I couldn’t put FC Cincinnati’s 4-3 loss to Club du Foot Montreal at the Big Tickle to into words, but I think the image gets to the self-defeating spirit of what some of you poor bastards paid to see live.
Looking at the numbers seems like a waste of time, even though I know I’m gonna do it - also, don’t do it, it just makes it worse - but I think the better exercise comes with marching through the parade of “what the fuck” the led to each of Montreal’s goals.
Goale the Firste: With Luciano Acosta facing upfield, Yuya Kubo peels off Djordje Mihailovic to double-team(?) Kamal Miller on (Cincy’s right touch-line), which leaves Mihailovic isolated against Nick Hagglund, never the best idea. Geoff Cameron then peels off to defend…with Tyler Blackett picking up Kei Kamara, though there are two more Montreal defenders lurking in the area. Mihailovic cuts inside Hagglund and loops the ball around Cameron, who steps forward and opens up Alec Kann’s back-post. Bad.
Goale the Seconde: Acosta drops the ball to Kubo, who has (about) 10 feet of space all around him, and Kubo chooses to dribble forward (instead of, y’know, passing the ball; related, I have a still of Alvas Powell tossing up his hands in frustration right as the turnover happens (about 0:05 in on the clip). He’s gotten away with that all season, but this time his touch carries too close to Montreal’s Victor Wanyama, who steps past Cameron’s challenge and finds Kei Kamara to his left. At this point, at least four Cincy defenders collapse toward Kamara and Wanyama on the (/Cincy’s) right, including Kubo, who was aware of Mihailovic, but lost him in that moment, and Mihailovic passes home from about 13-14 yards out. Bad, but also the beginning of a theme.
Goale the Thirde: Montreal breaks Cincy’s press by spreading the field and, after the home team thwarts Montreal right back, Alistair Johnson’s run, the ball bounces back to Wanyama who has all the freedom in the world to dream of possibilities. He lofts a ball between Blackett and Cameron, both of whom have lost track of Kamara, which sends the grey eminence of Montreal alone on goal with all three center backs chasing. They do not win. Kamara slots in Montreal’s third to Kann’s right/the far post.
Goale the Fourthe: Powell attempts to stuff a pass to Brandon Vazquez, but it bounces off his foot and into the path of (I think) Montreal’s Rudy Camacho, who immediately feeds Joaquin Torres, who is all alone behind Raymon Gaddis. Torres surges forward - and, here, I can still hear one of Cincy’s broadcast geeks say, “he has help from Kamara, and that’s about it” - and, at the top of Cincy’s defensive third, Kamara peels wide right, with both Blackett and (again, and why?) Cameron chasing. Kamara scoots a ball across the face of goal about four yards out; with Kann cheating too hard to cover his near-post and Cameron still searching for what to do, the ball squirts between them to the back post where Torres, who, unlike Junior Moreno, continued his run to the back post, and there’s your game winner.
Looking at the numbers seems like a waste of time, even though I know I’m gonna do it - also, don’t do it, it just makes it worse - but I think the better exercise comes with marching through the parade of “what the fuck” the led to each of Montreal’s goals.
Goale the Firste: With Luciano Acosta facing upfield, Yuya Kubo peels off Djordje Mihailovic to double-team(?) Kamal Miller on (Cincy’s right touch-line), which leaves Mihailovic isolated against Nick Hagglund, never the best idea. Geoff Cameron then peels off to defend…with Tyler Blackett picking up Kei Kamara, though there are two more Montreal defenders lurking in the area. Mihailovic cuts inside Hagglund and loops the ball around Cameron, who steps forward and opens up Alec Kann’s back-post. Bad.
