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| A visual of the game plan. |
When Toronto FC started catching up to FC Cincinnati’s mildly auspicious start, I’ll confess to it: yes, I started to doubt the program again. Watching them pass through Cincy one line at a time over and over made them look likelier to take charge and, as the minutes passed, put increasing pressure of Cincinnati’s…let’s call it non-ideal center back pairing of Ian Murphy and Nick Hagglund.
And then, like a script from one of those Hollywood movies, a good one like Rudy, Hagglund and Murphy combined to put FC Cincinnati up 1-0 just before the ref’s whistle called the end of the first half.
With that in mind, you start to re-think what you watched in the second half: the palpable disappointment from Toronto’s broadcast booth gets louder - “they got to play faster,” they said, “they’re not moving Cincinnati’s defenders around enough” - and, little by little (only in the opposite direction), it dawns on you that Cincy just managed the first half of a road game, and well enough that Toronto’s attack - which had averaged 2.6 goals per game in the five games prior (said average got a bump last weekend, fwiw) - rarely got close enough to apply pressure on Murphy and Hagglund. (And then you wake up the next morning to watch the highlights, because you’re not sure if you forgot something, and that confirms the above - e.g., that Toronto only fired a couple of shots from range in that first half). And then the second half started…
Toronto’s sloppiness hurt them throughout the first half; every ball that slipped behind a smart run slowed them down and allowed Cincinnati time to get that usefully spongy defense stacked right. The problem started at their back-line, particularly in the person of Carlos Salcedo…and have I mentioned that Toronto’s Chris Mavinga limped off in the middle of the first half, because that might be relevant. At any rate and early in the second half, one of Salcedo’s stray passes rolled over the touch-line in Toronto’s defensive third. It didn’t seem like a big deal, even after Cincinnati’s Alvas Powell set up for a long throw because and, you know, how often do those work? Then, lo and behold (and who’d they pay to make it happen?), Powell’s throw-in looped over the heads of two, three Toronto defenders and falls straight to the foot of Luciano Acosta. One second and two touches later, the ball bulged the side of Alex Bono’s net. 2-0 Cincinnati.
Toronto scored somewhere just under 15 minutes later - again, keep an eye on Jesus Jimenez - leaving them plenty of time to get back into the game…but they didn’t. They fired a couple shots - I only started counting Toronto’s “good chances” starting in the 76th minute, but noted that Powell cut across an attacker’s (can’t recall who it was) after Alejandro Pozuelo sent him in behind Cincy’s backline, and Jimenez almost got yet another wayward Toronto cross under control - but, by the end of it all, the game had a better chance at ending 3-1 to Cincinnati (e.g., the super-late break by Brandon Vazquez and Alvaro Barreal) than in a 2-2 draw. Their recent form notwithstanding, I’d call a 3-2 Toronto win faintly ridiculous.
I don’t mean to suggest Toronto beat themselves, though the sloppiness most have sucked the hope and belief out of Toronto fans and made Cincinnati fans uncomfortable at the impoliteness of the spectacle. To take my best stab at what happened, Cincinnati set up their defense to make Toronto beat them. And they couldn’t. Cincy hardly lit up the scoreboard - they finished with just three shots on goal from seven total - but two of those were goals and the other came on the late break that would have made it 3-1, if it wasn’t for that meddling Alex Bono.
I’ll pause here to acknowledge that FC Cincinnati fans have seen this before…and then watched the wheels fly off into some void from which neither man nor god has returned. There’s also the possibility that they just have Toronto’s number - i.e., they beat them twice in 2021, the first of them up at BMO. The sum of their history makes optimism a risky thing - we’re talking a freshman asking the homecoming queen to prom when she’s a senior levels, i.e., holding your heart that far out risks seeing it stomped to the depth of a cutlet (that you’ll pan-sear in red wine, maybe some shallots) - but, I’m willing to risk it.
As perennials pop out of the ground, the signs of better things have been there. I pointed to a couple green shoots after last week’s fighting loss to Los Angeles FC - and what adjective do you want to see in every game but “fighting”? More than anything else - and certainly more than in previous seasons - Cincinnati has an actual, functioning balance between defense and offense. They’ve got a decently-effective press, and that hands them a couple low-hanging chances (and puts the other team’s defenders on edge when they try to play out of the back), but they’ve also developed a capacity to absorb and manage in defense, and the ability to play the ball forward after the sponge has done its work. Again, that “and” is new.
