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| A still from TQL Stadium, August 26. (I kid, I kid.) |
First, do an aging gentleman a favor and tell me that you needed to remind yourself FC Cincinnati wasn’t in orange yesterday. Every time the mind went drifting (as it does), I kept thinking Cincy suddenly looked wayward and baffled. It was New York City FC wearing orange, of course....but that wasn’t the weirdest thing I saw yesterday.
After a couple weeks of watching defenses assign either goon or goon squad to suffocate Luciano Acosta, seeing New York City FC opt against the obvious approach? Well, it was a decision. Nick Cushing (probably) directed his charges to go out and keep the shape, which allowed Acosta to do the whole float like a butterfly sting like a bee thing (“Joe Fraser can’t hit what he can’t see”; just read that full quote from Muhammed Ali this week and it really is a thing of beauty). Lucho Unlocked led to two decisive plays that commenced the scrambling of NYC’s defense on Cincy's first goal and that opened the backdoor on for Junior Moreno on their second. That amounts to a death sentence in a game where chances came often as the 25 bus (i.e., not often enough). The only major plot-point from there was NYC opting to defend space instead of players – most notably, Nick Hagglund - on a 58th minute corner kick. With that, FC Cincinnati walked off the field at TQL Stadium last night, 3-0 winners in what looked like a stroll.
And yet that impression was at least mildly illusory. Between wrapping up dinner (a decent tuna casserole, fwiw) and getting about 5 mg ahead of myself, I wasn’t totally locked in for the first 20 minutes of the second half – and that meant missing how close NYC came to either leveling the game, or pulling back one goal, something I saw (among other things) after re-watching the beginnings of the first and second halves this morning. The specific order and timing of it all escapes me, but Monsef Bakrar came within a quarter step of beating Roman Celentano on a near-post run to a deflected cross, (think it was) Julian Fernandez later forced Celentano to lay down to stop a shot from range and Keaton Parks put at least two great shots on goal over the course of the second half – one a five-hole shot, the other a header from just outside the six. That last sentence may very well contain the entirety of NYC’s attacking output for the afternoon, but, if you sprinkle in some dubious set-piece defending on FC Cincy’s part (lots of balls hitting ground, with some “danger! danger!” pinball thrown in), you’re just a couple but-fors away from a game that doesn’t look so comfortable.
If that sounds like a paragraph’s worth of quibbling, fair. Just about every game includes moments like that and all that mischief got managed, so what to do but celebrate? Even with the Philadelphia Union and (impressively) Orlando City SC winning, Cincinnati now holds a ten-point lead in the Supporters’ Shield race and an 11-point lead over the rest of the Eastern Conference thanks to losses by the New England Revolution and St. Louis CITY FC, respectively. They also padded their goal differential by three, something that could break some useful ties when such things come up and that brightens the bigger picture a little. To expand on that...
After a couple weeks of watching defenses assign either goon or goon squad to suffocate Luciano Acosta, seeing New York City FC opt against the obvious approach? Well, it was a decision. Nick Cushing (probably) directed his charges to go out and keep the shape, which allowed Acosta to do the whole float like a butterfly sting like a bee thing (“Joe Fraser can’t hit what he can’t see”; just read that full quote from Muhammed Ali this week and it really is a thing of beauty). Lucho Unlocked led to two decisive plays that commenced the scrambling of NYC’s defense on Cincy's first goal and that opened the backdoor on for Junior Moreno on their second. That amounts to a death sentence in a game where chances came often as the 25 bus (i.e., not often enough). The only major plot-point from there was NYC opting to defend space instead of players – most notably, Nick Hagglund - on a 58th minute corner kick. With that, FC Cincinnati walked off the field at TQL Stadium last night, 3-0 winners in what looked like a stroll.