Goale the Seconde: Acosta drops the ball to Kubo, who has (about) 10 feet of space all around him, and Kubo chooses to dribble forward (instead of, y’know, passing the ball; related, I have a still of Alvas Powell tossing up his hands in frustration right as the turnover happens (about 0:05 in on the clip). He’s gotten away with that all season, but this time his touch carries too close to Montreal’s Victor Wanyama, who steps past Cameron’s challenge and finds Kei Kamara to his left. At this point, at least four Cincy defenders collapse toward Kamara and Wanyama on the (/Cincy’s) right, including Kubo, who was aware of Mihailovic, but lost him in that moment, and Mihailovic passes home from about 13-14 yards out. Bad, but also the beginning of a theme.
Goale the Thirde: Montreal breaks Cincy’s press by spreading the field and, after the home team thwarts Montreal right back, Alistair Johnson’s run, the ball bounces back to Wanyama who has all the freedom in the world to dream of possibilities. He lofts a ball between Blackett and Cameron, both of whom have lost track of Kamara, which sends the grey eminence of Montreal alone on goal with all three center backs chasing. They do not win. Kamara slots in Montreal’s third to Kann’s right/the far post.
Goale the Fourthe: Powell attempts to stuff a pass to Brandon Vazquez, but it bounces off his foot and into the path of (I think) Montreal’s Rudy Camacho, who immediately feeds Joaquin Torres, who is all alone behind Raymon Gaddis. Torres surges forward - and, here, I can still hear one of Cincy’s broadcast geeks say, “he has help from Kamara, and that’s about it” - and, at the top of Cincy’s defensive third, Kamara peels wide right, with both Blackett and (again, and why?) Cameron chasing. Kamara scoots a ball across the face of goal about four yards out; with Kann cheating too hard to cover his near-post and Cameron still searching for what to do, the ball squirts between them to the back post where Torres, who, unlike Junior Moreno, continued his run to the back post, and there’s your game winner.
 |
| Alvas. Very much sort of. |
When a team gives up goals like that - four of them, no less - what they do in the other direction has to be nothing less than excellent. Vazquez was excellent today, not just with the follow-through, skill and patience to put away Cincy’s first goal, but with the run in behind Montreal’s Miller to create Cincy’s second goal, but also with countless touches and flicks, nice open-field passes and winning (I’m guessing) 70% of the headers that came anywhere near him in Montreal’s box. I’d credit Powell with an equally good game; he marauded up Montreal’s left like a pirate pillaging the Caribbean until his legs gave out, and reasonably, around the 65th minute: moreover, he created Cincy’s first and third goal, the latter with a run that unbalanced Montreal’s defense all the way to fucking with Camacho's head so bad that he got up and bitched about the call.
That makes two FC Cincinnati players who stepped up today. The question is, where was everyone else?
Yeah, yeah, that’s over-determinative, and in several ways, but this really was death by a hundred fuck-ups kind of afternoon. Acosta committed some bad giveaways - including one fucking ridiculous pass where he split the difference between two options and passed straight a Montreal defender with his team having a rare advantage to press - but I put most of the blame down to two things: 1) the defensive errors cataloged above, and 2) a sort of magnet-ball panic that saw too many Cincinnati players decide it was up to them to save the game, and all at the same time. To elaborate on the second point…
This was a problem on the defensive side throughout, with too many players attacking the ball and too few of them looking around to track the location and movement of Montreal’s attacking players; again, see the catalog of errors/Montreal goals. The same thing happened on the attacking end, especially in the second half, and more so after Brenner got on the field. Everyone with any excuse to be there decided they’d try to make the game work from the left side of Montreal’s defensive third - one memorable moment saw three Cincy players in a box of space no bigger than 10 feet square - and they proceeded to get in one another’s way and/or try to play within a space that Montreal could shut down by just lurking in the vicinity.
All that adds up to the same thing: a failure to coordinate, a failure to understand roles and, outside the exceptions noted above, a failure to manage the game as a team. In a word, the stuff a team typically manages with coaching.
