FC Cincinnati 2-2 Vancouver Whitecaps: It's Time to Fly, Little Chickadee

I'm going to need you to flap those wings like you mean it.

First, I want to applaud The Bailey for chanting “Cody Cropper” after Vancouver’s goalkeeper went down after a, frankly, terrifying foul. That’s class, no further comment. Now, about that game...

To expand on a phrase I typed throughout 2022, “there are no moral victories.” There comes a time when a team (say, FC Cincinnati) kicks off three seasons on training wheels (this was on a busted-down trike inherited from an eccentric grandparent) and builds a certain amount of expectation. They leave the nest, wings spread, out in the world and...that’s just it: they keep flying or they fall back to the ground.

It’s in that full, little chickadee in the big city sense that I view Cincinnati’s 2-2 home draw against the Vancouver Whitecaps as a bad result. Worse, the goal that pulled the ‘Caps level was a two-fire-alarm fucking disaster; as a (side-piece) fan, I’m angry that Cincy’s last line of defenders didn’t direct more anger at the midfielders and/or Tyler Blackett, all of whom fell so far behind the play and didn’t look all that interest in catching up. That left Toisant Ricketts with at least two wide-the-fuck-open players to pass to inside Cincinnati’s 18 and, in a game where the imperative to “leave it all on the field” was sharp and urgent, they did not. There is no universe in which that is not the worst, defining moment of the game.

On a meat-‘n’-potatoes level, I don’t think Cincinnati deserved to win this game – that’s despite having quality chances to get all three points (they posted a win-worthy number of shots, and with enough on goal.) Debutante Sergio Santos had two good-to-great looks – including one that any eager fan would love to see a new signing put away (e.g., the one shot with his feet) – Obinna Nwobodo had a non-crazy shot from range, Alvaro Barreal forced a good save out of 20-year-old substitute ‘keeper, Ian(?) Boehmer (and that’s on top of attempting an olimpico on every corner), and so on. Cincinnati had chances to put a little padding between them and a Vancouver comeback, They never managed to pull it off leaving Vancouver free to walk through a door they left open, and end of game

 It hardly helped that a fair number of Cincy players had off nights. That happens, obviously, but eve accounting for key absences and injuries (to name the bigs, Luciano Acosta, Junior Moreno, and, circumstantially, Alvas Powell....Ronald Matarrita’s been out long enough that losing him amounts to losing an arm – i.e., that’s just something one adjusts to), Cincinnati didn’t have anything to overcome Vancouver didn’t (Cincy’s broadcast team would not let this go, btw), and it shaped the game in...a way. Nwobodo was loose on the ball in a way that led to too many turnovers, Blackett’s passing out of the back ranged from dubious to bad, John Nelson failed to add much in the attack and Raymon Gaddis...every player makes mistakes, and fatal ones come with defending. Had Gaddis done everything else all right, you can still salute the outing...but he did not. Basically, the combined team put out enough collective “bad” for Cincinnati to drop two points last night and can I get a “goddammit” on that?

New York City FC 5-0 FC Cincinnati: The Neverending Roster Build

All due respect to TQL Stadium, this is Cincy's home.

This game was (much) more and (a lot) less of a projection of what I saw in FC Cincinnati’s 2021 season opener: Cincy doesn’t know how to move the ball forward fer shit and, once they lose control of a game, they’re looking at [X minutes] of emergency defending. They failed very, very badly to contain the damage this week, and went all the way down 5-0 on the road against New York City FC. And, with the way NYC played through, over and around them over the last half hour of the game, it could have ended 7-0.

I’m not going to futz around much with the stats or the box score - what does it matter with that final score, for one? - but instead will talk about some obvious, present realities.

Cincinnati Failed to Address Its Greatest Need (…even if it wasn’t obvious)
I’m not talking about the central defense here, though that obviously remains an issue; a starting tandem of Nick Hagglund and Tom Pettersson will only carry them so far - and Maikel van Der Werff and a 21-year-old kid from Ecuador don’t look like saviors to me.

