New England Revolution 1-1 FC Cincinnati: Notes on a Hypothesis

Tirelessly searching for answers to today's vexing questions

When the New England Revolution’s Dylan Borrero went down awkwardly and was stretchered off around the 20th minute, I remember looking at the Revs’ somewhat headless attach (aka, Justin Rennicks) and wondering whether they could keep up with a mostly all-there FC Cincinnati attack. I would have done better to recall a note from my very own preview for the game:

“...unless Cincy fans see Gil’s name on the injury report...Cincy will be facing a solid, talented Revs team regardless of who starts.”

Young homegrown Esmir Bajraktarevic stepped in for Borrero and the Revs’ rhythm section barely missed a beat. Then again, that turned mostly played out to in the big-picture response. Things didn’t look so hot for the Revs in the near-term. And that “solid, talented team” theory could have looked different, maybe even should have.

To finally turn to FC Cincinnati – i.e., the actual subject of the post – they didn’t waste much time in putting that that theory to the test. Taking any kind of lead would do and Rennicks looked to have handed them one when he tagged a ball Alvaro Barreal clipped past him into the area with his right hand. I didn’t like the call – while there was no question Rennicks tagged the ball with his hand, I never got an angle that confirmed he did it in the “no-no zone” (can we make that happen, guys?) – but referee Alex Chilowicz pointed to the penalty spot...which happened to be the very same one from which Luciano Acosta got stuffed by the Revs’ Dorde Petrovic (how is this not a highlight, MLS?). For what it’s worth, I’m reading the miss as God seconding my doubts on the penalty call...

Cincinnati had dropped a couple stones’ worth of pressure on New England to that point – I thought Brandon Vazquez had pinged one off a post somewhere in there (the highlights memory-holed that one too, if he did) – and the corner that followed in less than a minute after the missed PK followed when they dropped on another one. The cross looked innocuous enough when it floated in, but Yerson Mosquera made a masterpiece of it when he slipped away from Andrew Farrell (a rock all afternoon; one of MLS’ best emergency defenders, still doing it) and into Dave Romney’s (also strong yesterday) blind-spot; ah, Mosquera’s li’l, legal bump into Romney’s back, the masterstroke. Once Cincinnati scored the opener, the test was on.

St. Louis CITY FC 1-2 Portland Timbers: No Comments, But Also Three Pages' Worth

Kid's already miles deep on, "you just made the list, mate."

What’s that phrase? No comments?

No comments because that Portland Timbers win checked every box.

At the apex of the glory, a defense stayed organized and held strong, and then one player put the team on his back and ran till they got proverbially there. Even more important, the Timbers took control of a game for the first time in 2023...sorry, the second; the way they stomped Seattle seems like something I usually keep between me and my therapist. At any rate, after a desperately drab first half, the Timbers either got a locker room stemwinder or they figured out that St. Louis CITY FC didn’t have their whole heart in tonight’s game. Once it became clear they could take the game to St. Louis, the Timbers kept yelling, “please, sir, may I have another,” kind of like an Oliver gone gritty on a revenge bender, until they answered back to St. Louis’...let’s call it complicated equalizer....

...and that’s another box checked: the offense repaying a good game by the defense by clawing back one goal.

The Timbers have never looked as much like a professional soccer team as they did tonight, not in 2023, not like you, not like me, and, yeah, I’m starting to trust my credulous eyes more with each passing week. To finally get to the lead, the Timbers beat St. Louis, the best team in Major League Soccer’s Western Conference coming in to tonight, 2-1 and at their place...wait...oh my God, I finally found a linguistic detour around “at home.” Sorry to interrupt, but this is my Mount Baker at a minimum.

Before digging into the rest – and, honestly, even acknowledging the timeline – I have a couple notes on St. Louiis. This was either the fourth or fifth time I’ve watched them this season and, outside last week’s draw at Colorado, I’ve never seen them look so...what’s the word...less like they'd spent the afternoon blood-doping and doing all-day two-minute hate sessions at every Timbers player. When I watched the Colorado game, I put the absence of their xA (xpected Aggression) down to saving their lungs for a full 90 at altitude. After tonight, I’m starting to wonder if they’ll already hit the fundamental limitations of relying on “playing at 11” as a strategic choice. They didn’t have Joao Klauss – who, to his very real credit, has Maxi Urruti-level qualities at brain-fucking defenders – and that left Eduard Louwen trying to do everything with, as I once said without the information to back it up, “MLS average players.”

