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| On playing the hand one is dealt. |
If you’re like me, you checked out from most things Major League Soccer after MLS Cup 2021 wrapped up and, let’s be honest, disappointed fiercely (if only locally). And, if you’re like me, you’ve started the cat-herding labor of catching up on what you’ve missed going into the 2022 season. And away we go.
The thrust of this first MLS Weakly of 2022 will view developments around MLS from a vantage both high and narrow - i.e., it will be neither encompassing nor granular, except in re the doings around the two teams this space follows, the Portland Timbers and FC Cincinnati. I tucked those notes at the bottom and will start instead with the most general of generalities: picking through points of interest in the first quarter of the 2022 domestic/domestic-international calendar. Just to note it, the article linked to just now covers all of 2022, so go as deep as the spirit moves you. A quick run-down:
MLS Preseason starts between January 10-16 - depending on the team - which I’ll care about to the extent I can actually see the games…and without straining; the MLS SuperDraft is on January 11, but the past decade or so has trained me to give zero shits about it; the penultimate CONCACAF World Cup Qualifying (“WCQ”) falls between January 24th and February 2nd…interest pending*; the FIFA World Club Cup plays between February 3rd and 12th, and, based on the teams involved, NEXT; that brings us to the first (personal) hot ticket of the year, the CONCACAF Champions’ League, which starts on February 15th-17th, and I love that perennial heartbreak like a teenage child who has grown to hate me, even if neither of my teams participates (the MLS participants, for the record: Colorado Rapids, Club du Foot Montreal, New England Revolution, New York City FC, and Seattle Sounders), which is to say, take me, I'm yours.
The MLS regular season starts earlier than it ever has, of course, on February 26, so that’s an early Christmas for us all and I’m looking forward to some snow games. That’s also when I plan on regular service resuming in this space. [Related: As an alternative to shutting down this site for the third time(/perhaps a psychological need for attention), I’ve committed to checking out to some extent at the middle of the season - i.e., around the time I feel like narratives have solidified and/or I feel like I’m repeating myself - but I’ll re-engage about 10-12 games before the stretch run.]
What else? Oh, MLS Next Pro debuts at some point TBD in March and I’m curious about that, though I can’t say how much as yet. March ends with the final, hopefully not too decisive window for CONCACAF WCQ*, the U.S. Open Cup (“USOC”) on March 22nd-23rd, and FIFA’s 72nd Congress meeting. I wish I could love the USOC with all the nerd-ish enthusiasm in the world, but all involved have mismanaged that thing to where I feel mild embarrassment watching it. As for FIFA’s Congress, may the Earth open and swallow it, leaving behind only their heads and briefcases of cash behind. And, now, to address the asterisk…
* I remain torn between cynicism and a microscopic act of defiance around the 2022 World Cup Finals. On the one hand, I want to watch because this current U.S. Men’s National Team looks more interesting than any since the late 2000s…but will I be able to enjoy it through all the bribes and dead bodies? All professional sports are tainted to some extent, but FIFA…my GOD, the horrors they’ve smeared all over Qatar 2022. I know no one will notice me not watching, and they’ll make the killing they paid for, but I’d find a little moral peace if I checked out. And if I’m going to skip the final, is there a point to watching the qualifiers?
OK, happy thoughts, HAPPY THOUGHTS…
I, like you, see players across MLS coming, going and retiring (pour one out for Chris Wondolowski; the league may never see the like of him again), but, rather than bullshit my way through (at best) half-educated guesses and roster mechanisms that interest me less with each acronym (“xAM”? guys?!), I’ll direct anyone interested in those details to Matt Doyle’s “roster status” posts for the Eastern Conference and the Western Conference. For what it’s worth, the question of which teams have the most potential to upgrade - e.g., the teams who had the most open Designated Player and U22 Initiative slots open - strike me as most interesting, if with practical and historical caveats. That’s not to say there haven’t been some genuinely interesting moves already this off-season - I mean, some of them beg for a hot take - but, as noted earlier, I don’t have the chops to talk about them. And, given how big the league’s got, I’m not sure I can even find the time to educate myself. So I decided to attack a smaller monster.
