FC Cincinnati 1-1 Red Bull New York: When Constellations Are Just Random, Useless Dots

Having the technology doesn't make using it right...

This won’t take long. I’m trying to get two of these things in tonight...

If I had to choose one way to explain FC Cincinnati’s 1-1 home draw to Red Bull New York, I’d go with the passing accuracy and total passes numbers, plus a pair of passing maps that look like constellations. The Red Bulls do best when they can force the opposition to play their game – particularly the part about forever pushing the ball forward, and with all the frustrated constipation of trying to make a turducken out of a set of badly-matched birds. Cincinnati had all of....I’m calling it about 25 minutes’ worth of impetus in that game in total; the rest of it was just 10 mammals reacting to stimuli. Solid game by Roman Celentano, by the way....

To lay my cards on the table, I’m a little pissy about this draw and mostly because I’m fairly convinced it didn’t have to be this way.

J. R. R. Tolkein getting the penalty call in the 28th-minute didn’t hurt, obviously, and, I don’t care how lonely this hill is, I would never have called that as a penalty. Raymon Gaddis clearly played the ball, one that hung in the air like a slow-pitched softball and, if he kicked J. R. R. in mid-flight, I mean, haven’t we all wanted to do that, if only for the terrible dialogue and dwarf songs alone?

Call that a long, digressive way of saying, I wouldn’t have called that penalty, but that doesn’t erase the fact it 1) wasn’t crazy and 2) was called, and that’s how the Red Bulls turned a whole lot of mostly nothing into one more point on the road. Celentano made all of two saves tonight (and came close on the PK), one of them that asked no more of him than catching a placement shot at head level from range, and that gives a good measure of New Jersey’s “dominance” tonight, and the limits of their present approach to the game. They succeeded in stifling everything Cincy thought to do, as soon as they tried it – boiling over Luciano Acosta’s frustration in the process – but the return they got was almost entirely negative. RBNY only managed one good shot on goal that stuck with me (Morgan, from range, circa the 63rd), but the rest topped out at their trademark frenetic aimlessness. They’re the soccer equivalent of someone who can win the fight for the knife in a street fight, but don’t know what to do with it from there.

Now, to pick up the mail from the complaints department...

A Premature 2022 FC Cincinnati Preview: Because I Can't Watch the Preseason Games

Whoa, whoa, whoa. I thought the choice was about kids?

FC Cincinnati have hired and fired three coaches in as many seasons, not counting the two interim coaches - Yoann Damet and, just last season, Tyrone Marshall - they sacrificed to appease the Soccer Gods who had clearly cursed them. Ron Jans struck me as the most competent, but he turned out to have the social skills of a man born 50 years earlier, and not one of the bright ones, and that became his legacy. With the others, I'd like to entertain the reverse of a thought experiment: I wonder what either Alan Koch or Jaap Stam could do with a better roster - i.e., one not built on a philosophy that parallels a Supermarket Sweep shopping spree of just grabbing shit in a half-conscious panic.

FC Cincy have also tried swinging big on designated players (DP), and at a clip of about two per season during their time in Major League Soccer. The 2020 crop - Jurgen Locadia and Yuya Kubo - was particularly disastrous, even if that only applies to the latter based on what he was hired to do (i.e., generate offense). Luciano Acosta and Brenner Souza da Silva made up Cincinnati’s latest DP class and, even if didn’t mean much to the team’s fortunes writ large, both Acosta and Brenner will almost certainly unseat the current all-time leading scorer, and 2019 DP, Allan Cruz, a couple weeks into 2022. That record, by the way? Nine goals. Nine. Still, trending up every so slightly beats flatlining.

Flatlining describes FC Cincinnati’s history in MLS as well as any word. The phrase “wooden spoon” got thrown at them at the end of every season they’ve spent in the top flight, but it takes surfacing some blunt numbers gets at how hard. Cincinnati has won just...14 games over 2 2/3 season (the 2/3 comes from 2020, when they played just 23 games). That's just north of 15% of the time...ouch, and that earned them a total of 60 points. For perspective, three teams either tied or topped that “haul” in 2021 alone (the Colorado Rapids, the Seattle Sounders and, of course, the record-setting New England Revolution). I’ve obsessed/marveled over their repeated runs at all the wrong single-season records enough that I won't do it again here, but the cold, hard reality is that you can’t dig into Cincinnati’s numbers without hitting a sewer line. While you're down there, here's another one: would you believe Cincinnati produced its worst points per game total (0.59, people) just last season? Hence the point about Brenner, Acosta and fortunes writ large.

FC Cincinnati 2-2 Columbus Crew SC: Disappointed and It Feels So Good...

That's just to get the song in your head. As a mnemonic.

Can I even have five thoughts in my head when one big one - e.g., please don’t do that - drowns out the rest? I mean, is there even room for another thought?

After going up 2-0 in the first half, and Columbus Crew SC going down a man during the same period, FC Cincinnati allowed Columbus back in with two of their own. With that, a game that started brightly as any I’ve ever seen Cincinnati play ended in a 2-2 draw that it’s very hard to feel happy about. But, come, let's try.

Circumstances loom large because, one, the first half might have been the best half of soccer I’ve ever seen FC Cincy play. They got the kind of start every team aims for by pouring numbers forward and taking a chance on catching other team off-guard; Luciano Acosta opened up a world of possibilities when he slithered around Columbus’ left and pulled a grass-cutter into the heart of the penalty area: when Edgar Castillo slammed it home after it appeared go astray, it looked like a night for the unlikely. The idea they owed it all to luck slowly evaporated as Cincinnati paced the game with (overly?) patient passing and ball movement and, from about 20 minutes on, discombobulated a normal steady Crew team with an aggressive, targeted press. That pressure forced Columbus to chase backwards too often and scramble, which scrambling let Cincinnati force in a second goal through (again) Acosta after too many wires got crossed in Columbus’ area.