MLS Review/Preview, Week 9 b/w Week 10: Preview, Trends, and Some Hot Cakes...er, Takes

Team Madonna.

Yeah, yeah, I’m back on the review/preview concept. I have just a teenie-tiny preamble – there’s a lot below, so don’t be shy about bouncing around, I’ve embedded The Mothership’s game summaries for reference in any final score I mention, and I don’t cover everything from Week 9 or Week 10 (expect I’ll come closer with the preview stuff), and won’t going forward – but the post kicks off with previews for the two teams this site follows...for a dwindling readership. (Don’t cry for me Argentina. We all knew this time would come. And Eva Peron was a fascist and also not Madonna.)

[Ed. - Totally unrelated, I’ve done some thinking and now understand this entire project as a pathological need to show my homework. Still doing it, never got it over it....help?]

To pull out one thread I started above, most to the review stuff won’t be anything besides chatter. Plenty of places do long-form/numerical analysis, and good on ‘em, but the prime directive for these posts boils down to simply keeping tabs on trends and keeping a loose tabs on the teams that will give your local team a hard game versus the ones that will fork over their lunch money before the first punch. The actual review/preview stuff comes after the MLS Week 10 previews for FC Cincinnati and the Portland Timbers – who both have good/tough games this weekend. And, for what it's worth, I like both in the spirit of seeing where they are and an excuse to say I'm only drinking to the steady the nerves.

New England Revolution v FC Cincinnati: Clubber Lang v Rocky
New England: 6-1-2, 20 pts., 15 gf, 8 ga (goal. diff. +7) Last 6: WWTWTW
Notes on That: Some tough ones in there – e.g., Nashville and NYC at home, Columbus away – but they definitely padded the account with home wins over Montreal and, in Week 9, Sporting KC.

FC Cincinnati: 6-1-2, 20 pts., 12 gf, 10 ga (goal. diff. +2), hence 2nd place Last 6: TWWWLW
Notes on That: A wobble away to Chicago and borderline violence away to St. Louis puts a dent in Cincy’s early season rep as kings of the one-goal grind. The road record – 1-1-2 – bears noting in context.

On the one hand, you can look at last weekend's opposition – i.e., the heretofore execrable SKC – and think, what’s the point and then tune your ears to hear the people who argued that the Revs should have buried their last game as opposed to just winning the thing. And, factually, both the numbers and video point to them struggling harder than they should given 30+ minutes with an extra player on the field. (SKC’s Abreu Fontas got sent off around the 60th for a well-justified second yellow card.) On the other, one could point to how good the Revs looked between the 20th and 35th minute (one of several personal watching windows), when just about every pass went where the Revs/God intended despite SKC’s pressure and formation. The Revs still looked fine for the win – and that’s with them resting several regular starters – e.g., DeJuan Jones, Dylan Borrero, and Gustavo Bou (all or some of whom, for the record, could be ill, injured or in a cult; I don’t research every angle, because amateur).

FC Cincinnati 2-1 Portland Timbers: That Hurt, but It's Over, Bring It In, Guys

Bad man, tenuous metaphor.

If you haven’t watched Peacemaker (which I'd call both specific and 2/3 recommended), and want to duck any spoilers, now is a great time to skip to the third (sorry!) fourth paragraph.

For those who have, you’ll recall that Peacemaker has this horrible, actual-Klan bigot of a father who raises his two sons on violence. They get along great, no clear sibling rivalry, etc. (stick with me through this stretch), but he still has them fight to, in the white supremacist tradition, “toughen them up” in service of the terrible idea that motivates such assholes. At any rate, one time he sends them into a pit he dug in his front yard (again, these are not deep thinkers) for another fight and he’s nakedly pulling for one brother over the other and, wouldn’t you know it, his favored child catches a punch wrong and dies...