I decided to look into the (by this count) nine coaching changes that took place** between the 2021 and 2022 MLS seasons and poke the tea leaves a little. First, for those who noticed the double asterisks, ** at least four of the “new” coaches count as at least semi-known quantities in MLS circles. Those are:
Vanni Sartini for the Vancouver Whitecaps
Pablo Mastroeni for Real Salt Lake
Gonzalo Pineda for Atlanta United FC
Bob Bradley at Toronto FC
Bradley will find himself in a…I’m going with somewhat new situation (and hold that thought), but, for the other three - Sartini, Mastroeni, and Pineda - the 2022 season amounts to determining what they can build on what they’ve already done with their respective teams. Judged from some distance, all three seem to bring different qualities to their jobs - for instance, Pineda strikes me as the most cerebral of the bunch, while Mastroeni comes off a pure motivator and Sartini as some combination of those two traits - at which point the real question becomes the players they have to organize and motivate. Which leads me to the broader focus of this…
…wait, shit. Forgot the finish the thought on Bradley at Toronto. Because Toronto spends as eagerly as LAFC, Bradley will have access to brighter prospects. He’ll have to wait a couple ticks - more on that later - but Bradley has the savvy to build something better with what Toronto has for parts than right now than, say, Chris Armas….who, out of the blue, leads me to another theme.
To introduce the thought, five totally new head coaches will start in 2022. They are:
Steve Cherundolo at Los Angeles FC, aka, Bob’s old haunt
Paulo Nagamura at Houston Dynamo FC
Ezra Hendrickson at Chicago Fire FC
Pat Noonan at FC Cincinnati (please, please, please…if only for a blessed change of pace)
Nico Estevez at FC Dallas
First, the big thing that stands out: none of those guys, not one, strikes me as a sure thing, never mind the next big one. Some of them have no head coaching experience at all - Noonan and, in the best real terms I can make out, Estevez fall in that group - while the ones who have “head coached”…well, they haven’t done so good. I linked to some relevant content in each coach’s name, but, to give a surface impression: Cherundolo has only acted as head coach for kids (Hannover’s U-17 academy) and Hendrickson’s and Nagamura resumes at lower-division teams…huh. Parsing Hendrickson’s record takes a little more work - e.g., he started as Sounders FC 2’s first head coach, but did he continue when they became the Tacoma Defiance? Assuming he did, he never guided his team to the USL/USLC playoffs and topped out at 5th place, though, to his credit, that was last year. Nagamura’s record at Sporting Kansas City II - which ran from 2017 to 2021…well, it sucks. That’s not a scientific term, of course, but what else does one call 30-61-25? It’d be one thing if the Houston brain-trust had had a brain-wave since the mid-2000s…
I’m not saying all those guys will fail, by any means, but questions and unknowns abound. And that goes back to the money/resources thought I started with Bob Bradley: how many of those guys will get a real chance to prove they can? Some of that will depend, maybe even a lot of it, on the kinds and quality of players they’re coaching. As with Bradley, I expect Cherundolo to have more support/resources and a stronger player pool as a result, a reality that cuts both ways. Next comes the reality of the overall foundation on which each will build. For my money, Cherundolo will have the best (if with some caveats), followed by Estevez, followed by Bradley (because history aside, Toronto sucked for large portions of 2021). Chicago and Cincinnati, on the other hand, have to build on dysfunctional foundations - i.e., the latter has known nothing but chaos and failure, while Chicago labors under, best as I can tell, a curse. Now, let’s glance at what all those teams have done to improve. Or the opposite. Literally, judging from Doyle’s notes, in the order above:
LAFC: They lost Eduard Atuesta (after losing Mark-Anthony Kaye mid-2021) plus Tristan Blackmon, but kept Carlos Vela. (Yay?) They picked Ismael Tajouri-Shradi from New York City FC. Doyle calls getting a stellar d-mid a key, and that makes sense.
My Best Guess on Cherundolo: Between those better resources and the weight of expectations, I suspect he’ll have less time to impress than everyone, maybe even Bradley, with some time conditionally added for time to make this his team.