Montreal was no great shakes, obviously, not least because they’re tied for the most goals allowed in 2022 at 14; then again, you’re never gonna guess who they’re tied with (it’s FC Cincinnati). Still, credit where it’s due, they did a better job of knowing where to look for passes and connecting them (as demonstrated by a nearly seven-point edge in passing accuracy), even when they had to scramble a little to get through Cincy’s press, and that helped them calm the game when they needed to, and to kill it off over the last 20. With that as a foundation, all they needed was a difference-maker or two - paging Mihailovic and Wanyama - or players doing decisive things in key moments (e.g., Torres, Kamara, Alistair Johnson). And that’s the hideous fucking ball-game.
And…that’s pretty much it. More than anything else, all the above points to the need to get the players on the same page in some constructive manner, i.e., a two-week break couldn’t come at a better time. The roster remains flawed, but, all the good stuff up Montreal’s left notwithstanding, a lot of the issues I saw today need to be resolved with coaching. Some of that thought feels unfair to Pat Noonan - e.g., he wasn’t controlling Cameron’s bad decisions like some guy playing FIFA on his PS4 (PS5?) - but, for as much as a team sorts out roles in-game, the framework for how to do that starts beforehand. Coaching, in other words.
Now, a couple stray talking points.
1) Is the Opposition Studying the Tape?
All I know is, if I was, I’d tell the nearest player to pressure the shit out of Kubo anytime he got on the ball, because that dude lingers on the ball like he's writing poetry about it. After several games of thinking, “problem solved,” I’m back on the fence with FC Cincy’s midfield. And that only goes double due to the fact that Cincinnati’s midfield has yet to play some of the better teams in the league. Seriously, Orlando was probably the toughest test - that is, unless you see Austin FC, DC United, Inter Miami CF, and Charlotte FC as "elite - but that’s the literal ceiling by my count. Things just get tougher from here.
2) Brenner(?) and a Question of Options
I have to credit Travis Grimes (@ComeOnYouFCC) for the observation. Per his pre-game tweet:
“Start Brenner or transfer him out. It’s not useful for either side to have your highest paid player and DP coming off the bench for 20-25 minutes.”
And yet that’s what FC Cincinnati keeps doing. In the defense of the coaching staff and front office, I have yet to see Brenner justify a starter’s role. Going the other way, I also have yet to see them play Brenner in a way that, based on what I’ve seen, puts him in what looks like his best position to score. But doesn’t that point to the dilemma - i.e., how do you get Brenner on the field, particularly with the Badji/Brenner combo working as well as anything has in FC Cincinnati’s MLS history (even if it’s, like, 85% Vasquez)?
At this point in time/the season, my only thought is that Cincinnati could to get smarter about using the forwards it has to change the game. I have neither the time nor the proximity to know whether Brenner would work running with Vazquez, but I do, however, sense a certain upside could be gained by starting those two and bringing on the Badji/Vazquez combo as a blunt instrument down the stretch. If nothing else, it would give opposing defenses another dynamic to manage every game...
That last point’s probably just me spit-balling, in half-desperation and, with this loss anyway, at the wrong end of the field no less - i.e., the defense needs help right now, while the offense is pretty damn league-average (eight goals for) - but FC Cincinnati faces a situation where things will very likely look worse before they look better…and with Toronto FC beating New York City FC 2-1 in Toronto today, the little respite I’d banked on at the end of April/early May might not come good.
At any rate, that’s all for this one. Let’s hope that’s not all for 2022, because things don’t look so good right now.
That makes two FC Cincinnati players who stepped up today. The question is, where was everyone else?
Yeah, yeah, that’s over-determinative, and in several ways, but this really was death by a hundred fuck-ups kind of afternoon. Acosta committed some bad giveaways - including one fucking ridiculous pass where he split the difference between two options and passed straight a Montreal defender with his team having a rare advantage to press - but I put most of the blame down to two things: 1) the defensive errors cataloged above, and 2) a sort of magnet-ball panic that saw too many Cincinnati players decide it was up to them to save the game, and all at the same time. To elaborate on the second point…
This was a problem on the defensive side throughout, with too many players attacking the ball and too few of them looking around to track the location and movement of Montreal’s attacking players; again, see the catalog of errors/Montreal goals. The same thing happened on the attacking end, especially in the second half, and more so after Brenner got on the field. Everyone with any excuse to be there decided they’d try to make the game work from the left side of Montreal’s defensive third - one memorable moment saw three Cincy players in a box of space no bigger than 10 feet square - and they proceeded to get in one another’s way and/or try to play within a space that Montreal could shut down by just lurking in the vicinity.