...that’s less a perfect analogy than the latest pop culture reference I’ve read about obviously favoring one child over another and things going sideways.

First and foremost (and unlike the fight in Peacemaker), FC Cincinnati and the Portland Timbers put on a better-than-expected show tonight. They traded somewhere around the same number of blows, fought roughly as hard - though, to my surprise, Cincy out-muscled the Timbers – and deviate too wildly on the numbers. While the Timbers had their share, Cincinnati ultimately found the wider openings, held off something of a grabasstic (two “s’s” in that or...?) rally, and ultimately held on for what I’d call a by and large deserved 2-1 win. And, unlike that horrible bigot of a father, I still love and support both of my sons.

I went into the game more worried about the Timbers, naturally, but I’d argue tonight showed them still progressing. They managed to pace more than one portion of the game – the start of both halves, mainly, and then the end after Cincinnati fully committed to the counter to close out the game. Cincy, meanwhile, took over longer stretches – particularly the 20-minute spell of the first half, when they clawed control of the game back from Portland and pressed and pressed until they broke through (hold that thought), and again after stifling the Timbers’ attempted rally at the start of the second – and all that feels like a good shorthand for the state of both teams. Portland’s improving, but Cincinnati has a capacity to stomp its foot on the game in a way the Timbers do not...

...have a mentioned how hard it is to focus on both sides of the ball yet? Which, as implied, goes against the concept of focusing? So, doing my best on the rest, with an assist from the highlights.

A Casual Fans Preview, MLS Week 9: Notes on Everything & a Showdown at the Big Tickle

Yessir, shivering, sir.

The further into the 2023 Major League Soccer season we get, the more predictable things seem – long-term, at least. And yet there’s this...

FC Cincinnati v Portland Timbers: Shivering with Antici...pation

Cincy: 5-1-2, 17 pts., 10 gf/9 ga, 2nd in East; Last 5: TWWWL (respectable strength of schedule)

Portland: 2-4-2, 8 pts., 10 goals for, 13 goals against; Last 5: LTTLW (more respectable)

My gods, where to begin?

Last Saturday was Freaky Friday, for one: the team you were sure would lose won (hello, Portland!), while the one that begged the question, “can they do it?” answered with a sulking “no.” In their defense, I read somewhere that St. Louis wildly over-performed its xG and I feel like I get that, even if I don’t entirely get xG. So, big picture, the home team wants to get back on track while the visitors want to keep things going.

Both teams also hope to get key – or, in Portland’s case, enough – players back on the field and kicking. Cincy had to play without the three-months-from-exit Brenner and Luciano Acosta last weekend – the wild card and conductor, respectively – while the Timbers finally managed to field players they’re counting on to carry them to a good season, e.g., team talisman, Dairon Asprilla, and new Ivorian striker Franck Boli. I have no clue on Acosta’s timeline for recovery, or Brenner’s for that matter (hell, I don’t even know what kept them off the pitch), but also figure Pat Noonan will want them against a Timbers defense I rate somewhere between sufficient and good enough.

For my money, the real question comes with how much and, honestly, whether Portland has improved in terms of competence and comfort on the ball. If that’s real, Cincy will have a game on their hands. Or should. More to the point, I believe the Timbers odds of actually winning this game will follow whatever improvement they’ve made on those very basics with the persistence of a shadow.

MLS Week 8 Review: Upsets & Threat Assessments

Old Steve Buscemi movie. Parting Glances. Huh.

First, here’s literally everything that happened.