Houston Dynamo FC: They moved on some old reliables - e.g., Boniek Garcia and Maynor Figueroa - but that shouldn’t hurt too much on the field. They’ve made modest moves besides - e.g., picking Steve Clark (GK) from Portland, Daniel Steres (CB) from the Los Angeles Galaxy, and re-signing Darwin Quintero - which is nice, but hardly a miracle in progress. Most significantly, they have three open slots for both DPs and U22 Initiative players, aka, the “Accelerators.”
My Best Guess on Nagamura: Bluntly, I think they’re handing him an anchor, not unlike what Houston did to Tab Ramos, e.g., “make this team of duct-taped parts sing!” It could be even worse if Nagamura gets big signings and still struggles. Success will silence the doubters, of course…but isn’t it possible people will credit the big signings more than him?
Chicago Fire FC: The headline is that Chicago cut to the bone, leaving just 11 players on the roster right now. They kept Gaston Gimenez - who I saw go good things and heard praise for - they signed a good-on-paper CB in Rafael Czichos and have two DP spots open. Doyle talked up the youth movement, which has an interpretive implication or two.
My Best Guess on Hendrickson: By which I mean, if Chicago hired Hendrickson (slightly) against his record with USL teams to bring along the kids, I expect they’ll give him time to build a proper foundation. I’m not saying he won’t get judged against his record - while not good, Chicago wasn’t hopeless in 2021, so an upgrade at the back, plus two decent DP signings could go a long way - but one imagines/hopes Chicago’s F.O. appreciates the magnitude of the lift.
FC Dallas: For all the ifs and unknowns in Doyle’s framing of Dallas’ off-season so far - his big picture boils down to Dallas needing to get its two open DP signings right, and he doesn’t seem to think they lost too much (no, not even Ricardo Pepi) - I read the sub-text as expecting Dallas will fall somewhere between decent and competitive in 2022. I agree, but I also over-rated the hell out of Dallas ahead of 2021.
My Best Guess for Estevez: As with Nagamura, I expect Estevez’s early tenure to work like a hall of mirrors - i.e., fans and pundits will praise, damn or defend him through the lends who whatever players Dallas signs. That said, two good DP signings on top of Dallas’ foundation could give Estevez a damn good hand to play. And, as in contract bridge, it takes a really shit player (or, in this case, head coach), to fuck up a solid hand/arrangement.
And that leaves one brand new coach….
FC Cincinnati/Pat Noonan
To repeat, Pat Noonan has literally no head coaching experience. Against that, he’s had some of the best mentors an ambitious assistant can have between the Philadelphia Union’s Jim Curtin and, the man with a strong argument for the best all-time coach in U.S. soccer history, Bruce Arena. To rephrase that as an argument, if they trusted him, why shouldn’t I? And, there, I have no reason. Beyond inexperience…but then he (or Cincinnati’s front office) soothes those concerns by bringing in an MLS Svengali like Dominic Kinnear. If you take away Noonan’s lack of experience coaching a team in MLS, he’s about as good as FC Cincinnati fans can hope for, at least when it comes to taking a swing on an assistant. Moving on to the real dilemma…
I don’t recall where I wrote it, but I once called having two successful months in a season as opposed to their historical one month as a first and necessary step for FC Cincinnati. Laugh if you must - it’s all right, it’s funny in a despairing way - but that’s all it would take to elevate them to competitive. And…shit, getting off format…
My Best Guess for Noonan: I think that’s all Noonan will need to do to stay employed for more than one year in the Queen City. Now, can he do it?
