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| Simplifies where you focus, really. |
It starts with a question: did FC Cincinnati’s 3-1 win over Nashville SC look easy as the final score to you?
Answer however the spirit moves you, but, when you do, I’d encourage you to think as broadly as possible. Think of all the questions you want answered, basically, and go from there.
With all that in mind, here’s what I saw:
A Cincinnati team forever on the brink of breaking through versus a Nashville team forever falling short. Sure, Nashville knocked canyon-sized dents into their own chances when two of their players did two very stupid things in as many minutes – I’m talking stuff that someone who paid them to throw the game would tell them not to do, because it would telegraph the con (guys! call me!) – but they also might have had their better moments when they had the fewest players. But even that nods to the flipside of the final result – and the game.
Badly as they played – and put me in the “very” camp when it comes to a vote – Nashville still came within a penalty call that (rightly) fell apart upon review of tying this game (should be in here somewhere, if not blame them, not me). They produced flurries on either side of that and it all came after Taylor Washington got his second yellow for...he tried to grab the ball, I think(?), and Fafa Picault picked up his second yellow for, honestly, what do you call Picault’s lunge into Santiago Arias (right?)? A protest against uneven refereeing? A you-can’t-fire-me-I-quit cry for attention? Both came so close together that we never had time to figure out how one sending off would affect the game...
...and yet, can you think of a time when Nashville ever really looked in this game? They scored the first goal, but that blew through a vast fucking desert like the last tumbleweed in the world, a singular sign of life in a vast, expansive nothing. Nashville struggled to step into Cincinnati’s defensive third under any kind of control, which means they struggled to find Hany Mukhtar, and that’s how Nashville ends a game with six shots total and just one of them on/in goal. And that’s more or less what I mean by “forever falling short.” 90% of everything Nashville tried fizzled out. Maybe it’s simple as having no Plan B for the Plan A, aka, “Get Hany the Ball,” but, again, Nashville made their best attacking moments during a last-ditch push for the equalizer – i.e., after Mukhtar came off. More than anything else – and this thought is by no means original to me – Nashville ended the night as a team in desperate need of a Big Think...
...so, why did it take FC Cincy so long to put that team away?
It’s Nashville covers some of the question. Whatever their faults, that defense had allowed just 19 goals coming into last night and, no matter how much closer this pushed them to the mean, they still have allowed the fewest goals in MLS. So, yeah, maybe the lightly-tantric win (e.g., it took forever to get there) isn’t something you worry about not so bad against the backdrop of a game Cincy never looked like losing. Moreover, Arias made the go-ahead goal look easy enough, even if it took a while, not to mention an exquisite pass from Luciano Acosta. Part of you may still wonder whether that would have happened but for those stupid, stupid sending-offs, but the here, now and official takes precedence over whatever happened in some other slice of the multiverse and, in this one, Cincinnati bent Nashville’s undermanned defense until it broke – and in real time. And they won the game without ever really breaking a real sweat.
More of the same, in other words. I read the news today and, oh boy, if FC Cincinnati isn’t the first team to reach 50 points this fast in MLS history? It’s just working, the whole thing: the players press well (even scrambled Walker Zimmerman early), the team has ways to move up both sides of the field - Arias balances Alvaro Barreal wonderfully - and they’ve got an excellent free radical in Acosta to, say, make the pass the defense doesn’t see until they find the knife in their gut. Yeah, yeah, some mistakes were made but Roman Celentano’s a good keeper, and the backline holds together most times they’re called to...which brings me to the final notes on this game.
Answer however the spirit moves you, but, when you do, I’d encourage you to think as broadly as possible. Think of all the questions you want answered, basically, and go from there.
With all that in mind, here’s what I saw:
A Cincinnati team forever on the brink of breaking through versus a Nashville team forever falling short. Sure, Nashville knocked canyon-sized dents into their own chances when two of their players did two very stupid things in as many minutes – I’m talking stuff that someone who paid them to throw the game would tell them not to do, because it would telegraph the con (guys! call me!) – but they also might have had their better moments when they had the fewest players. But even that nods to the flipside of the final result – and the game.