Charlotte FC 2-2 Colorado Rapids [Skipped]

Columbus Crew SC 1-1 New England Revolution [Skipped]

Club de Foot Montreal 0-1 DC United [Skipped]

New York City FC 2-1 Nashville SC [Glance]

Toronto FC 2-2 Atlanta United FC [Skipped]

Red Bull New York 1-1 Houston Dynamo FC [Skipped]

Austin FC 0-0 Vancouver Whitecaps [Skipped]

Chicago Fire FC 2-2 Philadelphia Union [Glance]

FC Dallas 2-1 Real Salt Lake [Glance]

Minnesota United FC 1-2 Orlando City SC [Glance]

Portland Timbers 4-1 Seattle Sounders [a celebration, aka, my match report]

San Jose Earthquakes 3-0 Sporting Kansas City [Glance]

St. Louis CITY FC 5-1 FC Cincinnati [some defensive mourning, aka, my match report]

Los Angeles Galaxy 2-3 Los Angeles FC [Glance]

Now, let’s do our best to make sense of it – or to squeeze meaning out of it at the very least.

To start with the housekeeping, Again, I link to The Mothership’s match summary-fest inside the final score for every game. Next, when you see “Glance” between the brackets, that means I watched the highlights and scoured the box score, etc. “Skipped” means I didn’t bother with anything beyond big-picture context, because my mama gave me good sense. The rest of whatever flows through my fingers below comes from looking at the current standings (blink, or you might miss ‘em), the Form Guide, and Matt Doyle’s weekly burden.

With all that out of the way, let's start with the biggest of pictures. I think we can all agree that this weekend dished out some dynamite upsets, most of them toward the tail end of Saturday. MLS Week 8 continued to keep things lively by having a couple teams live up to their promise – e.g., Dallas with the home win over RSL and NYC with the home win over Nashville. On the one hand, it’s a lot of draws and garbage games after that (e.g., watching DC United beat Montreal at home has the unwholesome feel of conceptualizing a bad over-50 team play a good U-12; still, good for DC, even if I skipped it). So, all in all, not a bad weekend, there’s enough have/have-not stuff going on to goose the story lines going forward, and so on...

...but you’re still thinking about it, aren’t you? Why did I choose the six games I glanced at, while skipping the other six games? And Columbus v New England was one of them? Son....

Please, let me explain.

St. Louis CITY FC 5-1 FC Cincinnati: Beaten, But How Bowed?

The spirit I hope to see...just not next weekend.

I stopped watching the game at the 58th minute and I don’t care who knows it. That’s right, I had to dip into the highlights to see Sergio Santos pull back FC Cincinnati’s one, lonely goal against St. Louis CITY (every time) FC’s five-goal onslaught.

To start, some stray notes from the preview I posted on Thursday night:

“First and foremost, expect a battle. If St. Louis CITY gets Cincy on the back foot, the game becomes 40/60 proposition until they get their steps right again.”

“...the real trick with surviving St. Louis comes with working through their press and matching their intensity (which, here, means tackle-fouls, aka, tackles that come close enough to fouls as to constitute a new species).”

“This game will feature some tricky matchups – e.g., the bruising and active Joao Klauss versus (pretty sure) Matt Miazga, Brandon Vazquez trying to get the better of Tim Parker, and the question of whether St. Louis tries to play Nikos Giaocchini into the space behind Alvaro Barreal...”

My primary motivation for pulling those quotes from that preview isn’t about patting myself on the back, because I also typed this:

“For what it’s worth, I think a lot of the matchups favor Cincy. St. Louis has talent – I didn’t even mention Eduard Lowen, who acts more as a distributor than a No. 10 (based on what I’ve seen) – but there’s a lot of MLS-slightly-above-average in their regular eleven. Don’t get me wrong: I’d take all the ones I recognize on either team I follow, but the 'league-elite' stuff does fall off.”

A fair amount of “what might have been” lurks in the spaces of FC Cincinnati first, and frankly crushing, loss of the 2023 season. What if Alvaro Barreal hadn’t made that pointless shove in the 2nd minute, i.e., the one that handed St. Louis the free kick that led, somewhat indirectly, to their first goal. There’s also the question of what would have happened had Santos pulled one back for Cincinnati at the 13th minute as opposed to the consolation goal that came 60 minutes too late, or why Junior Moreno didn’t shoot first time on a loose ball at the top of St. Louis’ 18 not five minutes later. And that brings me to one more note from the preview:

Portland Timbers 4-1 Seattle Sounders: A Buffet of Satisfaction

Seriously, you can put these anywhere....