I’d call Cincy’s moves safe but good so far, e.g.: as much as I believe even the best goalkeeper can’t survive a shitty defense (see: Cincinnati, FC, 2019-2021), I don’t see how Alec Kann can’t improve on what Matt Doyle (and plenty of Cincy fans I’ve interacted with) call “the consistently worst goalkeeping I’ve ever seen a team trot out in MLS history.” Further up the field, I don’t count on either Raymon Gaddis or Alvas Powell to light up the league, but knowing that Noonan/Chris Albright had seen enough from both players before calling them over from Philly helps me trust both signings a little more. Further still up the field, I really and truly hope the Noonan/Albright/(Kinnear?) brain-trust signed Dominique Badji to, 1) get one player, any player, closer to Brenner so Cincy fans can finally see what he can do as a striker (what the hell? maybe that’s his strength), and 2) as a mentor/competitor for Brandon Vasquez, who, based on what I know of both players, shares at least some traits/approaches with Badji (that said, I credit Badji with more tactical flexibility, if only because he’s more rangy).
As for the current state of the FC Cincy vehicle, I don’t see much to mourn in the players cut loose after 2021, but the issue of sunk costs remains. Doyle flags the potential to buy down Yuya Kubo and Allan Cruz but, fatefully, that doesn’t get them off the roster and I’m struggling to see other MLS teams take them or, say, Kamohelo Mokotjo away. In other words, unless they can pull a lever I can’t see, it looks like Noonan and Cincy are looking at another season with a dysfunctional foundation. And I think all concerned understand that reality, which I think could very well give the Noonan/Albright brain-trust a longer leash than any of the new or “new” head coaching hires. And, if the stars line up and Noonan/Kinnear can reverse the FC Cincinnati tradition of swallowing good players in its collective badness and do it over the 2022 season, that fan-base might even start to feel…dare I say it? Optimism? Barring Noonan doing something really fucking stupid (say, sharing race-tinged whoppers with his players), I’d bet on him having at least two seasons at a minimum to right the ship.
Portland Timbers
I don’t have much on the Timbers because they haven’t done much. I didn’t love losing Clark and I’m already mournfully wistful about Diego Valeri, but there’s nothing after that beyond the holding pattern on Sebastian Blanco’s situation. For what it’s worth, I’m less on the “re-sign him or perish” bus than most - that transition has to transition at some point - but a Blanco departure would add a major question to answer, no question. Going the other way, I can’t believe Diego Chara will get another year like his actually miraculous 2021 out of those legs, which gets at a deeper reality: a team can stumble into having too many questions to answer.
So, yeah. Here comes the future, Timbers fans. Buckle up. Thoughts and prayers to the “Gio Out” crowd.
The thrust of this first MLS Weakly of 2022 will view developments around MLS from a vantage both high and narrow - i.e., it will be neither encompassing nor granular, except in re the doings around the two teams this space follows, the Portland Timbers and FC Cincinnati. I tucked those notes at the bottom and will start instead with the most general of generalities: picking through points of interest in the first quarter of the 2022 domestic/domestic-international calendar. Just to note it, the article linked to just now covers all of 2022, so go as deep as the spirit moves you. A quick run-down:
MLS Preseason starts between January 10-16 - depending on the team - which I’ll care about to the extent I can actually see the games…and without straining; the MLS SuperDraft is on January 11, but the past decade or so has trained me to give zero shits about it; the penultimate CONCACAF World Cup Qualifying (“WCQ”) falls between January 24th and February 2nd…interest pending*; the FIFA World Club Cup plays between February 3rd and 12th, and, based on the teams involved, NEXT; that brings us to the first (personal) hot ticket of the year, the CONCACAF Champions’ League, which starts on February 15th-17th, and I love that perennial heartbreak like a teenage child who has grown to hate me, even if neither of my teams participates (the MLS participants, for the record: Colorado Rapids, Club du Foot Montreal, New England Revolution, New York City FC, and Seattle Sounders), which is to say, take me, I'm yours.
The MLS regular season starts earlier than it ever has, of course, on February 26, so that’s an early Christmas for us all and I’m looking forward to some snow games. That’s also when I plan on regular service resuming in this space. [Related: As an alternative to shutting down this site for the third time(/perhaps a psychological need for attention), I’ve committed to checking out to some extent at the middle of the season - i.e., around the time I feel like narratives have solidified and/or I feel like I’m repeating myself - but I’ll re-engage about 10-12 games before the stretch run.]
