FC Cincinnati 1-2 Los Angeles FC: Trying on Rose-Colored Glasses

FC Cincinnati at home, artist's rendering.

FC Cincy Preview: at Atlanta United FC, Unlikely Does Not = Impossible

But, if Atlanta keeps handing out giant checks...

It pains me to lead with this, but I don’t think I’ve spent a full, uninterrupted 90 minutes looking at Atlanta United FC this season. I have, however, kept an eye on their doings, heard some stuff about Josef Martinez not looking like himself before he checked out for six weeks to get some free-floating bone out of his body and recovery from the surgery. I’ve floated the idea that they got “their mojo” back in a Week 3 recap I regret and/or still think I’m paying for in lost interest and, despite arguing they mostly survived their home draw to Club du Foot Montreal in my Week 4 recap, and, against the general tenor of what little commentary I read, I still suspect that Atlanta will be playoff competitive in 2022…

…yes, even after losing to Charlotte just last week. And yet I still end at the same thought: if Atlanta isn’t the most inscrutable team in MLS’s young 2022 season, they aren’t far off. Games that look like accomplishments - e.g., their confident win over Sporting Kansas City in Week 1, or even Week 5’s road win at DC United - look different in context (e.g., SKC’s slow start and just…DC in 2022). They’re better at home - seven points from nine on offer - but they still don’t present as a GOOD team, not according to their early record. Had they won at Charlotte - and, yeah, losing on an olimpico is the soccer equivalent of getting real money off a scratch-it, but they also failed to score themselves - sticking with the whole “mojo” theory wouldn’t feel like such a stretch. But they did lose…

As such, FC Cincinnati will walk into a minor mystery Saturday afternoon (evening, Eastern Standard, right around dinner time). By one of the broadest measures available - goals scored and allowed - Atlanta comes in on the right side of middling in the attack (nine goals scored) and the wrong side of the same in defense (again, nine goals), but the word “middling” does the most work in that thought. Moreover, and as much as the condensed game of the Montreal game made me question the defense, that’s a respectable home record. More to the point, I wouldn’t expect any neutral observer to look to FC Cincy to put a dent in that adjective…

…but it wouldn’t surprise me to see them steal this one. And let me make one thing perfectly clear before continuing: I’ll feel all right about anything better than Cincy losing in a blow-out, aka, the psychological benefits of playing as the underdog. Every win is a tablespoon of gravy, in my mind, and a road draw isn’t much different - especially when punching up nails a (for now) proximate rival.

Charlotte FC 2-0 FC Cincinnati: Subject/Object

When they come, will you be ready?

This could be me ranting into a vacuum in response to nothing, but I’ve got something to get off my chest, so, here it is.

I see people talking and talking expectations for their team and evaluating results they’ve earned or burned with almost no reference to the quality and, more importantly, the form of the opposing team. It takes its most persistent form in assuming that what works in one game will somehow work in every game; the specific thing could be a tactic or a player, but the basic argument amounts to having a conversation about game as if half the people involved neither participated, nor played a hand in the result. I’m sure some percentage of this gripe follows from me reading a novel in between the lines (often of 280 or fewer characters), and it mostly comes up when I see people bitching about a result that should have surprised them half as much as it did, but this drives me all kinds of fucking crazy - i.e., this has become my king pet peeve in all sports.

Some of soapbox soliloquy pertains to FC Cincinnati’s 0-2 loss at Charlotte FC, though personal application may vary. Related, that hyperlink will be the last time FC Cincy serves as the subject to any thought in this post. Figuratively.

Because I had to wait for the replay on this game, I had an opportunity to absorb the post-game chatter before sitting down to actually watch (most of) the game. [Disclosure: I watched the first 28 minutes, then all the second half, so whatever good shit happened from the 28th to the 46th minute doesn’t exist for me.] As such, I went in knowing things didn’t go well, but without really knowing how or why.

If I had to tell an alien about this game, I’d start by telling Bleep-Borp (for that is its name) that most of the notes I wrote while watching pointed to things Charlotte was doing. To give a couple examples, I couldn’t help but note the energy and overall effectiveness of SuperDraftee, Benjamin Bender, or how Derrick Jones stomped around the middle of Charlotte’s half of the field like an colossus who stood 50% taller than everyone around him (this definitely applied to Luciano Acosta). I’d flag how Christian Fuchs and Joseph Mora’s names came up often enough on defensive actions/stops that I still haven’t been properly introduced to Guzman Corujo and Jaylin Lindsay, even if I’m willing to take it on faith that they actually played yesterday. And, yeah, Kristijan Kahlina made some impressive saves, but the only one that felt like robbery was his save on Acosta’s bright, shining moment at the end of the first half (okeh, yeah, I dipped back in for the last four, five minutes of the first half as well).