When I was a knock-kneed whisp of a lad, I knocked in an own-goal off some part of my body or the other. I don’t remember which one, honestly, but what I do remember is how hard I strived to make up for that mistake. Played like the future in professional soccer I never even sort of had depended on it, and it went about as well...

It takes work for me to summon sympathy for the Seattle Sounders – and, honestly, I’m not even trying to tonight – but I do think some form of the professional version of the same thing happened to them tonight. To walk through the two crucial moments...

The Portland Timbers attack had stalled somewhere around the top Seattle defensive third somewhere around the 70th minute and the wholly familiar lack of ideas seemed to have reasserted itself in the collective psyche; a promising play that started wide pinched inside and looked doomed for finding a path forward. The Timbers had six or so players clustered between the channels, so I didn’t think anything of it when the ball drifted wide to Santiago Moreno [corrected, ty @ShellWitty!]. When he clipped in a ball that looked like a Hail Mary wrapped inside an Our Father, I thought even less of it....only to see Dairon Asprilla bellow “fuck it!” to the heavens and lash in a collapsible bike for a Timbers equalizer for the literal ages. My God, the legend Asprilla has written into the history books. Maybe he doesn’t get a statue, but maybe build a grotto in his honor with a little fountain that splashes into a reflective pond...

Hold on, I’m not done with this bit yet. That put the game at 1-1 – wait, have I mentioned the game ended 4-1 to the Timbers yet? – but there was more delight and pain to come. Five minutes later, Santiago Moreno got the ball on the right inside Portland’s half and played a looping diagonal into the heart of Seattle’s defensive third. I’d direct any sadists watching that clip to drink in the spread between Seattle two center backs (not usually an issue for them) and the way Moreno’s cross fell into the gap behind the two defensive players further up-field. To be totally fucking clear, that whole goddamn thing does not come off without Fogaca taking a perfect touch; moreover, how many times have you seen him finish that clinically literally ever? Sometimes things happend that are beyond your control...and I've finally forgiven that little whisp of a lad...hold on...off for a good cry...

A Casual Fan's Preview, MLS Week 8: Pretty Ponies, Mystery Animals & Dogs

A familiar vein.

Marathon not a sprint, a months-long test that decides whether a term learns to fly, achieves escape velocity or, in some cases, never gets off the ground, etc.

I didn’t like last week’s review, and not just because I felt compelled to top it with the Dante Vanzier/San Jose ‘Quakes thing. In my mind, the real issue was a failure to properly frame or the results – or, better, a failure to elevate them. Anyhoo, if you scroll all the way down to the bottom of that review post (appreciate your patience), that’s where you’ll find the thought process that leads to all the stuff below. Related thereto...

The stuff during and after MLS Week 8 will include: a review of what happened, mostly likely to, the Portland Timbers (they’ve got Seattle this week; start prayin’, people), a review of what FC Cincinnati achieved or just fell shy of, and a review post that looks like the end of last week’s – a list of scores, some comments on the games, and what I think it all means. No, featured games, in other words, because I didn’t think those were working. As long-time readers of this space know, I spend some part of every season figuring out how to fit things together. Or how they fit together. Now, to the meat of this thing...

Overall, I’d call this a decent week, one split between four good games (see below) and six games that, as I put it down there, could be good/interesting, or they could be draws. The drawing season is upon us, after all. For anyone who’s butt puckered, thinking I left out three games, no, I did not. The just strike me as some combination of tragic and unimportant. I call them dogs. In the classic, arrogant villain mold...

That leaves just two more games – i.e., the two featured teams for this space, my hometown teams, Portland and Cincy. I got lucky this week. I only had to watch one game to prep this week’s preview. At least when it came to my two teams...and My Three Sons. Shit. Can’t even remember which kid was my favorite anymore. All I can think of is Fred McMurray looking either confused or disappointed. Time to get to it.

St. Louis CITY FC v FC Cincinnati: On Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse
First and foremost, expect a battle. If St. Louis CITY gets Cincy on the back foot, the game becomes 40/60 proposition until they get their steps right again.