All the above also caused Columbus to lose their heads a little with Jonathan Mensah, in particular, making a couple statements (aka, tackles) that spoke loudly enough for everyone this side of referee Terry Stott to hear. He ultimately sent off a Crew player, but Stott’s worst habit came with dishing too many cards for the wrong reasons - dissent being one of the dumbest. That’s the worst kind of referee: the guy who loses his cool when people point out he’s wrong. I wasn’t dumb enough to think Cincy had it in the bag when Harrison Afful was shown a second yellow for falling over Acosta from behind, but I failed to see several things coming - with Lucas Zelarayan’s first-half goal being the first thing to come to mind.

I came to the second half about five minutes late (burrito run!), but didn’t see cause for alarm when I settled in again: Columbus withdrew deeper than I thought made sense and just absorbed, absorbed and absorbed some more. To paraphrase the famous saying about bankruptcy, Cincy’s collapse happened gradually then suddenly. When the Crew started to push out of the bunker, they found Cincy’s midfield pretty easy to play through and the work of getting from their defensive third to Cincinnati’s surprisingly easy. Zelarayan’s near-equalizer came from one of those, “well-if-you’re-going-to-let-us-play” moves, and Columbus buried the real thing about 10 minutes later. It was a bizarre/semi-inexplicable moment - after Zelarayan rode one tackle, a decision was made to let him run(?), from which trot he found forward Miguel Berry in a gap between Castillo and Gustavo Vallecilla, a situation in which everyone seemed to see him, but somehow still lost him - and Berry made the finish look easy.

FC Cincinnati 2-3 Inter Miami CF: The One Pressing Question

Everything else I wrote...but also this.

What do you make of FC Cincinnati losing its most complete game of 2021 at a great, big all they threw for themselves (and it considerable expense)? Sub-question: how does the argument that they lost to what sure as hell looks like a bad team to me make you feel?

Now the real question: can FC Cincy get better with the roster they have?

I’m not going to spend much time on what happened when - here goes (or just watch): Inter Miami CF scored early on (no way!) a succession of defensive errors by Cincinnati’s defense (Joe Gyau) and midfield (Calvin Harris); a little momentum followed in the other direction…and then Miami scored again, and on a worse breakdown; a great big mix of running and nothing happened from there, very specific complaints came down from the broadcast booth, etc., then Ronald Mataritta found Alvaro Barreal behind Miami’s defense (their turn!), putting Cincinnati one goal closer to a comeback; some smartly-channeled aggression followed that didn’t look like it’d go anywhere then Nick Hagglund powered home an equalizer from a corner kick, the crowd went wild, the Fox network got some excitement for the TV, and so on…then, one minute later, Hagglund misplays a pass out of the back and Gonzalo Higuain finishes a counter he started, game over at 3-2 to Miami - because the specifics don’t really matter here. Or, more accurately, some long-term realities swallow up those specifics and return the conversation to one immovable question: can FC Cincy get better with the roster they have?

If your answer is no, my best advice is to step watching Cincinnati for another year, but probably two. Nah, make it three years. Probably safer.

Personally, I think they have the pieces for a decent functioning team in the current roster. There’s no question Cincinnati has some dead wood on the payroll, but I think I see some pieces that I’d stick with for a while and build around to best of your ability.

That said, pardon me while I address the dead body on the floor and the relevant co-morbidities. Miami looked like crap in their mid-week loss to Montreal (Full disclosure: I only watched the condensed game) and they looked…well, a lot like crap against Cincy today. Three or four sharp movements in the first half aside - which lead to the first goal, but not the second - they didn’t look much better moving the ball than the home team, their tackling kinda sucked (related, I am powerfully underwhelmed by Gregore), and nothing I saw today, very much including Cincinnati’s comeback, would lead me to echo talk of “a strong response” to Montreal loss that came from the broadcast booth. Nothing makes me doubt my….let’s call it contingently assured belief that Cincinnati finally has a functioning roster than my fairly clear sense that Miami can best be described as Cincinnati, but with more coherent talent.

FC Cincinnati 2-1 Columbus Crew SC: A Faint Glimmering From Hell?

One of you ordered the salmon pate, right?

FC Cincinnati has shown fans a couple looks over this short, weird 2020, but joylessly organized on defense and a combination of clueless and inept in the attack has remained the go-to since they surprised a couple teams (the New York Red Bulls, mostly) back in the Orlando bubble.

At least that’s where I left off with them about a month ago after that win over (again) the Red Bulls. I’d kept tabs while I was checked out, even took a longer look at a couple results. The results didn’t look great - they’d gone 0-4-1 over that time - even if all the results mostly made sense (e.g., losing 0-4 away to New York City FC and 0-3 on the road to the Philadelphia Union, both of which still hold double-digit leads over Cincy, even in a low-points season). Frustration mounted among the fan-base, or at least the corner of it I see on twitter, often to the point where thinking ahead to the 2021 season felt better than living through 2020…and I realize, as I typed those words, what a very low bar that is. So, so pervasively, consumingly low….