What else? Oh, MLS Next Pro debuts at some point TBD in March and I’m curious about that, though I can’t say how much as yet. March ends with the final, hopefully not too decisive window for CONCACAF WCQ*, the U.S. Open Cup (“USOC”) on March 22nd-23rd, and FIFA’s 72nd Congress meeting. I wish I could love the USOC with all the nerd-ish enthusiasm in the world, but all involved have mismanaged that thing to where I feel mild embarrassment watching it. As for FIFA’s Congress, may the Earth open and swallow it, leaving behind only their heads and briefcases of cash behind. And, now, to address the asterisk…
* I remain torn between cynicism and a microscopic act of defiance around the 2022 World Cup Finals. On the one hand, I want to watch because this current U.S. Men’s National Team looks more interesting than any since the late 2000s…but will I be able to enjoy it through all the bribes and dead bodies? All professional sports are tainted to some extent, but FIFA…my GOD, the horrors they’ve smeared all over Qatar 2022. I know no one will notice me not watching, and they’ll make the killing they paid for, but I’d find a little moral peace if I checked out. And if I’m going to skip the final, is there a point to watching the qualifiers?
OK, happy thoughts, HAPPY THOUGHTS…
I, like you, see players across MLS coming, going and retiring (pour one out for Chris Wondolowski; the league may never see the like of him again), but, rather than bullshit my way through (at best) half-educated guesses and roster mechanisms that interest me less with each acronym (“xAM”? guys?!), I’ll direct anyone interested in those details to Matt Doyle’s “roster status” posts for the Eastern Conference and the Western Conference. For what it’s worth, the question of which teams have the most potential to upgrade - e.g., the teams who had the most open Designated Player and U22 Initiative slots open - strike me as most interesting, if with practical and historical caveats. That’s not to say there haven’t been some genuinely interesting moves already this off-season - I mean, some of them beg for a hot take - but, as noted earlier, I don’t have the chops to talk about them. And, given how big the league’s got, I’m not sure I can even find the time to educate myself. So I decided to attack a smaller monster.
I decided to look into the (by this count) nine coaching changes that took place** between the 2021 and 2022 MLS seasons and poke the tea leaves a little. First, for those who noticed the double asterisks, ** at least four of the “new” coaches count as at least semi-known quantities in MLS circles. Those are:
Vanni Sartini for the Vancouver Whitecaps
Pablo Mastroeni for Real Salt Lake
Gonzalo Pineda for Atlanta United FC
Bob Bradley at Toronto FC
Bradley will find himself in a…I’m going with somewhat new situation (and hold that thought), but, for the other three - Sartini, Mastroeni, and Pineda - the 2022 season amounts to determining what they can build on what they’ve already done with their respective teams. Judged from some distance, all three seem to bring different qualities to their jobs - for instance, Pineda strikes me as the most cerebral of the bunch, while Mastroeni comes off a pure motivator and Sartini as some combination of those two traits - at which point the real question becomes the players they have to organize and motivate. Which leads me to the broader focus of this…
…wait, shit. Forgot the finish the thought on Bradley at Toronto. Because Toronto spends as eagerly as LAFC, Bradley will have access to brighter prospects. He’ll have to wait a couple ticks - more on that later - but Bradley has the savvy to build something better with what Toronto has for parts than right now than, say, Chris Armas….who, out of the blue, leads me to another theme.
