of nothing with rare and late bursts of hopeful interest.
Or, shorter, FC Cincinnati choked out the Dynamo for a 1-1 road draw. They also never really looked the lesser team, which brings me to:
A Brief Note on the Dynamo
The one dominant thought: they’re sloppy. Even during their period of dominance, Houston stopped their own attacks as often as Cincinnati defenders did (…Geoff Cameron excepted; great game) by way of a combination of forced and/or mis-hit passes; if you're wondering how Cincy edged the home team in xG, that's my answer. They play to force mistakes for a reason, basically, and that means maintaining a certain pitch and ferocity of upfield tackling. Because Cincy was able to play out of that pressure fairly reliably, Houston’s game-plan fell apart. They’re spinning their wheels generally at this point, Cincinnati was just the latest obstacle they couldn’t get over. And am I alone in thinking Tyler Pasher looks like a young Bill Burr?
5 Thoughts on FC Cincy
1) They Did Their One Job
A personal or collective lack of composure was the one thing Cincinnati’s defenders couldn’t afford and, until Nick Hagglund’s weird late fuck-up, the worst mistakes made by the back four + ‘keeper Kenneth Vermeer came with the odd errant pass and Gustavo Vallecilla waltzing out of pressure only to shank his clearance out of bounds. The defenders found the midfielders fairly easily, then the midfielders found the seams to break the pressure. This allowed them to absorb Houston’s pressure until the home team all but gave up. Related thereto…
2) Better
Cincinnati has clearly and visibly improved since the 2021 season kicked off. The smart, clean ball movement is one part of that (more later), but Jaap Stam, et. al. have managed to establish the one thing that eluded Cincy since it stepped up into MLS: coherence. The players seem to know where to find the next pass, or passes, the defensive rotations click into place faster and more reliably, and so on. That whole set-up will face stiffer tests than a straightforward, sloppy and sporadically interested Houston attack, but Cincinnati has made real strides in looking like a proper soccer team. Now, back to the ball movement thing…
3) A Coach’s Dilemma
How much did Cincinnati’s clean ball movement come from having Haris Medunjanin on the field? I’ll confess I thought a Medunjanin/Yuya Kubo/Luciano Acosta midfield would get run over - and, factually, Houston’s Derrick Jones ran it over solo on his own four, five times - but, after leaving a pasture between defense and midfield thereby allowing the Dynamo’s go-ahead goal, the midfield compressed against the defense nicely. Now, if the midfield can work with Medunjanin on the field - still an open question in my mind…well, don’t you want him out there for the ball movement? If so, who and/or what gives way - e.g., do you sit Kubo and try Medunjanin in the midfield with Cruz and Acosta, or, do you try replace Atanga with Acosta and play a Cruz, Medunjanin, Kubo midfield behind them? Possibilities are opening up…
4) The Game in Human Form
Soccer produces a wealth/vareity of moments, but few are as telling as a player going in one-on-one versus the ‘keeper; it’s the gift a player has to put away, only with a lower success rate. That burden fell on Alvaro Barreal in the fifth minute and he carried it with aplomb, giving Cincy a well-earned point. On the shadier side of the ledger, Barreal gave the game a wicked case of the hiccups, breaking up the rhythm again and again with a well-timed roll on the grass. In other words, gamesmanship gets an assist in the draw and Barreal pulled most of the strings.
5) What Is a Brenner?
The young Brazilian turned in one of his best moments so far when he played himself into the area and forced a tricky save out of Marko Maric. Most of the time around that shining moment, meanwhile, saw Brenner serving as an outlet wide left near the top of Houston’s defensive third. Having outlets is good - this goes back to the point about finding the next pass - but that choice takes Brenner out of the heart of things. It’s not a useless tactic by any means - it opens space on the weak side for Barreal to operate, for one - but…well, it’s not what you’d expect for $13-15 million. Optimistically, that’s just Stam & Co. working through how to involve Brenner; pessimistically, they spent a shit-ton of money on a passing outlet.
Anyway, call that result more useful than entertaining, but it feels like a foundation coming in. Till the next one…
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