When I finally decided to tune back in for last night’s game against Columbus Crew SC, in a match-up I still can’t bring myself to call “Hell Is Real” (I mean, if just one of the teams has taken up full-time residence in hell, aren’t they just hosting at that point?), someone on the twitters pointed out that FC Cincy’s supporters’ groups had packed up all the banners and tifos with an eye to sending the team a message. I don’t know whether or not the players received it, but I had one hell of a laugh when a player alluding to it in an post-game interview. (Something like, “yeah, I noticed that. I heard they were trying to tell us something.” Ach, priceless…)

In fewer words, I’d missed more games than I’d noticed (FC Cincy went to Minnesota? huh), while getting the clear, steady message that not much of meaning had changed. As such, I tuned in last night bracing for more of the same. FC Cincinnati delivered something else. A 2-1 home win, for starters, but also more coherence on the attacking side than I’d seen since…well, let’s call it a while, because that could be 2019 on the phone for all I know. (Wait! You’re not gonna believe this, but it’s a guy telling me I won a prize! All I have to do is give him my bank account and routing numbers! Yaayyyyyy!)

New York City FC 2-1 FC Cincinnati: 20 Happy MInutes and the Nature of Inevitability

Yes,  you can play that way, but...

Not many people would take a second glance at FC Cincinnati’s 1-2 loss to New York City FC. They’d file it away as expected and move on; if anything piqued his/her/their interest it would be the fact that Cincy scored a goal. (Not that record, motherfuckers! Not today!). The bird’s-eye-view isn’t wrong, but it’s not entirely right either. This thing’s hairy with nuance…have I mentioned how much I miss the routine of soaking up context by watching too many goddamn MLS in 15 highlights? Have I mentioned how much the pandemic murdered the logic of going through that particular motion?

To stare directly at the warts, yes, FC Cincinnati played a sloppy, madding opening…65 minutes, and “opening” and “65 minutes” should never go together. To frame the point around two emblematic moments, the first came when Alexander Ring made what felt like NYCFC’s 100th scything run straight up Cincinnati’s gut; Ring slipped to the outside when Kendall Waston lunged in, but, and this is very much to Waston’s credit (especially at 32) he got enough of his body in the way and eventually muscled Ring off the ball, which almost certainly would have ended in a goal. He managed to clear it…maybe to the top of the defensive third? The ball might have crossed over into NYCFC’s half in a particularly #blessed moment, but it didn’t stray much further upfield for most of the first half and too much of the second.

The real question became apparent only after Allan Cruz and (sure, why not?) Nick Hagglund came on at the 65th minute: why the hell did FC Cincinnati spend 65 minutes hanging from the edge of a goddamn cliff when, according to what happened after the 65th minute, it’s possible - and merely possible - they didn’t have to?

The second moment relates to the first, in that it expresses the flip-side of the same dynamic. On one of the rare occasions that the ball crossed the center stripe and into NYCFC’s half, Yuya Kubo bolted up the left side of the field with the ball at his feet; the literally only other Cincinnati player who joined him on the happy side of the center stripe was Jurgen Locadia, and he was all the way on the other side of the damn field. For the sake of argument, set aside whatever specific acts you think either of those players should or should not do in any given moment and focus on the deeper question how the hell two dudes split on opposite sides of entire goddamn half of a soccer field are supposed to beat four-to-six players defending that same space?

Atlanta United FC 2-1 FC Cincinnati: A Different Feeling in My Stomach

Explaining a nonsense phrase below...

I’m going to use Atlanta United FC’s second goal as exemplary evidence that they are a better team than FC Cincinnati. The latter’s defense earned every shot you want to take at its shape, but Emerson Hyndman, 1) spotted the space, 2) Ezequiel Barco found it, and with a well-weighted pass and, more than the first two points, 3) Hyndman’s touch took him around the defender and opened Spencer Richey’s all the way up. A professional player 10 yards from goal with the ‘keeper on or near his line ends badly nine times outta ten, and that’s how one team breaks down another team, or vice versa, and whatever that means.

As people paying careful attention already know, Atlanta beat FC Cincy last night by a final score of 2-1. Cincinnati pulled one back with a slicing shot from Yuya Kubo ("golazo"? srsly, MLSSoccer.com; are expectations so low?), and they had a couple chances besides – good ones, too – but Atlanta already had one crack in Cincy’s defense in the bank before the second one happened, and that left the Orange and Blue playing out of a hole for the second week running…

…and yet, I feel good. Bah-nah-nah-nah-nah.

For anyone watching at home, no, you didn’t imagine it: Cincinnati put up a fair number of shots last night, and more than Atlanta. In fact, Cincy nearly doubled Atlanta’s necked shots total (i.e., just shots not shots on goal; eight for Atlanta v 14 for Cincinnati), but two key thoughts follow from that:

1) Did Cincinnati ever appear entirely in control of last night’s match?

2) The box score from Atlanta’s season-opening win over Nashville SC looks much the same, and the result looks exactly the same.

The question is, what you draw from all that?

New York Red Bulls 3-2 FC Cincinnati: The Battle They Won & A Special Little Miracle

Deck still works. (That's taking the positives, baby!)

I’d argue that result makes the bigger, poorer statement on the state of the New York Red Bulls than it makes about FC Cincinnati. More to the point, New York absolutely needed that late, unlikely goal from Daniel Royer to win the game 3-2 and to stay one small step ahead of opening day embarrassment. Cincinnati held a fairly clear, universal edge over the game’s last 30 minutes – and, most encouraging for them, new, spendy kid Jurgen Locadia provided a focal point for forward traffic once he took the field.

As for the bad news, the Red Bulls scrambled the bejesus out of Cincy’s defensive shape throughout the first half. Their passing and movement made the Orange and Blue’s defensive midfield, in particular, about as useful to the overall effort as me sitting on my sofa quietly whispering, “dear gods, what is happening over there?” For as long as they had the energy to pull it off, New York worked their usual, preferred formula of forcing turnovers and immediately finding good, often novel ways of getting vertical toward the opposition goal.

