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| Remember when they used to smoke after sex in the movies? |
And...yep, FC Cincinnati’s 2-2 draw at the New England Revolution lifted them to their personal best for points in a single Major League Soccer season. 25 > 24, people. And still so much time to play.
Before digging into it, I’d like to pause here to appreciate the weirdness of Cincy’s 2022 season.
When the season started, bringing Brenner off the bench, or just leaving him there, made perfect sense. And when he did come in, he just kind of wandered around, looking some pitiful combination of sad, confused and lost. From (weighty) sunk cost to a forward scoring goals worthy of his price tag in just a handful of games. Who saw that coming?
The conversation around Brandon Vazquez talked more about the ceiling hanging over all the good things he does rather than those good things as recently as the end of last season. Today, Vazquez is in the conversation for the U.S. Men’s National Team.
Nick Hagglund has been a regular starter for most of the season. And I don’t mind it one bit.
And, yesterday, Pat Noonan trotted out the kind of defensive midfield – Allan Cruz paired with Yuya Kubo – that had spelled spinning wheels in one direction and getting run over in the other.
I type this while craving, not so much the cigarette it sold, but the branding they used to sell it: you’ve come a long way, baby, aka, FC Cincinnati.
I started with the forest because I don’t have much to say about the trees except, they’re fine. I can’t think of one Cincy player I’d accuse of having a bad game yesterday, even as I imagine Geoff Cameron is still yelling self-affirmations into his bathroom mirror after giving up the second go-ahead goal to the theretofore silent Gustavo Bou’s near-post run. The team as a whole looked a little shaky for the 10+ minutes that followed, but they regained their footing and played their way back into the match.
Before digging into it, I’d like to pause here to appreciate the weirdness of Cincy’s 2022 season.
When the season started, bringing Brenner off the bench, or just leaving him there, made perfect sense. And when he did come in, he just kind of wandered around, looking some pitiful combination of sad, confused and lost. From (weighty) sunk cost to a forward scoring goals worthy of his price tag in just a handful of games. Who saw that coming?
The conversation around Brandon Vazquez talked more about the ceiling hanging over all the good things he does rather than those good things as recently as the end of last season. Today, Vazquez is in the conversation for the U.S. Men’s National Team.
Nick Hagglund has been a regular starter for most of the season. And I don’t mind it one bit.
And, yesterday, Pat Noonan trotted out the kind of defensive midfield – Allan Cruz paired with Yuya Kubo – that had spelled spinning wheels in one direction and getting run over in the other.
I type this while craving, not so much the cigarette it sold, but the branding they used to sell it: you’ve come a long way, baby, aka, FC Cincinnati.
I started with the forest because I don’t have much to say about the trees except, they’re fine. I can’t think of one Cincy player I’d accuse of having a bad game yesterday, even as I imagine Geoff Cameron is still yelling self-affirmations into his bathroom mirror after giving up the second go-ahead goal to the theretofore silent Gustavo Bou’s near-post run. The team as a whole looked a little shaky for the 10+ minutes that followed, but they regained their footing and played their way back into the match.
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| Ah, youth... |
Both teams had solid chances to take all three points toward the end – Haris Medunjanin for Cincinnati, Bou (again) for the Revolution – and that’s another sentence I couldn’t imagine typing about Cincy in anything but surprise since 10 games into the 2019 season. Very much related thereto, Pat Noonan’s team has just run what any hep MLS-loving neutral would call The Gauntlet of the East – e.g., @ MLT, @ PHI, v ORL, @ NYCFC, v NE – and, though they may not have taken many points out of it (six of 15, so 2/5th), they kept good, (mostly) well-constructed teams from taking many points in three of those games as well (inspiration for the sub-title). And I’d call that a solid trade-off in the short term.