To introduce the thought, five totally new head coaches will start in 2022. They are:
Steve Cherundolo at Los Angeles FC, aka, Bob’s old haunt
Paulo Nagamura at Houston Dynamo FC
Ezra Hendrickson at Chicago Fire FC
Pat Noonan at FC Cincinnati (please, please, please…if only for a blessed change of pace)
Nico Estevez at FC Dallas
First, the big thing that stands out: none of those guys, not one, strikes me as a sure thing, never mind the next big one. Some of them have no head coaching experience at all - Noonan and, in the best real terms I can make out, Estevez fall in that group - while the ones who have “head coached”…well, they haven’t done so good. I linked to some relevant content in each coach’s name, but, to give a surface impression: Cherundolo has only acted as head coach for kids (Hannover’s U-17 academy) and Hendrickson’s and Nagamura resumes at lower-division teams…huh. Parsing Hendrickson’s record takes a little more work - e.g., he started as Sounders FC 2’s first head coach, but did he continue when they became the Tacoma Defiance? Assuming he did, he never guided his team to the USL/USLC playoffs and topped out at 5th place, though, to his credit, that was last year. Nagamura’s record at Sporting Kansas City II - which ran from 2017 to 2021…well, it sucks. That’s not a scientific term, of course, but what else does one call 30-61-25? It’d be one thing if the Houston brain-trust had had a brain-wave since the mid-2000s…
I’m not saying all those guys will fail, by any means, but questions and unknowns abound. And that goes back to the money/resources thought I started with Bob Bradley: how many of those guys will get a real chance to prove they can? Some of that will depend, maybe even a lot of it, on the kinds and quality of players they’re coaching. As with Bradley, I expect Cherundolo to have more support/resources and a stronger player pool as a result, a reality that cuts both ways. Next comes the reality of the overall foundation on which each will build. For my money, Cherundolo will have the best (if with some caveats), followed by Estevez, followed by Bradley (because history aside, Toronto sucked for large portions of 2021). Chicago and Cincinnati, on the other hand, have to build on dysfunctional foundations - i.e., the latter has known nothing but chaos and failure, while Chicago labors under, best as I can tell, a curse. Now, let’s glance at what all those teams have done to improve. Or the opposite. Literally, judging from Doyle’s notes, in the order above:
LAFC: They lost Eduard Atuesta (after losing Mark-Anthony Kaye mid-2021) plus Tristan Blackmon, but kept Carlos Vela. (Yay?) They picked Ismael Tajouri-Shradi from New York City FC. Doyle calls getting a stellar d-mid a key, and that makes sense.
My Best Guess on Cherundolo: Between those better resources and the weight of expectations, I suspect he’ll have less time to impress than everyone, maybe even Bradley, with some time conditionally added for time to make this his team.
Houston Dynamo FC: They moved on some old reliables - e.g., Boniek Garcia and Maynor Figueroa - but that shouldn’t hurt too much on the field. They’ve made modest moves besides - e.g., picking Steve Clark (GK) from Portland, Daniel Steres (CB) from the Los Angeles Galaxy, and re-signing Darwin Quintero - which is nice, but hardly a miracle in progress. Most significantly, they have three open slots for both DPs and U22 Initiative players, aka, the “Accelerators.”
My Best Guess on Nagamura: Bluntly, I think they’re handing him an anchor, not unlike what Houston did to Tab Ramos, e.g., “make this team of duct-taped parts sing!” It could be even worse if Nagamura gets big signings and still struggles. Success will silence the doubters, of course…but isn’t it possible people will credit the big signings more than him?
Chicago Fire FC: The headline is that Chicago cut to the bone, leaving just 11 players on the roster right now. They kept Gaston Gimenez - who I saw go good things and heard praise for - they signed a good-on-paper CB in Rafael Czichos and have two DP spots open. Doyle talked up the youth movement, which has an interpretive implication or two.
My Best Guess on Hendrickson: By which I mean, if Chicago hired Hendrickson (slightly) against his record with USL teams to bring along the kids, I expect they’ll give him time to build a proper foundation. I’m not saying he won’t get judged against his record - while not good, Chicago wasn’t hopeless in 2021, so an upgrade at the back, plus two decent DP signings could go a long way - but one imagines/hopes Chicago’s F.O. appreciates the magnitude of the lift.
FC Dallas: For all the ifs and unknowns in Doyle’s framing of Dallas’ off-season so far - his big picture boils down to Dallas needing to get its two open DP signings right, and he doesn’t seem to think they lost too much (no, not even Ricardo Pepi) - I read the sub-text as expecting Dallas will fall somewhere between decent and competitive in 2022. I agree, but I also over-rated the hell out of Dallas ahead of 2021.