And yet that impression was at least mildly illusory. Between wrapping up dinner (a decent tuna casserole, fwiw) and getting about 5 mg ahead of myself, I wasn’t totally locked in for the first 20 minutes of the second half – and that meant missing how close NYC came to either leveling the game, or pulling back one goal, something I saw (among other things) after re-watching the beginnings of the first and second halves this morning. The specific order and timing of it all escapes me, but Monsef Bakrar came within a quarter step of beating Roman Celentano on a near-post run to a deflected cross, (think it was) Julian Fernandez later forced Celentano to lay down to stop a shot from range and Keaton Parks put at least two great shots on goal over the course of the second half – one a five-hole shot, the other a header from just outside the six. That last sentence may very well contain the entirety of NYC’s attacking output for the afternoon, but, if you sprinkle in some dubious set-piece defending on FC Cincy’s part (lots of balls hitting ground, with some “danger! danger!” pinball thrown in), you’re just a couple but-fors away from a game that doesn’t look so comfortable.
If that sounds like a paragraph’s worth of quibbling, fair. Just about every game includes moments like that and all that mischief got managed, so what to do but celebrate? Even with the Philadelphia Union and (impressively) Orlando City SC winning, Cincinnati now holds a ten-point lead in the Supporters’ Shield race and an 11-point lead over the rest of the Eastern Conference thanks to losses by the New England Revolution and St. Louis CITY FC, respectively. They also padded their goal differential by three, something that could break some useful ties when such things come up and that brightens the bigger picture a little. To expand on that...
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| Everyone around the world, C'MON! |
For every pass or shot that Cincy’s defense let slip close to Celentano, they had five plays where they had a right-time, right-place defender to clean up any impending NYC breakthroughs – most of which took the shape of cutbacks from wide spaces when, factually, the visitors got around one of Cincy’s fullbacks. Scoring goals is swell and all, but “defense wins championships” is one of the longest-lived and hoariest cliches in the game for a reason. Per goals allowed, Cincinnati has the 5th best defense in the league. A team can ride a long way on a record like that, especially when they have a guy posting MVP-candidate numbers like Acosta. And one detail from yesterday makes that happy, top-line fact shine a little brighter: the defense did that without Obinna Nwobodo and Yerson Mosquera, two of their steadiest performers. Hell, they won this game with one Brandon Vazquez tied behind their collective backs.
With apologies for readers who like things more linear and blow-by-blow, that’s it for the big picture. All in all, this was a damn good and exquisitely well-timed win for the Orange and Blue. Now, some talking points.
1) Perspective
My primary team, the Portland Timbers, are going through some things. While that’s been true all season long, but the firing of long-time coach Giovanni Savarese, has allowed a real revival of the crapulence and it infects everything to the connection and coordination between and among the players. Watching them right after watching FC Cincinnati makes me appreciate what Pat Noonan, et al, have done for Cincinnati. Good movement, great spacing, sharp passing: the wobbles noted above aside, Cincinnati displayed all those qualities in yesterday’s game.
1a) Longer Perspective
The opposite held for three painful seasons: I used to know how shitty Cincinnati was because I watched the Timbers every weekend – and that leads to a fun detail. The two teams involved in the MLS Cup 2021 – the Timbers and NYCFC - have fallen on hard, discordant times. For the Timbers, it was a long complacent slide into decadence, particularly on the player acquisition side; for NYC...surely it couldn’t have been as simple as losing Taty Castellanos? At any rate, witness how quickly it can happen and shudder. As I have done on a weekly basis for just about every week of 2023, as well as too many to count in 2022. But, also, celebrate good times, come on, FC Cincinnati fans!
2) Kubo and the String of Bad Passes
This didn’t stand out until I rewatched the beginnings of both halves, but Kubo made a surprising number of negative passes yesterday – and that’s on top of hitting a pair of clumsy, terrible passes, one of which led to a yellow. Love the work-rate, but...just tell me he’s still not a DP (despite what it says here), because that’ll make me feel better about everything, including his role on the team.
3) Feet of Lead and a Conclusion That Follows From
It’s no great secret that Vazquez’s 2023 hasn’t lived up to his 2022 annus mirabilis. A lot of the gripes have pointed to his wayward and, at times, simply bad finishing, but since I’ve started getting back to all of FC Cincy’s games, something else has stood out even more: the quality of his touch has developed more rust than a Toyota Corolla wagon in late 1970s/early 1980s Cincinnati, Ohio (speaking from direct experience and/or seeing the road through the floor on that). He’s still making the right runs and checking back to goal just as smartly, but he works against all that every time the ball bounces wrong off his foot. And that leads to a chilling thought:
Is it as simple as Brandon Vazquez going back to being...well, Brandon Vazquez? See his career numbers and wonder how much “mirabilis” went into 2022.