There’s a cautionary tale for both teams in that: as much as Cincinnati’s defensive posture improved (i.e., defenders started tracking the movement and anticipating the next pass), nearly every Red Bulls’ player’s legs had given out before the game’s end. Scuffed touches saw them looking down to make sure they took the ball with them on dribbles and under-hit/wayward passes made it easier for Cincy’s defenders to pick off the strays than it had been during a first half of smart, sure touches.

They might not have won the game, but Cincinnati won the fitness battle…though it’s also worth wondering whether the Red Bulls run their collective legs off whilst building their cushion in the first half. To reduce that to an analogy, did Cincinnati push the Red Bulls to the edge, or a lactic acid burn take the Red Bulls out of the way?

MLS Off-Season Weekly (01.17.2020): Dismissals, Courtships, and More

What?

Guys! They released the 2020 preseason schedule!

Yeah, yeah, 93.7% of fans think that preseason is bullshit. Personally, I think of it like Advent – i.e., a prelude to the main event, only without the Bible verses and the shitty chocolate. (I know carob when I taste it, mom; don’t you fucking insult me.) It’s when I finally get to see games (guys!), when I finally get to address (and/or wildly extrapolate) from actual player performances; I get evidence, dammit (no matter how subjective it gets once you traverse past hard numbers like goals, assists, and clean sheets). The day I can stop guessing how, say, Gadi Kinda will do in MLS versus telling you he’s either, 1) a storm-driven revelation raging through every MLS defense he encounters, or 2) that name you can’t place in this week’s traveling 18; that's my Christmas! (Which has been true since my kids grew up: so, so transactional; I’d kill that fat jolly son-of-a-bitch on sight, if I ever saw him.)

For what it’s worth, that’s a paragraph-long version of me saying, I’ll care about Chicarito coming to MLS when he makes me care, not before then. Swear to God, fucking hype-trains leave the station daily till about the 10th week of the season…

Personal shit aside, yeah, I’m just excited to see anyone connected to any MLS team kick a ball around. Bring on the shitty live feeds with Jake Zivin muttering over the silence; I’m here for every 90-minute serving of that. Truth be told, FC Cincinnati has a lot more going on this preseason – they start before January ends, in Tucson, and against…Phoenix Rising, I think (do I care? It’s January 29 regardless) – but they’re scheduled to hand in five more games before the regular season starts, and I can’t wait to see how much all the kids, new, young, old, all of ‘em, can impress me (or give me ulcers) before the season can even start. I want my barely-supported opinions and I want them now, basically.

The Portland Timbers, meanwhile, have committed to a trip to Costa Rica (which I’m fine with, even as I don’t fully understand the tradition), followed by the…hold on, Old Trapper Beef Jerky Bowl, or some shit like that. Given my rooting interests, yes, I’m more geeked up (in both senses of the word) about what the Timbers look like going into 2020, but they’re just not doing much this preseason, or much that readily translates. That happens to carry over to player movement/activity. Portland’s being really boring right now – by which I mean, there’s nothing outside the potential/expected signing of Jaroslaw Niezgoda on the Timbers’ horizon, so the roster they have is…it, right? So, yeah, let’s talk about what FC Cincy’s up to…

FC Cincinnati, 2019 in Review: A Puzzle and a Carousel

The problem, in WPA format.

For starters, I’ve never followed a team that suffered so much in one season. The world around me turned clockwise or counter-clockwise, but I’ve lead a charmed life when it comes to spectator sports.

And yet is was worse than that for FC Cincinnati in a lot of ways. In the big picture, they had their brightest moments early in the season; but for their March 30 loss to the Philadelphia Union, FC Cincy could have had the strongest start for an expansion team in Major League Soccer history. It probably wouldn't have mattered, but that game marked the turning point in Cincinnati’s 2019 season: after one more promising result – a 1-1 home draw versus Sporting Kansas City (that later provided both irrelevant and predictive for both teams, aka, more time for golf!) - they wouldn’t just lose, they’d lose in bunches: first five straight games, then six straight games, then four straight games, then four more. The end of the season looked a bit brighter, or at least fulfilled the theoretical promise of the team’s original roster construction – the defensive team they designed finally showed up, and that let them ruin a couple seasons (e.g., the Chicago Fire’s and Orlando City SC’s) – but it was too little and too late, on top of being basically unwatchable.

I’m going to (finally) close the chapter on FC Cincinnati’s inaugural 2019 season today. Rather than make anyone but the emotionally sturdiest people stick around till the end in the hope that I’ll have something bright, never mind helpful or insightful to say about 2020, I don’t. I expect hella turnover (as indicated by all the “Thank You __________” posts I see on the FC Cincinnati news page), and, between all the expected personnel turnover and a new coach (Ron Jans, whose current lease on (coaching life) expires December 2020), predictions can’t be anything but a mug’s game. Moving on…

I’ll close out with big-picture talking points, I'll name my personal team MVP…and, yeah, I think that’s about it, but I want to start by drafting a narrative for the 2019 season based on the notes I banged out through the season. And, golly, did production drop off at the end. And, frankly, so did my interest. As they say in France, allons y!

Montreal Impact 0-1 FC Cincinnati: Taking Care of (Super-Belated) Business

Elvis would be super-belatedly proud.

I won’t pretend that was enjoyable. My phone became infinitely more interesting around the 20th minute, but I more or less hung in there (hanged in there?), with allowances for prep-cooking and my cat doing something vaguely interesting. FC Cincinnati was reasonably good for its 1-0 win over the Montreal Impact. In Montreal, too. I’m not sure that matters, because neither of these teams has a future that extends beyond October 6.