My Best Guess for Estevez: As with Nagamura, I expect Estevez’s early tenure to work like a hall of mirrors - i.e., fans and pundits will praise, damn or defend him through the lends who whatever players Dallas signs. That said, two good DP signings on top of Dallas’ foundation could give Estevez a damn good hand to play. And, as in contract bridge, it takes a really shit player (or, in this case, head coach), to fuck up a solid hand/arrangement.
And that leaves one brand new coach….
FC Cincinnati/Pat Noonan
To repeat, Pat Noonan has literally no head coaching experience. Against that, he’s had some of the best mentors an ambitious assistant can have between the Philadelphia Union’s Jim Curtin and, the man with a strong argument for the best all-time coach in U.S. soccer history, Bruce Arena. To rephrase that as an argument, if they trusted him, why shouldn’t I? And, there, I have no reason. Beyond inexperience…but then he (or Cincinnati’s front office) soothes those concerns by bringing in an MLS Svengali like Dominic Kinnear. If you take away Noonan’s lack of experience coaching a team in MLS, he’s about as good as FC Cincinnati fans can hope for, at least when it comes to taking a swing on an assistant. Moving on to the real dilemma…
I don’t recall where I wrote it, but I once called having two successful months in a season as opposed to their historical one month as a first and necessary step for FC Cincinnati. Laugh if you must - it’s all right, it’s funny in a despairing way - but that’s all it would take to elevate them to competitive. And…shit, getting off format…
My Best Guess for Noonan: I think that’s all Noonan will need to do to stay employed for more than one year in the Queen City. Now, can he do it?
I’d call Cincy’s moves safe but good so far, e.g.: as much as I believe even the best goalkeeper can’t survive a shitty defense (see: Cincinnati, FC, 2019-2021), I don’t see how Alec Kann can’t improve on what Matt Doyle (and plenty of Cincy fans I’ve interacted with) call “the consistently worst goalkeeping I’ve ever seen a team trot out in MLS history.” Further up the field, I don’t count on either Raymon Gaddis or Alvas Powell to light up the league, but knowing that Noonan/Chris Albright had seen enough from both players before calling them over from Philly helps me trust both signings a little more. Further still up the field, I really and truly hope the Noonan/Albright/(Kinnear?) brain-trust signed Dominique Badji to, 1) get one player, any player, closer to Brenner so Cincy fans can finally see what he can do as a striker (what the hell? maybe that’s his strength), and 2) as a mentor/competitor for Brandon Vasquez, who, based on what I know of both players, shares at least some traits/approaches with Badji (that said, I credit Badji with more tactical flexibility, if only because he’s more rangy).
As for the current state of the FC Cincy vehicle, I don’t see much to mourn in the players cut loose after 2021, but the issue of sunk costs remains. Doyle flags the potential to buy down Yuya Kubo and Allan Cruz but, fatefully, that doesn’t get them off the roster and I’m struggling to see other MLS teams take them or, say, Kamohelo Mokotjo away. In other words, unless they can pull a lever I can’t see, it looks like Noonan and Cincy are looking at another season with a dysfunctional foundation. And I think all concerned understand that reality, which I think could very well give the Noonan/Albright brain-trust a longer leash than any of the new or “new” head coaching hires. And, if the stars line up and Noonan/Kinnear can reverse the FC Cincinnati tradition of swallowing good players in its collective badness and do it over the 2022 season, that fan-base might even start to feel…dare I say it? Optimism? Barring Noonan doing something really fucking stupid (say, sharing race-tinged whoppers with his players), I’d bet on him having at least two seasons at a minimum to right the ship.
Portland Timbers
I don’t have much on the Timbers because they haven’t done much. I didn’t love losing Clark and I’m already mournfully wistful about Diego Valeri, but there’s nothing after that beyond the holding pattern on Sebastian Blanco’s situation. For what it’s worth, I’m less on the “re-sign him or perish” bus than most - that transition has to transition at some point - but a Blanco departure would add a major question to answer, no question. Going the other way, I can’t believe Diego Chara will get another year like his actually miraculous 2021 out of those legs, which gets at a deeper reality: a team can stumble into having too many questions to answer.
So, yeah. Here comes the future, Timbers fans. Buckle up. Thoughts and prayers to the “Gio Out” crowd.
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