4) A Good Start for a First Start
I get that Brett Halsey won’t be a regular in the rotation so long as Alvaro Barreal is around – who, just to note it, I failed to include among the absent regular starters – but he showed some smart 1-v-1 moves and some real positives going forward. Not bad for an RSL reject. It wasn’t all daisies and rainbows for Halsey’s full debut – NYC’s consistent avenue toward goal, at least in the first half, came through the space around/behind Halsey – but Cincy fans can take some comfort knowing there’s a decent replacement if Barreal ships out after 2023.
And...yeah, that’s it. There were good games all around – e.g., from Matt Miazga, Ian Murphy, Moreno and Aaron Boupendza (who scored the first goal and might have pinched all Vazquez’s good first touches) – but I’m chalking this one up to an all-hands W. Till the next one...
With apologies for readers who like things more linear and blow-by-blow, that’s it for the big picture. All in all, this was a damn good and exquisitely well-timed win for the Orange and Blue. Now, some talking points.
1) Perspective
My primary team, the Portland Timbers, are going through some things. While that’s been true all season long, but the firing of long-time coach Giovanni Savarese, has allowed a real revival of the crapulence and it infects everything to the connection and coordination between and among the players. Watching them right after watching FC Cincinnati makes me appreciate what Pat Noonan, et al, have done for Cincinnati. Good movement, great spacing, sharp passing: the wobbles noted above aside, Cincinnati displayed all those qualities in yesterday’s game.
1a) Longer Perspective
The opposite held for three painful seasons: I used to know how shitty Cincinnati was because I watched the Timbers every weekend – and that leads to a fun detail. The two teams involved in the MLS Cup 2021 – the Timbers and NYCFC - have fallen on hard, discordant times. For the Timbers, it was a long complacent slide into decadence, particularly on the player acquisition side; for NYC...surely it couldn’t have been as simple as losing Taty Castellanos? At any rate, witness how quickly it can happen and shudder. As I have done on a weekly basis for just about every week of 2023, as well as too many to count in 2022. But, also, celebrate good times, come on, FC Cincinnati fans!
2) Kubo and the String of Bad Passes
This didn’t stand out until I rewatched the beginnings of both halves, but Kubo made a surprising number of negative passes yesterday – and that’s on top of hitting a pair of clumsy, terrible passes, one of which led to a yellow. Love the work-rate, but...just tell me he’s still not a DP (despite what it says here), because that’ll make me feel better about everything, including his role on the team.
3) Feet of Lead and a Conclusion That Follows From
It’s no great secret that Vazquez’s 2023 hasn’t lived up to his 2022 annus mirabilis. A lot of the gripes have pointed to his wayward and, at times, simply bad finishing, but since I’ve started getting back to all of FC Cincy’s games, something else has stood out even more: the quality of his touch has developed more rust than a Toyota Corolla wagon in late 1970s/early 1980s Cincinnati, Ohio (speaking from direct experience and/or seeing the road through the floor on that). He’s still making the right runs and checking back to goal just as smartly, but he works against all that every time the ball bounces wrong off his foot. And that leads to a chilling thought:
Is it as simple as Brandon Vazquez going back to being...well, Brandon Vazquez? See his career numbers and wonder how much “mirabilis” went into 2022.
4) A Good Start for a First Start
I get that Brett Halsey won’t be a regular in the rotation so long as Alvaro Barreal is around – who, just to note it, I failed to include among the absent regular starters – but he showed some smart 1-v-1 moves and some real positives going forward. Not bad for an RSL reject. It wasn’t all daisies and rainbows for Halsey’s full debut – NYC’s consistent avenue toward goal, at least in the first half, came through the space around/behind Halsey – but Cincy fans can take some comfort knowing there’s a decent replacement if Barreal ships out after 2023.
And...yeah, that’s it. There were good games all around – e.g., from Matt Miazga, Ian Murphy, Moreno and Aaron Boupendza (who scored the first goal and might have pinched all Vazquez’s good first touches) – but I’m chalking this one up to an all-hands W. Till the next one...
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