Badly as they played – and put me in the “very” camp when it comes to a vote – Nashville still came within a penalty call that (rightly) fell apart upon review of tying this game (should be in here somewhere, if not blame them, not me). They produced flurries on either side of that and it all came after Taylor Washington got his second yellow for...he tried to grab the ball, I think(?), and Fafa Picault picked up his second yellow for, honestly, what do you call Picault’s lunge into Santiago Arias (right?)? A protest against uneven refereeing? A you-can’t-fire-me-I-quit cry for attention? Both came so close together that we never had time to figure out how one sending off would affect the game...
...and yet, can you think of a time when Nashville ever really looked in this game? They scored the first goal, but that blew through a vast fucking desert like the last tumbleweed in the world, a singular sign of life in a vast, expansive nothing. Nashville struggled to step into Cincinnati’s defensive third under any kind of control, which means they struggled to find Hany Mukhtar, and that’s how Nashville ends a game with six shots total and just one of them on/in goal. And that’s more or less what I mean by “forever falling short.” 90% of everything Nashville tried fizzled out. Maybe it’s simple as having no Plan B for the Plan A, aka, “Get Hany the Ball,” but, again, Nashville made their best attacking moments during a last-ditch push for the equalizer – i.e., after Mukhtar came off. More than anything else – and this thought is by no means original to me – Nashville ended the night as a team in desperate need of a Big Think...
...so, why did it take FC Cincy so long to put that team away?
It’s Nashville covers some of the question. Whatever their faults, that defense had allowed just 19 goals coming into last night and, no matter how much closer this pushed them to the mean, they still have allowed the fewest goals in MLS. So, yeah, maybe the lightly-tantric win (e.g., it took forever to get there) isn’t something you worry about not so bad against the backdrop of a game Cincy never looked like losing. Moreover, Arias made the go-ahead goal look easy enough, even if it took a while, not to mention an exquisite pass from Luciano Acosta. Part of you may still wonder whether that would have happened but for those stupid, stupid sending-offs, but the here, now and official takes precedence over whatever happened in some other slice of the multiverse and, in this one, Cincinnati bent Nashville’s undermanned defense until it broke – and in real time. And they won the game without ever really breaking a real sweat.
More of the same, in other words. I read the news today and, oh boy, if FC Cincinnati isn’t the first team to reach 50 points this fast in MLS history? It’s just working, the whole thing: the players press well (even scrambled Walker Zimmerman early), the team has ways to move up both sides of the field - Arias balances Alvaro Barreal wonderfully - and they’ve got an excellent free radical in Acosta to, say, make the pass the defense doesn’t see until they find the knife in their gut. Yeah, yeah, some mistakes were made but Roman Celentano’s a good keeper, and the backline holds together most times they’re called to...which brings me to the final notes on this game.
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| Spits line-splitters like Biggie spits rhymes. |
Invisible, Unseen, or Unused?
Everyone knows the cliche about how a good day for a defender is any day you don’t notice he’s on the field? This game complicated the cliche by posing the question, what does it mean when you only see your team’s defender in the opposition’s defensive third? Basically, I have no recollection of any of Matt Miazga, Yerson Mosquera and Nick Hagglund making a defensive play; I mainly remember them playing the ball forward or pushing up for set pieces. Nashville barely made them defend. Know who was a big part of that?
The Lion of No Man’s Land
Obinna Nwobodo literally ran down a player that dared to run up the middle of his defense at least six times yesterday - just chased them until he got the ball, and I didn’t even foul on four of those. On top of patrolling the middle of the field as if he believes it's his, he excels at re-circulating the ball to shift the attack and he does all right going forward. As a man who loves his central midfielders, Nwobodo’s just one of those players I love watching. Lethal and tidy. Fun stuff.
A Luckier Lucho
Acosta brought Cincy level on a penalty kick. He shot it more or less through Joe Willis and, sure, that’s a big moment, but I was also struck by how much looser and collaborative Lucho looked this week versus his maniacal soloing against Red Bull New York. And, after some separation from the team, I feel more and more like that follows from having smarter players and/or good foils in front of him. And yet...
Sharpening the Knife
Last night’s game saw the debut of Aaron Boupendza, Cincy’s Gabonese DP forward. Besides scoring the super-late insurance goal (and watch Sean Davis lose his shit after that play; he’s not mad at the refs, but he is livid at his teammates; there are issues), Boupendza showed off his rock of a left boot...as well as his reliance on that rock like it’s a foundation, but he’s still another member of an FC Cincy forward corps that includes Dominique Badji (when whole), Sergio Santos, and newly-returned regular, Brandon Vazquez.