All that adds up to the same thing: a failure to coordinate, a failure to understand roles and, outside the exceptions noted above, a failure to manage the game as a team. In a word, the stuff a team typically manages with coaching.
Montreal was no great shakes, obviously, not least because they’re tied for the most goals allowed in 2022 at 14; then again, you’re never gonna guess who they’re tied with (it’s FC Cincinnati). Still, credit where it’s due, they did a better job of knowing where to look for passes and connecting them (as demonstrated by a nearly seven-point edge in passing accuracy), even when they had to scramble a little to get through Cincy’s press, and that helped them calm the game when they needed to, and to kill it off over the last 20. With that as a foundation, all they needed was a difference-maker or two - paging Mihailovic and Wanyama - or players doing decisive things in key moments (e.g., Torres, Kamara, Alistair Johnson). And that’s the hideous fucking ball-game.
And…that’s pretty much it. More than anything else, all the above points to the need to get the players on the same page in some constructive manner, i.e., a two-week break couldn’t come at a better time. The roster remains flawed, but, all the good stuff up Montreal’s left notwithstanding, a lot of the issues I saw today need to be resolved with coaching. Some of that thought feels unfair to Pat Noonan - e.g., he wasn’t controlling Cameron’s bad decisions like some guy playing FIFA on his PS4 (PS5?) - but, for as much as a team sorts out roles in-game, the framework for how to do that starts beforehand. Coaching, in other words.
Now, a couple stray talking points.
1) Is the Opposition Studying the Tape?
All I know is, if I was, I’d tell the nearest player to pressure the shit out of Kubo anytime he got on the ball, because that dude lingers on the ball like he's writing poetry about it. After several games of thinking, “problem solved,” I’m back on the fence with FC Cincy’s midfield. And that only goes double due to the fact that Cincinnati’s midfield has yet to play some of the better teams in the league. Seriously, Orlando was probably the toughest test - that is, unless you see Austin FC, DC United, Inter Miami CF, and Charlotte FC as "elite - but that’s the literal ceiling by my count. Things just get tougher from here.
2) Brenner(?) and a Question of Options
I have to credit Travis Grimes (@ComeOnYouFCC) for the observation. Per his pre-game tweet:
“Start Brenner or transfer him out. It’s not useful for either side to have your highest paid player and DP coming off the bench for 20-25 minutes.”
And yet that’s what FC Cincinnati keeps doing. In the defense of the coaching staff and front office, I have yet to see Brenner justify a starter’s role. Going the other way, I also have yet to see them play Brenner in a way that, based on what I’ve seen, puts him in what looks like his best position to score. But doesn’t that point to the dilemma - i.e., how do you get Brenner on the field, particularly with the Badji/Brenner combo working as well as anything has in FC Cincinnati’s MLS history (even if it’s, like, 85% Vasquez)?
At this point in time/the season, my only thought is that Cincinnati could to get smarter about using the forwards it has to change the game. I have neither the time nor the proximity to know whether Brenner would work running with Vazquez, but I do, however, sense a certain upside could be gained by starting those two and bringing on the Badji/Vazquez combo as a blunt instrument down the stretch. If nothing else, it would give opposing defenses another dynamic to manage every game...
That last point’s probably just me spit-balling, in half-desperation and, with this loss anyway, at the wrong end of the field no less - i.e., the defense needs help right now, while the offense is pretty damn league-average (eight goals for) - but FC Cincinnati faces a situation where things will very likely look worse before they look better…and with Toronto FC beating New York City FC 2-1 in Toronto today, the little respite I’d banked on at the end of April/early May might not come good.
At any rate, that’s all for this one. Let’s hope that’s not all for 2022, because things don’t look so good right now.
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