FC Cincinnati, in the Ass Crack Between '21 and '22

FC Cincinnati, the stuff of mythology.

In preparing this post, I tried to sort out the rules around the 2021 Re-Entry Draft, but lost interest in just a couple minutes. One third of that impulse came from boredom with over-technical bullshit, but the list of FC Cincinnati players who are either out of contract, or who did not have their contract options picked up another third:

Options Declined (for now, I think?)
Edgar Castillo
Chris Duvall
Jonas Fjeldberg
Avionne Flanagan
Joseph-Claude Gyau
Nick Hagglund
Ben Lundt
Caleb Stanko
Przemyslaw Tyton

Out of Contract
Haris Medunjanin
Florian Valot
Maikel van der Werff

The other third of me checking out follows from essential fatalism - i.e., accepting things over which I have no control, e.g., rosters of the teams I love and follow - but, to the point at hand, the word “irreplaceable” does not cross my mind when I review that list. Moreover, I don’t even know who Fjeldberg or Flanagan are, the latter sounds made up to the point I’m not even sure he really exists, and, turning to more existential questions, can one miss something that one has never seen? Bottom line - and I say this with zero malice toward anyone on that list, and affection for a couple - all those players file under too old, too injured, or somewhere south of what’s needed for the heavy, seemingly-eternal lift of getting FC Cincy out of its three-year wallow in the gutter.

Ideally, though, some or all those players going will make room for new players to come in. A review of what’s left of Cincinnati’s roster as of today’s speaks to the need, but, call me lazy (ignore the post/thoughts, etc.), I’m not inclined to sort out options beyond bare, non-financial numbers, and here are those: at time of writing, Cincinnati has six senior roster spots open, one spot for Supplemental Slots 21-14, two for 25-28, and one more for 29-30. So, if I’m understanding the rules right, that’s grand total of 11 potential new players. Only, it’s not: the return of Alvas Powell makes it ten and it could be as few as nine if the twitter rumors around Dominique Badji translate into him signing. Based on the numbers from the MLS Players’ Association 2021 MLS Player Salaries data-dump, it looks like Powell can come in as a Supplemental Slot 21-24 player, while Badji, assuming he does come in, will occupy a senior spot. Alec Kann already shows up on Cincy’s roster as a senior player, so, assuming I have all of that right (or will be shortly), that leaves Cincinnati with:

Five senior roster spots, two Supplemental 25-28, and one Supplemental 29-30.

With all due respect to Calvin Harris, Zico Bailey, Ben Mines and…Beckham Sunderland (who, in my imagination went to prep-school with Avionne Flanagan), and in the hope that Powell can return to the best level he played for the Portland Timbers, and barring trades, that boils down to FC Cincinnati having five cracks at improving its roster in time for First Kick 2022. With things as they are, or have been, that sounds like a big lift.

Before digging into that, I’ll give the optimists their due: it’s possible that Cincinnati’s new (untested) head coach, Pat Noonan, will get more out of the current roster than his immediate predecessor, Jaap Stam could. And I’d agree that the Dutchman served up his share of mysteries - e.g., why he insisted on starting a winger (Yuya Kubo) in defensive midfield after Cincy had spent an “excuse-me?” amount of money ($925K?!) on another player who is a(n alleged) natural for it (Kamohelo Mokotjo); why he refused to, say, try to start two forwards in order to keep the club’s (alleged) prize asset, Brenner, nearer the goal with some support, and just generally seemed to stick with ideas that clearly weren’t working as if they were - but I’d also argue that Stam played the hand he was dealt and it wasn’t a good one. And that brings me to the next thought…

Now…how do trades work in MLS? I guess the better question is, can I name a player that Cincinnati would want to trade that another team would want? Eh, I’m guessing Chris Albright looks at the roster with the same kind of despair as a used car salesman contemplating a sales lot full of lemons (going the other way, wasn’t he hired to make lemonade out of lemons?) Of all the names the roster, I can see Cincinnati shopping the possible future upside of Alvaro Barreal or Isaac Atanga, but I can’t see them get anything in return besides other players with possible future upsides. Which, I suppose returns the conversation to where it started - i.e., trying to figure out what to do with five senior roster spots - which, again, assumes Badji is coming…about which…

2022 will be Badji’s eighth season in MLS. If I remember right (and I might not), some light buzz surrounded his arrival, but he’s never really lived all the way up to it. Without denying he has had productive seasons - e.g., nine goals and six assists for the Colorado Rapids in 2017, and a combined nine goals and three assists between FC Dallas and the Rapids in 2018, both of which match or beat Brenner’s rookie-season haul - Badji has had a career of bouncing on the bubble of irreplaceable and, as such, between teams. He doesn’t quite file under journeyman yet, but, assuming they do sign him, Cincy would count as Badji’s fourth team in eight seasons (informally, I’d say journeyman kicks in at five teams in a career). He definitely has qualities - e.g., decent speed, solid physically, finishing as good as his speed, etc. - but he also strikes me as a more polished version of Brandon Vazquez. Related, Badji has a lot more minutes than Vazquez - 9,995 to 2,503 - but, unless my math is wrong (and do check it), they both have a similar rate of return on goals (a goal every third game, more or less, with the edge going to Badji), while Vazquez holds the edge on assists (i.e., one every four games, roughly, versus one every 6.5 for Badji). Setting aside very real questions as to whether Vazquez will keep producing at the same clip, the larger point is that I’m not sure how much a 29-year-old Badji improves on a 23-year-old Vazquez. Moreover, I see both as what I call “second-banana forwards,” e.g., guys who play near the goal, most often as a contributor/foil to a primary forward. Which returns to a thought above…