Then again, what if that’s the wrong read? What if Cincinnati looks less like teams that got the wobbly jitters early in the season – e.g., Austin FC and...the Portland Timbers – and more like Seattle did last week in a cool, collected and ultimately dominant performance? For what it’s worth, I don’t see the same game unfolding like that for Cincy. They play in St. Louis, for one, but there’s also the matter of Cincy’s attack firing half as often, maybe even half as well.

A Casual Fan's Review, MLS Week 7: A Good Weekend with a Major Blemish & Another Cincy Win

Massive lint ball on fire. Who knew?

To get the mechanics out of the way, I’ve sprinkled the final results for every game in Major League Soccer’s Week 7 somewhere below in this post; I’ve also embedded links to The Mothership’s roundup/data in the final score for each. The commentary includes three featured matches – one of which will always be what FC Cincinnati did that weekend (and almost all good stuff so far), and I'll note how much and where I watched of the other two games – plus a round up the rest at the end in a section titled, “Now...The Rest Of It.” And, yes, I do watch too much Last Week Tonight, but aren't we all aging together in the end? After that, it's whatever insights and agreements I get from Matt Doyle's weekly roundup, whatever stuck from Sam Jones' Daily Kickoff and a bunch of brain lint from previous posts that somehow stick in my head. For good or ill...

Up next, some bullshit...

The Red Bull New York/San Jose Earthquakes game exploded into chaos and ended far, far later than it should have courtesy of a now-confirmed use of a racial slur from Dante Vanzier. I don't want kick around the fact patterns overly - at least not behind noting how much sentences like this, “Further information will be provided upon completion of that investigation,” piss me off, and the fact that the highlights skipped the incident entirely, even as The Mothership gently buries it - but I can't think of one meaningful question that needs answering. Vanzier said what he said or he didn’t and that doesn’t take much investigating. And, per this press release, it’s pretty goddamn clear that he did. What to do about it is less simple.

First and foremost, unless you can prove a toxic culture with the Red Bull organization, the main thing I want is a punishment that communicates to the player, in the clearest possible terms, that he crossed the wrong goddamn line. I saw people call for Vanzier's expulsion from the league and, sure, that's an option, but I would also gently suggest that most foreign players don't fully appreciate just how fraught race relations are in this country right now - and I make that point with real fucking firm opinions as to who's making them fraught (the right wing, the rural and the religious). My own thought is, so long as you believe that even a rabid skinhead can be rehabilitated – and I do because it does happen – you treat Vanzier like something less than an unreconstructed racist. I’m fine with a chunky suspension, something along the lines of a quarter of the season (8 games, basically) and a very rigid probation period that results in the termination of Vanzier’s contract if he fucks up again. And I’d suspend Gerhard Struber for at least four games for his refusal to sub Vanzier out as a gesture toward restoring calm. And, hey, maybe a suspension feels too much like collective punishment for a one-(ish)-man crime, so I'd also be okay with fining the bejesus out of Vanzier; hell, maybe that's what you go with because that's what Vanzier, personally, will feel most. He fucked up, so kick him, but then see where things go from there. [Update: I'm still kicking this around, so think of the above as thinking out loud.] [Update to the Update: Charlie Davies made a case, and a damned good one, for a season-long suspension. Hit this link and scroll down to the video. He's right in my mind.]

Vancouver Whitecaps 1-0 Portland Timbers: A Riddle to Solve

It'd be better if it was better.

I have so many thoughts.

One, would I take Vanni Sartini as a coach just because I like him? For all his shortcomings, yes. Yes, I would.

Second, while there’s absolutely no question that the better team won...did the Vancouver Whitecaps actually blow off your doors and/or socks? On the one hand, absolutely, they generated literal multiples of more offense and forced...holy shit, eight saves from one of the Portland Timbers’ few bright spots tonight, Aljaz Ivacic. On the other, the ‘Caps fired a (reported) total of 13 shots. Even with a disturbing number of those going on goal – and Ivacic’s numbers 100% back this up – I’d argue that tonight made a decent argument that Vancouver’s actual level falls closer to what they’d done over the first five games of the season (when they went 0-2-3) than what they did in the 6th (the shellacking of Montreal...who got drubbed again tonight, btw). Pursuant thereto...