When Allan Cruz stabbed that lucky bounce home about halfway through the first minute, the only relevant question became whether Cincy could hold out for the 90+ minutes ahead (also, against pretty much anyone). Cincinnati answered by clogging the middle with a low-block, which L’Impact got worse at figuring it out as the minutes ticked higher. They found Orji Okwonwko on the weak-side a couple times in the first half, but he was offside or sloppy in the defining moment, and things generally descended into hope-and-a-prayer crosses by the end of the game, Ignacio Piatti looking about a month too early (for him) and too late (for Montreal), and a lot of aimless possession by Saphir Taider and Samuel Piette. Montreal never looked particularly threatening, so…yay, Cincinnati!

Cincinnati ground out this game and, based on the attack last night, and recent games generally, that looks more or less like the entire tool-kit. They don’t have an attacking upside to save them. Even with most of the season gone, you still see Cincy players make runs to the same space (Darren Mattocks is freakin’ awful about crowding the left), and don’t even get me started about transition – e.g., at least two breaks forward, and with numbers in Cincinnati’s favor. In both those moments (and maybe a couple others), the runs came straight out of a family Thanksgiving Day “Turkey Bowl” after “first dinner” and the first fifth of whiskey, and the final pass referenced neither run, so, no, I wouldn’t call transition Cincy’s long suit either.

They scored first, though, and that’s all that mattered last night. Well, that and Przemyslaw Tyton pawing away a rare, truly clean shot on goal by Montreal. Had that gone in – or even had Joe Gyau’s stumble into Bacary Sagna been called as a PK (I would have called it) – Cincinnati could have drawn, or, god forbid, lost this game.

FC Cincinnati 1-4 New York City FC: Stanko-Curiosity & Role-Playing

Um, OK. Can we look at the other 19?

As I sat down to write this, I’d got it in my head that FC Cincinnati had a long history of scoring the first goal then gradually losing control of the game. As it happens, it’s a recent phenomenon, applicable only to their last three games. So, that’s one discarded frame (and title; I was thinking of going with, “I Got It, I Got It; I Don’t Got It”), but it does accurately describe a game (and a late phenomenon) slipping away one deflating increment at a time.

Related: I’ve fretted over the importance of FC Cincy scoring the first goal in the preview threads I post to twitter; the last few results punched a combined eight holes into that theory (i.e., one hole for each goal allowed), so let’s quietly set that one aside.

The best way I can think to explain yesterday’s 1-4 loss to New York City FC turns on a question: review the starting line-ups that FC Cincinnati and New York City FC fielded yesterday and ask yourself, which team’s player you’d take at each position on the field. At most, I’d take Andrew Gutman over Ronald Mataritta, Kendall Waston over Julian Sands (then Ben Sweat, but not over Maxime Chanot, maybe Mathieu Deplagne over Eric Miller, and one of Cincy’s midfielders (probably Victor Ulloa) over Keaton Parks, but he’s only 22 so that pick could invert in a year or two.

NYCFC picked up a couple lucky bounces – see, Valentin Castellanos’ accidental assist on Heber’s first goal and the way Mikael van der Werff’s heel didn’t do enough to thwart Heber’s cut-back on his second back-breaking goal – but better quality at nearly every position, particularly in the attack, feels like the proper narrative. Cincy posted as many shots as NYC in the end – at least a pair of good ones, too – but when the time came to strike the ball well and true, having Castellanos and Heber on one team versus Darren Mattocks and, say, Roland Lamah on the other decided the result.

FC Cincinnati 1-2 Vancouver Whitecaps: Life at the Bottom of the Barrel

Call it a figure 3 1/2.

FC Cincinnati lost 2-0 to the Vancouver Whitecaps at home last night in a game in which they did everything right and everything wrong in the same 90 minutes. They dictated the direction of traffic most of the night and produced twenty of chances (literally), only to get burned by a couple randos going the wrong way up a one way. The second goal they coughed up – i.e., the one that put the break into the bend – followed from the kind of failures an overload forces by design. When Ali Adnan (Jr.; hope that’s right) ran into the channel, he begged the question that FC Cincy failed to answer: who marks the fullback when he runs into the channel between the fullback and the centerback?

I suppose “random” better applies to Vancouver’s first goal, a long-range knock-back from a player (Hwang In-Beom) scoring just his second in Vancouver white. The real pisser is that Cincinnati fired plenty of credible shots toward the Canadians’ goal – e.g., Justin Hoyte’s corker in the opening couple minutes, Emmanuel Ledesma’s near-post sneaker, another one from Ledesma around the 57th (note how the name repeats), Mathieu Deplagne’s one-time attempt at a lob (off the crossbar), and even Leonardo Bertone’s late free kick that kissed the outside of the post – but it’s also worth noting that, of all those shots, at least three of them weren’t at actual risk of going in. If one wanted to explain this game by numbers alone, that 20/3 split between shots and shots on goal for FC Cincinnati finishes the thought that started with the possession/passes/passing percentage number. If there’s some alternate timeline where FC Cincinnati ran up the score on those chances, Darren Mattocks didn’t start in it.

And to think it all started so promisingly. In a preview twitter thread, I singled out Allan Cruz as a potential key to the game and underlined the general importance of Cincy being the first team to score. Cruz delivered as early as the first 5-6 minutes (fine, it was six; five just has a certain ring to it) by capping off a…reasonably well-executed goal (per the cliché, they all count). Cruz almost did it again at the start of the first half, but Maxime Crepeau made the save, and thus ended two promising starts to as many halves. Sadly, as just as some guy whose name I don’t remember and who I’m not about to dig deep enough to find (also, if you read this, claim it!), the tweet that argued that Cincinnati struggles to close out halves. Based on last night alone he (pretty sure) wasn’t wrong.