Vazquez struggles for the season are what they are – i.e., something he overcomes or adjusts around – but he had...let’s call it a useful night out there. If there’s anything people should worry about it’s that he’s going back to being Brandon Vazquez versus the guy who showed up last season. I’m not saying that’s happening, or even has happened, but isn’t reverting to type a wholly normal thing for one to do? I know Badji lit up the highlights for a game or two while Vazquez was out and Brenner was gone, and I know Santos can light up the highlights, but, historically, all three of those forwards have only one elite season between them (Vazquez 2022) and that’s with a combined total of 24 seasons between them.
To be 100%-clear, that’s not a crisis. Cincy’s tied for goals-scored at 4th (with Philly, fwiw), Acosta’s having another career season, Alvaro Barreal broke (further) out, and things are just, again, clicking with this team. They may win everything, they may win nothing, but this team is on a kind of league-historic tear that...somehow is getting oddly familiar...how many of the past five, six years (not including the pandemic season) have seen a team break the record for the total number of points earned? Hold on....never mind. If the league adds a team or two every season, of course that number goes up. Son of a....
That’s all I’ve got here. Till the next one – and it should be a Leagues Cup thing.
Everyone knows the cliche about how a good day for a defender is any day you don’t notice he’s on the field? This game complicated the cliche by posing the question, what does it mean when you only see your team’s defender in the opposition’s defensive third? Basically, I have no recollection of any of Matt Miazga, Yerson Mosquera and Nick Hagglund making a defensive play; I mainly remember them playing the ball forward or pushing up for set pieces. Nashville barely made them defend. Know who was a big part of that?
The Lion of No Man’s Land
Obinna Nwobodo literally ran down a player that dared to run up the middle of his defense at least six times yesterday - just chased them until he got the ball, and I didn’t even foul on four of those. On top of patrolling the middle of the field as if he believes it's his, he excels at re-circulating the ball to shift the attack and he does all right going forward. As a man who loves his central midfielders, Nwobodo’s just one of those players I love watching. Lethal and tidy. Fun stuff.
A Luckier Lucho
Acosta brought Cincy level on a penalty kick. He shot it more or less through Joe Willis and, sure, that’s a big moment, but I was also struck by how much looser and collaborative Lucho looked this week versus his maniacal soloing against Red Bull New York. And, after some separation from the team, I feel more and more like that follows from having smarter players and/or good foils in front of him. And yet...
Sharpening the Knife
Last night’s game saw the debut of Aaron Boupendza, Cincy’s Gabonese DP forward. Besides scoring the super-late insurance goal (and watch Sean Davis lose his shit after that play; he’s not mad at the refs, but he is livid at his teammates; there are issues), Boupendza showed off his rock of a left boot...as well as his reliance on that rock like it’s a foundation, but he’s still another member of an FC Cincy forward corps that includes Dominique Badji (when whole), Sergio Santos, and newly-returned regular, Brandon Vazquez.
Vazquez struggles for the season are what they are – i.e., something he overcomes or adjusts around – but he had...let’s call it a useful night out there. If there’s anything people should worry about it’s that he’s going back to being Brandon Vazquez versus the guy who showed up last season. I’m not saying that’s happening, or even has happened, but isn’t reverting to type a wholly normal thing for one to do? I know Badji lit up the highlights for a game or two while Vazquez was out and Brenner was gone, and I know Santos can light up the highlights, but, historically, all three of those forwards have only one elite season between them (Vazquez 2022) and that’s with a combined total of 24 seasons between them.
To be 100%-clear, that’s not a crisis. Cincy’s tied for goals-scored at 4th (with Philly, fwiw), Acosta’s having another career season, Alvaro Barreal broke (further) out, and things are just, again, clicking with this team. They may win everything, they may win nothing, but this team is on a kind of league-historic tear that...somehow is getting oddly familiar...how many of the past five, six years (not including the pandemic season) have seen a team break the record for the total number of points earned? Hold on....never mind. If the league adds a team or two every season, of course that number goes up. Son of a....
That’s all I’ve got here. Till the next one – and it should be a Leagues Cup thing.
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