To finally kick around the game, it followed a pretty basic pattern: New England built up steam toward scoring a goal until they finally rolled one over the line only to see Cincinnati claw back in. If the Revs have any reason to feel aggrieved, it came with allowing both equalizers on their own mistakes. On the first, Cincinnati hadn’t done much of note on the attacking end until a smart near-post run by Vazquez forced New England’s Henry Kessler into a challenge he couldn’t rise high enough to meet, thereby powering home an own-goal that looked so clean you’d think Vazquez headed it. For all that Cincinnati/Vazquez did better making chances in the second half (they/he came really close at the 69th), it still took Dorde Petrovic (the twice-crowned hero of the moment just noted) telegraphing an outlet to Revs’ sub Damian Rivera so loudly that no fewer than three Cincinnati players responded; two passes(?) and one of those worth-the-price-of-admission finishes by Brenner later, the Orange and Blue had their hands on a share of the points.
If I had to sum it all up in one phrase, the only thing remarkable about the past few results is how unremarkable they’ve become. FC Cincinnati looks like a normal soccer team, one that knows how to attack, knows how to move the ball forward (cannot emphasize that one enough) and that does a decent job of defending. The only thing I’d add is that seeing Noonan get a steady result out of the same roster I’ve seen fecklessly and aimlessly implode on multiple occasions has me thinking the roster might have been better than past coaches have made it look (not that they all had time). 2019 excepted, of course – that fucker was a mess - but it’s still worth keeping in mind just how much of this roster is built on hand-me-downs from other MLS teams – i.e., for every Brenner, there’s an Alvas Powell, for every Obinna Nwobodo, a Junior Moreno.
And, just to mention it, I don’t know how the hell Noonan is not in the conversation for Coach of the Year, but The Mothership left him out of theirs...and kept Jim Curtin in it. Shaking my damn head....
For anyone needing to feel better about yesterday’s draw, I’d note all the players Cincinnati had missing. Even with the Revs missing key players – and in the same part of the field – you can make a pretty strong case that Cincinnati didn’t play its best team yesterday and they still went toe-to-toe with a team most fans and neutrals respect. And they’ve done that same thing for weeks now.
To finally kick around the game, it followed a pretty basic pattern: New England built up steam toward scoring a goal until they finally rolled one over the line only to see Cincinnati claw back in. If the Revs have any reason to feel aggrieved, it came with allowing both equalizers on their own mistakes. On the first, Cincinnati hadn’t done much of note on the attacking end until a smart near-post run by Vazquez forced New England’s Henry Kessler into a challenge he couldn’t rise high enough to meet, thereby powering home an own-goal that looked so clean you’d think Vazquez headed it. For all that Cincinnati/Vazquez did better making chances in the second half (they/he came really close at the 69th), it still took Dorde Petrovic (the twice-crowned hero of the moment just noted) telegraphing an outlet to Revs’ sub Damian Rivera so loudly that no fewer than three Cincinnati players responded; two passes(?) and one of those worth-the-price-of-admission finishes by Brenner later, the Orange and Blue had their hands on a share of the points.
If I had to sum it all up in one phrase, the only thing remarkable about the past few results is how unremarkable they’ve become. FC Cincinnati looks like a normal soccer team, one that knows how to attack, knows how to move the ball forward (cannot emphasize that one enough) and that does a decent job of defending. The only thing I’d add is that seeing Noonan get a steady result out of the same roster I’ve seen fecklessly and aimlessly implode on multiple occasions has me thinking the roster might have been better than past coaches have made it look (not that they all had time). 2019 excepted, of course – that fucker was a mess - but it’s still worth keeping in mind just how much of this roster is built on hand-me-downs from other MLS teams – i.e., for every Brenner, there’s an Alvas Powell, for every Obinna Nwobodo, a Junior Moreno.
And, just to mention it, I don’t know how the hell Noonan is not in the conversation for Coach of the Year, but The Mothership left him out of theirs...and kept Jim Curtin in it. Shaking my damn head....
For anyone needing to feel better about yesterday’s draw, I’d note all the players Cincinnati had missing. Even with the Revs missing key players – and in the same part of the field – you can make a pretty strong case that Cincinnati didn’t play its best team yesterday and they still went toe-to-toe with a team most fans and neutrals respect. And they’ve done that same thing for weeks now.
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