Second Point, First Addendum: what does the above statement say about the state of the Timbers?

Second Point, Second Addendum: what does that say about tonight’s result?

With the scaffolding now built, let’s dig into all of the above.

To circle back to the facts, the Portland Timbers lost tonight, 0-1 at BC Place in Vancouver to the Whitecaps. If asked to answer the question, how did it go, I’d point to the literal two fucking shots Portland fired tonight. And zero of those went on goal, for those counting at home. I know I can’t make a plausible argument for any Timbers fan to feel good – particularly anyone who saw that wet, steaming pile of futility – and yet I’m going to try.

A Casual Fan's Preview, MLS Week 7: At a Point in the Season, Tales of Addition and Subtraction

The red stuff is all the birthdays I forget...

With this weekend’s set of matches, Major League Soccer officially reached the 7/34th point in the season. Big shit, in other words...

After dragging the last preview post over the line (and myself across a board filled with tacks), I promised myself I’d keep these shorter (broke me promise, sadly). The fact I’m half-assing the FC Cincinnati v Philadelphia Union preview should help - oh, and I’ll defend that choice – but I’m also going to take something like a free association approach to the blurbs. What the hell, right? Spin the bottle, find out who are what you kiss, yolo.

Anyhoo, I can’t keep this short if I don’t get going. In making the calls below, I stared at my now-wife, The Form Guide, the current standings, and plumb the befogged shallows of my memory. The short-term memory loss thing? Totally true. Anyway, let’s dig in....

FC Cincinnati v Philadelphia Union
CIN: 4-0-2, 14 pts., 8 gf, 4 ga (+4); Last 6: WTWTWW (pretty tough schedule, honestly)
PHI: 2-3-1, 7 pts., 8 gf, 8 ga (0); Last 6: WLWLLT (about 50/50; should be better)

I didn’t even sit through the highlights of Philly’s (frankly) shock home draw against SKC. I doubt it would have been informative, it’d be like watching the Union playing drunk, they’re not themselves, they’ve refused to take out the trash in weeks, it’s wearing thin, etc.

I see Cincy all the time, of course, but I don’t have any great analytic thoughts beyond, “yeah, they look good.” The one big picture thing I’d say about them is that I doubt they come out as flat this week as they did last (my only half-hearted complaint about the win over Miami, fwiw).

A couple people hepped me to the fact that Philly fielded their starters against Mexico’s Atlas in the CCL on Tuesday – and they kept most of them on the whole game (anyone else wonder if they still think it was worth it?). That probably bodes as well as anything for Cincy’s chances, as they’re unlikely to get the Union at their best. That makes these big points in mind; savvy teams get ‘em while they can, people. I don’t know Obinna Nwobodo’s status – he’ll play if he does, right? – but I’m hoping for a calmer game from Marco Angulo should he start. More than that, I’d like to see Cincy’s Big Three get going. If they don’t, this one’s got low-scoring draw or 1-0 result in either direction – if with a lean toward Cincinnati – written all over it. I see those goals-for numbers. Anyhoo, I see Philly like a pro wrestler who’s been hit with everything including a steel chair: you know they’re going to get up and rally; it’s just a question when...unless their struggles continue into the summer. Next!

A Still More Casual Fan's Review: MLS Week 6, Not the Best, fwiw, and FC Cincinnati on the Grind

More of this energy, please.

As hinted it...maybe on twitter, maybe just in my head, I’m thinning out these review posts – and mostly on the grounds that not a lot of people read them. The biggest change will be a switch from writing long blurbs about featured games – with the accompanying pain of marching through nearly all of them - to just writing a narrative that puts the prior weekend’s action in context. And categories. I can’t get enough of those goddamn things. Like popcorn that tastes like jalapeno...