And then, like a script from one of those Hollywood movies, a good one like Rudy, Hagglund and Murphy combined to put FC Cincinnati up 1-0 just before the ref’s whistle called the end of the first half.
With that in mind, you start to re-think what you watched in the second half: the palpable disappointment from Toronto’s broadcast booth gets louder - “they got to play faster,” they said, “they’re not moving Cincinnati’s defenders around enough” - and, little by little (only in the opposite direction), it dawns on you that Cincy just managed the first half of a road game, and well enough that Toronto’s attack - which had averaged 2.6 goals per game in the five games prior (said average got a bump last weekend, fwiw) - rarely got close enough to apply pressure on Murphy and Hagglund. (And then you wake up the next morning to watch the highlights, because you’re not sure if you forgot something, and that confirms the above - e.g., that Toronto only fired a couple of shots from range in that first half). And then the second half started…
Toronto’s sloppiness hurt them throughout the first half; every ball that slipped behind a smart run slowed them down and allowed Cincinnati time to get that usefully spongy defense stacked right. The problem started at their back-line, particularly in the person of Carlos Salcedo…and have I mentioned that Toronto’s Chris Mavinga limped off in the middle of the first half, because that might be relevant. At any rate and early in the second half, one of Salcedo’s stray passes rolled over the touch-line in Toronto’s defensive third. It didn’t seem like a big deal, even after Cincinnati’s Alvas Powell set up for a long throw because and, you know, how often do those work? Then, lo and behold (and who’d they pay to make it happen?), Powell’s throw-in looped over the heads of two, three Toronto defenders and falls straight to the foot of Luciano Acosta. One second and two touches later, the ball bulged the side of Alex Bono’s net. 2-0 Cincinnati.
Toronto scored somewhere just under 15 minutes later - again, keep an eye on Jesus Jimenez - leaving them plenty of time to get back into the game…but they didn’t. They fired a couple shots - I only started counting Toronto’s “good chances” starting in the 76th minute, but noted that Powell cut across an attacker’s (can’t recall who it was) after Alejandro Pozuelo sent him in behind Cincy’s backline, and Jimenez almost got yet another wayward Toronto cross under control - but, by the end of it all, the game had a better chance at ending 3-1 to Cincinnati (e.g., the super-late break by Brandon Vazquez and Alvaro Barreal) than in a 2-2 draw. Their recent form notwithstanding, I’d call a 3-2 Toronto win faintly ridiculous.
I don’t mean to suggest Toronto beat themselves, though the sloppiness most have sucked the hope and belief out of Toronto fans and made Cincinnati fans uncomfortable at the impoliteness of the spectacle. To take my best stab at what happened, Cincinnati set up their defense to make Toronto beat them. And they couldn’t. Cincy hardly lit up the scoreboard - they finished with just three shots on goal from seven total - but two of those were goals and the other came on the late break that would have made it 3-1, if it wasn’t for that meddling Alex Bono.
I’ll pause here to acknowledge that FC Cincinnati fans have seen this before…and then watched the wheels fly off into some void from which neither man nor god has returned. There’s also the possibility that they just have Toronto’s number - i.e., they beat them twice in 2021, the first of them up at BMO. The sum of their history makes optimism a risky thing - we’re talking a freshman asking the homecoming queen to prom when she’s a senior levels, i.e., holding your heart that far out risks seeing it stomped to the depth of a cutlet (that you’ll pan-sear in red wine, maybe some shallots) - but, I’m willing to risk it.
As perennials pop out of the ground, the signs of better things have been there. I pointed to a couple green shoots after last week’s fighting loss to Los Angeles FC - and what adjective do you want to see in every game but “fighting”? More than anything else - and certainly more than in previous seasons - Cincinnati has an actual, functioning balance between defense and offense. They’ve got a decently-effective press, and that hands them a couple low-hanging chances (and puts the other team’s defenders on edge when they try to play out of the back), but they’ve also developed a capacity to absorb and manage in defense, and the ability to play the ball forward after the sponge has done its work. Again, that “and” is new.
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| We'll just have some friends over, sell them some shit. |
Speaking of new, I liked what I saw in Obinna Nwobodo. When the ball came to him, he got it off his feet both quickly and well, and I like the base of the midfields I watch to keep things moving. No less importantly, he defended well in open space - e.g., in one sequence where Toronto started a break up Cincy’s right, Obinna(? Nwobodo? What are people going with there?) squared up to the run and, when Toronto’s player pushed the ball too far forward, he collapsed the space between them in one stride and, voila, defense turns to offense. I even think he made a smart pass after that play.