Toronto FC 2-1 FC Cincinnati: My Ongoing Allan Cruz Obsession

This is on the ceiling above my bed, and in 3 other rooms. No, 4.

To start with the good news, FC Cincinnati gave fans a couple things to chew on last night. And, for those who know how this schtick works, the bad news is that the game ended in (yet) another loss for FC Cincy, 2-1 at Toronto FC this time. Moving on now to ambiguous news, what does pushing this current iteration of Toronto FC to within one header of coughing up a point actually mean at this point?

First and foremost, this game recalled the home loss to the Los Angeles Galaxy as much as any recent game. It took Cincinnati too long to come into the game - during which dry spell they gave up a goal they can ill afford – but, once they did, they generally passed the eye test, looked the part of team in North American soccer’s top flight, and so on. In something that may or may not come as a surprise, Cincinnati wound up creating more/better shots by the end of the game – and that’s without some (“alleged”) stars missing. I’ll get to that, but the sad, blunt truth is that Jozy Altidore’s goal for Toronto put the game beyond realistic reach for the Ohioans.

Before focusing on Cincinnati, I want to say, this win should scare the crap out of Toronto and their fans. I think as highly as the next guy of Altidore, but that’s not a goal he scores every week; what’s more, he benefitted (a little) from the pass coming in slightly behind him, in that his touch backwards widened the space for that shot between him and the nearest defender (Hoyte, whose momentum carried him deeper toward Cincinnati’s goal). You can quibble with that – I mean, Wonderwheel (that’s Mikael van der Werff) had the angle to step harder to close down the shot – but, as the broadcast booth kept repeating down the stretch, all it takes is a moment, and Jozy fired that shot pretty goddamn fast.

TFC had a moment or two after that, but nothing remarkable – and certainly not anything like the unrelenting frequency of what Nick DeLeon and Richie Laryea did to Mathieu Deplagne’s flank during the first half. Had you watched only the first half of that game – or even if you shut it off after Jozy’s goal – you probably would have expected the gradual withering of FC Cincy’s resistance until TFC knocked in another goal or two to labor the point about which was the better team. That didn’t happen, and that’s how Cincinnati replicated and, as I see it, improved on that earlier performance against LA. And, Toronto, one of the most expensive teams in MLS, almost let that happen, at home and against the worst team in the league. These are not TFC's finest days...

FC Cincinnati 0-2 New England Revolution: I Blame Cruz for Everything and Nothing

I only wrote this, because I think he can handle it...

[Ed. - I understand that my chosen situation is unique, and I don’t expect MLS’s schedulers to anticipate that some random guy from Portland, Oregon will choose FC Cincinnati as his second default club…but I will still blame them every time their scheduling forces me to post late]

It sucks to lose at home – twice as much when you’ve done it so often – but FC Cincinnati put up a…fight Sunday night and, as I see it, that's all a reasonable fan can ask for at this point. And, to be clear, that statement assumes that FC Cincinnati doesn’t have the roster - or, to stretch in a rather desperate direction, the correct alignment of that roster - to make the playoffs, never mind win the league. And, until further notice, that’s the operational assumption of this site.

Before I get into the weeds, the New England Revolution wouldn’t have broken into a sweat beating FC Cincinnati 2-0 at home if it wasn’t so goddamn hot and humid on Sunday (hi, from Portland!). Cincinnati played well enough to end roughly even on numbers – which surprises me more than it should, given my belief that Cincy ended all right – but they didn’t create more than a couple convincing openings and, much as happened against DC United, they never looked like winning the game. It was possible to keep one’s hopes up until the Revs’ second goal at the 55th minute (and, golly what a howler); the odds on getting a draw spiked in that moment and the whole thing played out under a cloud.

It’s a fairly straightforward dynamic, sadly: like any inexperienced group of people, FC Cincinnati lacks the reps to transform mechanics into rhythm. More reps certainly won’t hurt them, but, that will always careen headlong into the buzz-saw of lacking the personnel for as long as that pertains. And, as a thought exercise, I’m going to channel all of that into the body of one player – and I do this no animus toward the player in question - and call this “The Allan Cruz Problem.” First, and to be clear, Allan Cruz is not the problem. The problem is that he’s being asked to do things he’s not up for doing: Cruz doesn’t have the instincts and/or skill-set for the attacking third, or he doesn’t have enough of them: he doesn’t risk passes that force the defense to make decisions and he doesn’t make his own decisions quickly enough.

FC Cincinnati 1-4 DC United: A Problem with Casting

The importance of the casting call can't be stressed enough. Look at these schlubs.

The only positive you can take out of the….sincerely fucking awful penalty call Bartolomeo Toledo called on behalf of FC Cincinnati is the fact that Emmanuel Ledesma had the poise to put it away. With a stutter-step, which I thought wasn’t legal. And, again, on a total bullshit call.

That that it mattered. Lucas Rodriguez scored the last go-ahead goal of the night just five minutes later. The game ended 1-4 against FC Cincinnati, but the game started getting away from them as early as 10 minutes in. Sure, Kendall Waston pinged a free header off the crossbar – think that was somewhere in or around the 20s – but, for the first time in a while, the game looked very much like a USL team (that’d be Cincy) playing against an MLS team. The same DC United handing out points at home and conjuring malaise in soccer form over its past 10 games (and they’re still 2-2-6 over their past 10 with last night’s win) looked like the better team on both sides of the ball: they played out of trouble more effectively, won their defensive battles (box score be damned), moved the ball more effectively and to better places.