To summarize/judge MLS Week 6 as a whole...it wasn’t the best. Too many ties, too much slouching toward the mid-table, too little rising, shining, showing God your glory, glory, and so on. All the ties involves crap teams and most of the blowouts saw crap teams on the logical end of that equation. It could have used a little more pizazz, basically. Not unlike the one match that will continue to feature at the top of each and every one of these reviews – any game involving FC Cincinnati. On with the show, this is it....

FC Cincinnati 1-0 Inter Miami CF: I Mean, It Was Good. No, It Was Good....

So...do the dots on The Mothership’s xG charts represent the shots on goal? For what it’s worth, I did count 10 dots in Miami’s slowly rising line and noticed how it nudged them one step ahead of a FC Cincy in the second half – at least until they very end when the host’s late chances could have well and truly sealed the game and padded the final score.

Then again, wouldn’t that have misrepresented the game just a touch?

I’d argue a goal-less draw would have provided a fairer result for a Miami team that often gave a little better than they got. A team gets what it earns, of course – and the visitors and/or Phil Neville (or an ill-advised on-field adjustment) did hand Cincy the game winner by having DeAndre Yedlin and Josef Martinez guard Yerson Mosquera at the near post – but Miami did a handful of things better than Cincinnati on the day, most of them following from winning the lion’s share of the 50/50 balls. Going the other way, Miami’s passing map tells another story with its mullet shape – i.e., thick and luxuriantly connected at the back but thinned out up front.

That, in a nutshell, is what makes the final result fair: Cincy defended very well, they didn’t give Miami many clear looks, and Roman Celentano cleaned up the rest – for instance, a shot that a largely locked-out Josef Martinez didn’t hit hard enough to rattle anyone. The only time I recall seeing Celentano really beat was the bomb Franco Negri bounced off the crossbar from the depths of Miami’s attacking third (which I imagine has to be somewhere in the highlights). For all times the visitors set up a siege just beyond the top of Cincinnati’s 18, they rarely broke through the lines, which limited them to half-looks – a reality that, for me, begs the question of why Neville doesn’t consider starting the young Shanyder Borgelin until their regular big-‘n’-bulky, Leo Campana, can tie on his starting boots.

FC Dallas 1-1 Portland Timbers: Better.

Dallas translated through bowling.

After a season that has started with what can only be called incompetence – which, at times came in the flaming variety - it felt pretty damn good to see the Portland Timbers achieve the opposite in yesterday’s 1-1 draw at FC Dallas.

Over the Timbers’ first five games of the season, I had to dig at least shoulder-deep into the barrel to pick out good performances. Zac McGraw’s name has come up in most games – take a bow, young man – Dario Zuparic almost as much, but the list has generally been short, allergic to padding and concentrated in the defense. The larger problems, not to mention the outright failures, have come at the collective level – i.e., players, even league legends (see, Chara, Diego) looking shaky playing the ball forward and an attack grabasstic up to the point of mutual incomprehensibility. Hope walked lightly on the land, in other words; outside of a couple promising starts that only felt more heartbreaking by promising more, her feet may have never even touched the ground.

Weighed against such a lowly level, the Timbers knocked it out of the park in Dallas yesterday. Without declaring this draw an actual turn-around, and with a full acknowledgement of the final score duly acknowledged, I’m content to call Portland’s first (more or less) quality game of 2023 a kind of win.

For all that, Dallas tends to offer a shifting yardstick. I noted in the preview that people rarely rate them as a contender and games like this get at why. They struggle to string together good results, which means they struggle to generate real, season-shaping momentum. Now, had Jesus Jimenez not strayed offside, thereby cancelling out the insurance goal/tap-in that Alan Velasco scored almost immediately after Dallas went ahead after Facundo Quignon made good on three minutes of pressure and as many corner kicks in the 74th, I feel confident saying that Portland would have been, in fact, fucked. So, yeah, Portland caught a break or two. Moreover, there was more than a little but for the divine (delighfully pissy) grace of Aljaz “All the Jazz” Ivacic, because the Timbers’ defense gave Dallas several cracks at both go-ahead and insurance goals...and gods only know why Portland would start anyone but Ivacic anytime he’s available at this point. If you haven’t seen some of his saves, do yourself some good and make your heart a little bigger by dipping into the highlights from this one.