Junior Moreno had one of his, if not better, then more visible games yesterday as well (and nice cross to Hagglund on the first goal). I was also genuinely impressed by what I saw out of Haris Medunjanin yesterday - that includes the on-the-field-leading stuff (e.g., looking for Powell after his throw-in to bring him into the celebratory huddle) - but, here, I’m talking more about general mobility and tenacity for a player that I’ve expected to age out for a couple season…but, I really like the sound of Moreno and Nwobodo holding down the midfield.
And, yes, that’s getting ahead of things. I’ve seen Nwobodo play for all of 23 minutes (plus stoppage time), and players rise or fall to their personal mean within any system that get plugged into. There’s a lot of season left to play and, again, maybe Toronto’s one of those teams that fits Cincinnati all wrong - i.e., see the signal, wait to see how much of it is noise - but the whole program does feel better and I am willing to buy the product. And then try to sell it to family and friends, perhaps at a party that just happens to double as a sales pitch, and who doesn’t do that to their friends? To make one thing clear, I’m expecting downs for Cincinnati through the rest of the season, but performances like this help me believe they’ll leaven those with more ups than their fans have seen since joining MLS.
Some stray notes…
We Don’t Talk About Brenner
The young Brazilian had another largely invisible game, and he flubbed the one clear chance he got in a way that smothers the word “prospect.” Poor kid’s confidence has to be swirling around the shitter, assuming it hasn’t already slid down it. I’m just pulling for him to finally find his feet, or that Cincy can move him to a team where he can start all over again.
Powell, Cost & Benefit
Alvas Powell forces teams toward cost/benefit analysis more than most players, and mostly because the way he plays reliably incurs costs. He’s good for at least one fuck up per 6-8 great plays and that’s just something you have to price in with him in the starting XI. Powell was pretty much all upside yesterday, and that’s swell, but the one thing Powell has helped Cincinnati with in 2022 that might go unnoticed: a lot of the work of moving the ball forward goes through him. He has been pretty damn good in his second spell with Cincy, better than I expected.
Other players did well, obviously, but leaving the focus on the collective effort just feels right somehow. With that, till they do it all over again on Wednesday.
Junior Moreno had one of his, if not better, then more visible games yesterday as well (and nice cross to Hagglund on the first goal). I was also genuinely impressed by what I saw out of Haris Medunjanin yesterday - that includes the on-the-field-leading stuff (e.g., looking for Powell after his throw-in to bring him into the celebratory huddle) - but, here, I’m talking more about general mobility and tenacity for a player that I’ve expected to age out for a couple season…but, I really like the sound of Moreno and Nwobodo holding down the midfield.
And, yes, that’s getting ahead of things. I’ve seen Nwobodo play for all of 23 minutes (plus stoppage time), and players rise or fall to their personal mean within any system that get plugged into. There’s a lot of season left to play and, again, maybe Toronto’s one of those teams that fits Cincinnati all wrong - i.e., see the signal, wait to see how much of it is noise - but the whole program does feel better and I am willing to buy the product. And then try to sell it to family and friends, perhaps at a party that just happens to double as a sales pitch, and who doesn’t do that to their friends? To make one thing clear, I’m expecting downs for Cincinnati through the rest of the season, but performances like this help me believe they’ll leaven those with more ups than their fans have seen since joining MLS.
Some stray notes…
We Don’t Talk About Brenner
The young Brazilian had another largely invisible game, and he flubbed the one clear chance he got in a way that smothers the word “prospect.” Poor kid’s confidence has to be swirling around the shitter, assuming it hasn’t already slid down it. I’m just pulling for him to finally find his feet, or that Cincy can move him to a team where he can start all over again.
Powell, Cost & Benefit
Alvas Powell forces teams toward cost/benefit analysis more than most players, and mostly because the way he plays reliably incurs costs. He’s good for at least one fuck up per 6-8 great plays and that’s just something you have to price in with him in the starting XI. Powell was pretty much all upside yesterday, and that’s swell, but the one thing Powell has helped Cincinnati with in 2022 that might go unnoticed: a lot of the work of moving the ball forward goes through him. He has been pretty damn good in his second spell with Cincy, better than I expected.
Other players did well, obviously, but leaving the focus on the collective effort just feels right somehow. With that, till they do it all over again on Wednesday.
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