I caught the final 10 minutes of the game in real-time - aka, after hope got lost and fell into a car-compactor then in use – and it seemed to play out under a gentleman’s truce. It was worth circling back to see how they arrived at that moment, because it gave an answer to the question of how much stock Cincinnati fans should place in their last two wins. The short answer is, not a lot. Last night made those look still more like bad days for the Houston Dynamo and the Chicago Fire than good days for Cincinnati.

What really stood out last night – particularly in the second half, especially – was how thoroughly the wheels came off. Right before DC scored its second and final go-ahead goal, I wrote the word “GAPPY” in my notes, and just like that – as in, all caps. Cincinnati wasn’t getting any pressure on the ball, and for a while at that point, while leaving space all over the field. Nearly every player on the field, but especially in midfield, Cincinnati players assumed the proverbial position (not a proverb) and appeared, for lack of a better word, confused as to what would happen next. Call it a fresh twist on ball-watching; it wasn’t the usual case of losing marks, but…I don’t know, sincere curiosity as to what would happen next? Once DC got hold of the game, they only let go of it when sporting decency called them off.

Chicago Fire 1-2 FC Cincinnati: What Schweinsteiger Said

He knows...

Anyone unable to appreciate the full narrative satisfaction of Fanendo Adi giving FC Cincinnati the moment both he and the team needed very, very badly does not deserve spectator sports. I mean, you could write a movie about Adi’s season and end it on the moment where he sat cross-legged on the ground in clearly grateful prayer. Even I, who's agnostic on my more pious days, felt all of that. Something else to note here: that's Adi’s best attacking play; running onto a pass and hitting the ball first time toward (or, god forbid, on) goal. That’s how he scored his best goals with the Portland Timbers. Use it.

Happily, that rare positive act was enough to carry Cincinnati to a 2-1 road win over a disconnected and aimless Chicago Fire team. It took an unlikely, lucky goal to gain an early advantage (Fabian Herbers…dude) and Nico Gaitan struggling from the penalty spot to allow the game to play out as it did to let the result hold up, but it did. As noted by the guys in Chicago’s broadcast booth, the Fire did the balance of whatever “doing” happened in the second half – i.e., they dominated possession and “piled on the shots” – but it’s not often that the gap between shots (20) and shots on goal (7) tells the story of a game so well. For every opening Chicago created, they somehow squandered two of them (absurdity deliberate; I know math), whether by Aleksandar Katai wandering the world over to tee up a shot (when he might have done better to lift his head and look around) or by attacking runs that took the runner out of the play. (C. J. Sapong deserves exemption from that statement; he was one of the few Fire attackers to use his runs to create space for the players around him.)

As sometimes happens when I watch FC Cincy games, I found myself watching Chicago more than I watched them – especially in the second half. Not to take anything away from Cincinnati, because they succeeded in their primary task of staying organized and forcing Chicago to break them down. More often than not, this took the form of watching Chicago under-achieve.

At some point during the game, the suspended Bastian Schweinsteiger stepped into the broadcast both where Chicago’s commenters talked to him about the first half of Chicago’s season. When the conversation turned to the things that might have held them back this year, Schweinsteiger named some demons that plagued Chicago in this loss: not all eleven players showing up (only Francisco Calvo, Dax McCarty and Gaitan stood out as clear positives, kind of the point); issues with communication/coordination (the serial mistiming of passes to runs; by the end of the game, both McCarty and Gaitan resorted to angrily gesturing at teammates to fulfill their most basic functions) and a lack of intention and purpose among the attacking players (which most often manifested in “wings-‘n’ prayers” flails from range from far too many Chicago players). One could make a decent case that Cincinnati didn’t win this game, so much as Chicago lost it. Chicago’s 5-2-4 home record shows they do this (literally) more often than not - again, math: 6 not-fully successful home results > 5 fully-successful results – and, when you’re not winning on the road ever, you need three points at home to get anywhere.

FC Cincinnati 2-1 Montreal Impact: Happiness Versus Excitement

Best goddamn scene in the entire DC Extended Universe. (I'll fight you.)

Those not watching on the TV might not have picked up on this, but FC Cincinnati came into today’s (far too early) game with a shot at a record looming. Their long scoreless streak had landed them at the foot of Top 5 (or so) for the longest stretch without a goal. When Allan Cruz scored (very) early, he reset Cincy’s timer on that. Cincinnati even scored a second time at the 62nd minute to make sure the sneaky little shit of a clock didn’t get any ideas. You gotta watch ‘em, man, time’s non-linear, etc.

In the first game of the post-Alan-Koch era, FC Cincinnati wound up beating the Montreal Impact at home by a final score of 2-1. (Is anyone else picturing Koch in some bar in Kentucky getting slowly, yet absolutely shit-faced and telling anyone who will listen that he got fucked over, or do those kinds of trips only happen in my head?) I’m not inclined to read much into that, personally, but I did approve on one thing Cincinnati tried this morning, the decision/dedication to pass the ball out of the back. It got them in a little trouble during the game’s earliest moments, but, once they broke through L’Impact’s weirdly uneven high press (more on that later), it worked pretty well for them. For what it’s worth, I read that choice as an attempt to get the team connected and into a rhythm from which they could dictate the rhythm of the game. More to the point, I think that’s something you can credit to Yoann Damet…there’s also the decision to start (the…experienced) Justin Hoyte at centerback over Nick Hagglund, and that’s another decision with a reasonable rate of return.