I put all that energy into comparing two comparatively secondary players to raise a more direct question: what are Cincinnati’s actual positions of need? And even that conversation starts with another, one that may peter out into uncomfortable silence before it starts: is there a universe in which those positions of need can expand to players under-performing players currently under contract? To name names, is it possible off-load the contracts of, say, Kubo, Mokotjo, or even Allan Cruz, a player who, for me, has never quite fit right in any of FC Cincy’s (alleged) grand schemes? I’ve seen people float the idea of buying down either Cruz’s or Kubo’s designated player contracts to TAM-level deals, but…for all the flexibility that buys, that still leaves both players on the roster and payroll. Also, doesn’t buying them down to TAM contracts assume freeing up money for new DPs, which implies having two players on TAM salaries sitting on the bench, and, ye gods, I hope I’m doing the math wrong because that’s a smal fortune in sunk costs.

And what the hell does Noonan do with Mokotjo in 2022? The question of why he didn’t play large chunks of a 2021 season that screamed for a fully-capable defensive midfielder - hold that thought* - is and remains my biggest personal mystery of Cincy’s 2021. I didn’t see him in training, of course (I live in Oregon, fer crissakes, and have a wife, two kids, a cat and a dog, which gives me a better excuse than most), but it sounds like he had some real moments the Eredivise, up to and including a league MVP nomination and acting as captain for a season, so, unless he was injured…I don’t get it. And yet I do know the answer, even if I don’t understand it: Kubo took the spot. To pick up the *thought above, I want to make one thing clear: I respect the flaming hell out of Yuya Kubo. The man was given a job and he didn’t just do it, he busted his ass doing it. That translates as a couple things to me, a tremendous team player and someone who has committed to the team he’s on, among them. And I did see his tackling stats somewhere between 2/3 and 3/4 into the season and they ranked well. Still, Kubo fell short in one simple, yet vital aspect of the d-mid game: the timing and quality of his passes. Bottom-line, the man held the ball too damn long and that cratered Cincinnati’s capacity to flip defense to offense after turnovers.

Cincinnati needs that guy - a ball-winner who can either start or operate in transition, but also circulate the ball quickly when that isn’t on. Cincy hasn’t had a player like that in all my time watching them (wow…since July of 2018), and it’s killed them over their three years in MLS. They’ve had players who do aspects of that job well, but no one who does both. A midfield general, someone who can free Acosta to focus on the attack, keep things safe behind him and organized around him: they need something between fulcrum and foundation. I don’t care how this hypothetical midfielder makes that happen, but, getting its midfield shit together remains Cincinnati’s greatest challenge for 2022. If Mokotjo can be that player, so much the better and problem solved - and that’s my first choice, for what it’s worth… maybe Stam forced him into an incoherent system? Just spit-balling here…

Finding a good, starting-quality central defender (or someone damned close) comes in as a close second for me. Geoff Cameron might not think he’s getting older, but he is. And, as much as I like Gustavo Vallecilla and see…enough potential in Tyler Blackett, all that taken together leaves FC Cincinnati less thin at the back than one retirement away from disgusting, shameful baldness. [Ed. - The author has been unrepentantly bald since 30.] When Cameron goes, this team will need a new anchor - a better one, ideally.

Fullbacks come to mind as well. Powell answers one question (even if how isn’t perfectly clear as yet), but Cincy’s left needs…something over there, probably something they have to pay for. But doesn’t that get to another bottom line, specifically, FC Cincinnati’s throw-shit-at-the-wall strategy for player acquisition? The hard truth comes in and out of all the above like a stitch that holds the whole thing together: FC Cincinnati has spent plenty of money since joining MLS, but they've also arguably bested the rest of MLS at throwing good money after bad. And that brings this post to the real question, the beating heart of this post, the sound you hear throbbing from the floorboards every time you lay awake late at night contemplating another season of abject failure and, worse, fucking awful television:

Has FC Cincinnati finally hired the team that will fix this team’s geuninely fundamental problems? Follow-up question: will a rich-asshole management team give them enough time and, if some rumors are true, freedom to untangle what can be sadly and reasonably be called the Gordian Knot of MLS?

I didn’t write this post to pass judgment. I wrote it to pose the questions I want to ask about FC Cincinnati as they prepare for 2022. And the thing I’m really looking for is how the front office answers those questions. If the Albright/Noonan team can make the current roster work and, better, build up from that foundation, that’s my prayers answered as a supporter and, no less crucially, a viewer. As implied above, I can see FC Cincinnati achieving coherence if they can sign good players in the three positions I flagged above…but, on experience, that’s like this front office calling the Powerball numbers. Maybe even twice.

At any rate, I don’t know what I hope to see next season, or, at this point, even when I need to see it. If I had to tell your average Cincy fan to hold on to something, it’d be the fact that they’ve had at least one month of hope every season they’ve been in MLS. Making that two months would probably get them off the bottom of the league - hell, getting it up to two-and-a-half could lift them into the conversation as playoff-competitive - but the gap between Hell and Purgatory isn’t as wide as all that. Getting into Heaven will probably take either something more or some years, but Dante spent hundreds of pages doing that.