It is still what remains in front of them that most worries me, i.e., an incoherent midfield scheme made WTFAYFKM (that’s “what the fuck are you fucking kidding me”) worse by way of just baffling personnel decisions. I’ll expand on Kamohelo Mokotjo below, but can Jaap Stam kindly pull the fucking plug on the Yuya Kubo central midfielder experiment and light that plug on fire, please? An idea that looked fucking stupid turned out to be fucking stupid: just about anyone should have seen that coming. Kubo is not a central midfielder; on the evidence, he’s barely a forward or a winger. Next…

I’ve sat on judging Mokotjo to see what he could do and the current returns ain’t good. They absolutely suck, in fact, and to flag just one thing in the stats section, please see the passing map around No. 15 and those thin, short forward lines. For my money, the root of Cincy’s problem with moving the ball forward follows from playing Kubo and Mokotjo together; neither has shown they know how to do it - or even how to get to the ball to other players who can (more later). Worse, neither shows any capacity to stop traffic from running back toward Cincinnati’s (again) sub-standard defense. With the ball rolling the wrong direction for the (overwhelming?) majority of both games, it’s a miracle humping a miracle that Cincinnati didn’t start 2021 with two losses.

New England Revolution 5-2 Minnesota United FC: I Can't Scout Under These Conditions

Minnesota is ruining science.

Until further notice, it makes sense to set results against Minnesota United FC outside the normal run of results. Their defense is that bad, worse even than the (holy shit!) 18 goals they’ve allowed this season. That’s over four games, or a faint-inducing 4.5 goals conceded per game.

I just, oh, 2/3 watched the New England Revolution beat Minnesota 5-2 (you can get most the information noted herein by bouncing around in there), and that 1/3-level distraction owes pretty much everything to the point made above. This thing ended as a contest at the half, so, when given the chance to read about the shit-show that is Southern manufacturing (Note: depressing), I didn’t mind the distraction so much. It only occurred to me around the 70th minute that I was watching the Portland Timbers’ next opponent after Columbus Crew SC today, but I don’t think a game this screwy gives much in the way of insight…

…but, I’m here, and now you’re here, so I may as well say something. Here goes.

Scouting New England

- With allowances for what I’m now calling the Vadim Demidov rule, Juan Agudelo had a great game. He scored two goals and drew a penalty (against Demidov), but his first was a headed tap-in, and his second owes at least a little to bad goalkeeping by Bobby Shuttleworth.

- Diego Fagundez impressed me today as much as anyone, and mostly with the range and quality of his passing. While not even sort of perfect, his feed to Lee Nguyen (of whom, meh) for New England’s 2nd broke a bad spell for the Revs that saw them playing too wide. Minnesota also struggled to contain his runs, letting him break the midfield line again and again and again (and again).

- I like where I’m seeing Kelyn Rowe for New England. He’s a pugnacious little shit, so I think playing him more centrally, and a little deeper suits him.

- Given how freakishly lopsided this game was, the breakdowns in New England’s defense should have them worried/Timbers fans salivating. I’m talking less about that first goal – which required a deflection from the gods – than the second set-piece goal, or the couple times ‘keeper Cody Cropper bobbled crosses. Cropper did come up with a big save, but the way that ball bobbled around didn't look so good. With Portland’s attack putting defenses in a blender, that doesn’t augur well for New England’s upcoming visit to the Rose City.

Pitying Minnesota

So far, this team has set out to answer the question, is there an MLS level? And they are answering in a strong positive. I could note that Bashkim Kadrii managed a couple decent crosses in the first half (but not enough of them, clearly, seeing as he got subbed at the half), but nothing really matters for Minnesota till they get their defense in order. And I mean all of their defense, because the problems run far, far, deeper than Demidov, or even just the back four. The midfield separated from the defense repeatedly in the first half, which left Revolution attackers running free in the space in between…and Minnesota just can’t do that, not with defenders that are that bad/slow/shitty.

Because Minnesota can’t just bring in defenders willy-nilly, this team needs to change how they defend. And urgently. Even if it’s just stacking the two banks of four inside the 18, they simply have to stop bleeding goals or they are going to have a shitty, shitty, shitty – and, one more – SHITTY season. Unless I miss my count, they’re sitting on a -12 goal differential. Four games in. That is disastrous.