I also think people will get into trouble if they treat this result as finding a new leaf, never mind turning one over (is anyone doing that? paging a strawman). It’s just one game, for starters, plus there’s also a couple “paper advantages” to consider – i.e., Cincinnati returned home after playing four of its last five games at home, and they were playing a Montreal team traveling on short rest. The way the game played out stacked Cincinnati’s advantages even higher. I noted the press earlier, but it’s accurate to call it half-hearted, and it gave way to a full retreat into a defensive shell too readily. On the individual level, Montreal’s players didn’t stick into their tackles until around the 55-60 mark and the passing – Jesus Christ, the passing – Cincinnati organized the defense thick and well, but, time and again, Montreal took care of forcing their own errors, and pretty much from every position. (Just note it, I tweeted during the game that I’d be shocked if Montreal went over 80% on passing accuracy; they just cleared that low bar with a B- (81%); that said, Cincy’s 83% accuracy doesn’t give them much room for gloating).

And I haven't even mentioned that Montreal had what I would have counted as a goal called back for offside. I am looser than most on the offside rule (seriously, don't even bother arguing with me), and had Montreal scored at that point, it would have constituted an act of minor violence against the run of play at a minimum.

FC Cincinnati 3-0 Portland Timbers: On Watching Your Favorite Child Fail

Fuck it. You sort out who is who.

Don't pretend. You love one kid more than the other(s). You have the sense not to announce it to the world, never mind the kid, but it shows in the way you enroll both kids in all the expected programs, but you really only push the one kid. It’s nothing personal: he/she is just a little more special, smarter maybe, or just kissed with god-given talent that you’re sure you see. Oh, and your other kid(s) knows this to the core of their his/her being and through the next 20 years of therapy.

I’m sure most people can track where this is going. The Portland Timbers are, of course, the special child in this scenario, the team just two goals short of a dark-horse shot at a title last season, the squad of mighty streaks, etc. FC Cincinnati, meanwhile, is the one people have to remind you to talk about now and again.

It was possible to keep up the pretense, probably as deep as 60 minutes into yesterday’s game between the two. Sure, Cincinnati scored the first goal (and that celebration is delightful; let your heart of stone break), but Portland rallied at the end of the first, even managed a little flurry of more or less wild attempts on goal. Somewhere during the next time the game-state rolled Portland’s way, surely they’d equalize.

Yeah, that fell all the fucking way apart when Allan Cruz back-heeled home FC Cincy’s second goal (turns out the game winner already happened). I don’t remember how many times the Timbers defense chased back to their goal like children running from the waves before that goal went in, but, in that precise moment, Junior dunked on Chad. There go your present assumptions about which kid would really benefit from piano lessons. (You will chained to that fucking piano, Chad, till you make me proud, rich or both.) As I was winding down Sunday night, I happened on a tweet from the Portland Timbers' official twitter feed that shouted a big "are you ready for the big leagues?" at Cincinnati like the slowest, most helpless pitch over the middle of the plate in human history. Junior dunks on Chad again, assist by Chad.

Just to throw it out there, save that shit for a present when you haven't allowed seven goals over two games - now 10 goals over three...hey, brought the average down from 3.5 goals/game to 3.0 goals/game. You really cherish the small victories, when they’re all you have.

MLS Tourist Journal, Calendar Week 3: Trades, Progress and "Progress"

My li'l all-Homegrown team, in my head. And who they'll face...

To start with a happy thought, preseason dates are now bubbling up to the top of the crawl on MLSSoccer.com, and that means people will be kicking balls and people very, very soon (maybe even people’s balls). Wait! I’ve just received word of people kicking with intent! Sporting Kansas City knocked around Sporting AZ FC pretty good only yesterday, and thus the ball rolls forward for 2019. (What?! Rodney Wallace moved to SKC? Was this in between black-outs or something?) Based on the crawl, my personal preseason starts on January 30 when FC Cincinnati plays L’Impact de Montreal (show it, plz?). I’ll delve into all (available) things FC Cincy, and Portland Timbers down below and, after that, take a tour by all personal points of interest around MLS. But, with a big date on the domestic soccer calendar coming before everything that isn’t SKC getting amped (Peter Vermes is involved, obviously) for the CONCACAF Champions League (CCL), let’s start there.

Meet the New Boss, Nothing Like the Old Boss (and thank gods for it)

This time next week, I’ll be getting on my giddy about the U.S. Men’s National Team for the first time since U.S. Soccer finally and correctly terminated The Jurgen Klinsmann Experience. It makes sense to restate my beef with Klinsmann, briefly – i.e., I felt like he never prepared the team tactically, never mind conceptually, and that, like most self-help people, he had a horrible knack for blaming everyone but himself when things went wrong – because, per some soccer porn put out by U.S. Soccer (Behind the Crest, I think they call it), Gregg Berhalter takes a different approach, maybe even its micro-managing opposite. When the U.S. Men play Panama next Sunday, then Costa Rica the following Saturday, I don’t need to see the U.S. beat both teams badly enough to have to peel their boot out of their collective asses after the final whistle; I just want a team that doesn’t take the field seized with existential doubt about what the hell the coach actually meant by “expressing yourself" and “getting a little nasty.” Hearing Tyler Miller talk about Berhalter’s system not as gospel, but as a plan to “fall back on,” played in my ears like a chorus of angels.

We’re All Getting a Baby Brother (mom and dad have been doin’ it again!)

Now, back to MLS, I have a couple league-wide notes. First, the league confirmed Austin FC as the league’s 27^th team – and one with a much firmer plan/vision for the future that New York City FC or whatever the fuck they’re calling Miami’s boondoggle. Austin will officially join in 2021, and without shivving the hearts of another city, and, if all goes well, playing in a privately-funded stadium of their own. Don Garber said something about “a non-linear process” for getting a team in Austin, but all the above strikes me as doing things a damned site better than the two “glamour teams” named above.