Orlando City SC 1-2 FC Cincinnati: With a Nod to a Hero of the Salem Witch Trials

Translated to the modern idiom, "eat shit, prudes."

Had you asked me to pick the game FC Cincinnati would win from its first three, I would have picked away to Orlando City SC last. Had you told me they won it courtesy of a Brandon Vazquez brace, I would have asked for a taste of whatever you were on at the time of asking.

Chase the doubts and disbelief away because, I’ll be damned if FC Cincy didn’t roll into central Florida and win its first game of 2022. The game ended 2-1 and, numbers be damned, I thought they looked all right doing it. That’s to say, forget stats like possession and passing accuracy, look beyond Cincy’s thin passing network with its faintness of some far-off constellation, and scroll all the way to the bottom of The Mothership’s stats page to drink in the one number that gives a fair read of the game as it played out, the xG data.

In terms of timeline, Cincy stunned Orlando a mere 13 minutes into the game when Vazquez, a man not renowned for finishing his chances, buried a tidy li’l chip into the right corner of Pedro Gallese’s net. With the wake-up call duly delivered, Orlando proceeded to pile pressure on every available side of Cincinnati’s 18 yard box. The chiseling finally broke through the walls 30 minutes later when Orlando’s Junior Urso charged buck-naked onto a Facundo Torres cross to Cincy’s back-post at which point, I, like everyone who wishes Cincinnati health and happiness, commenced to listening desperately for the first-half whistle. The game, in short, had threatened to get away from Cincinnati.

After watching the way Orlando had a rich tapestry of ways to threaten the side fringes of Cincinnati’s 18-yard box, Cincy’s newbie head coach, Pat Noonan, made some adjustments to the defensive shape. On came Isaac Atanga to take up the right (left?) side of the three in a 4-2-3-1 and back went…I’d say fullback Ian Murphy (who several faulted to Orlando’s goal) more than Alvas Powell, into the four-man defense to better defend said side fringes. And then, somewhere between out of the pale blue sky and before all that had time to settle, Yuya Kubo sent newly-minted winger Dominique Badji into a foot-race against Orlando’s left back Ruan; Badji shouldered him off the ball (and to the ground), turned the ball inside behind Orlando’s defense and, effectively, ricocheted his cross off Vazquez’s head.

FC Cincinnati 0-1 DC United: That Unfamiliar Familiar Sting

This, but maybe with the left hand.

90 minutes with a hard kick to the balls at the end. That’s my dozen-word description of FC Cincinnati’s slow-death 0-1 loss to DC United at TQL Stadium.

After absorbing an early onslaught - and high-five to Tyler Blackett for nodding out a sure goal - Cincy got hold of the game in a way I either haven’t seen or can’t recall since gods know when. And that’s the real hairy bitch about the whole situation: today’s (comparatively) glorious effort came just one week after a season opener where it looked like just about everything surprised them one way or the other. Today, though, Cincy didn’t just connect the odd pass or three; they built sequences that knocked DC from the front-foot to the back in the blink of an eye. Sweet transition, baby. I’d direct any FC Cincy fan casting about for something to hold onto after a game that felt like a betrayal to the fact that they created actual, full chances in open play. That beats the hell out of trying to squeeze a ball through that familiar, rapidly-closing window Cincinnati fans knows so well. That’s not even the best thing that happened today.

Miracle of miracles, Cincinnati fielded a fully-functional midfield today, one that, as I saw it, actually controlled the midfield space. Credit newcomer Junior Moreno and Yuya “Mr. Plug-‘n’-Play” Kubo for putting in a pair of damn good shifts (and hold that thought), and (probably) Pat Noonan (or his shadow-master, Dominic Kinnear) for sorting out a better set-up, I only know it was refreshing to see an adjustment - any adjustment - pan out into anything besides fresh disaster. Kubo, in particular, looked like an entirely new player; he kept his work-rate dizzyingly high, but he looked totally different going forward, as if he understood where to find space and where to find, whether by turning into it on the dribble (the man got away with a scandalous number of spins today) or passing usefully out of it. All in all, Kubo did a helluva job getting the ball out of defense and into the attack - and I think that was the reason why Cincy’s transition game worked today…not that it mattered.

The passing improved all over and, better, just about every man dressed in orange looked like a full, dues-paying professional soccer player out there today. And yet, it wasn't enough. Cincy's best stuff came during the game’s first 50 minutes or so (dammit), all the way down to the butter-slick goal they scored just after the 20th minute, even if it got (rightly) called back for offside…ah, Brandon Vazquez, he does it wrong even when he does it right. My best guess is that DC worked out where or how to stall Cincy’s transition game at half-time, a shift that allowed them to shift the action toward the middle of the field and away from their own goal. Prior to…whatever happened around the 50th minute, other new arrival, Dominique Badji, either got or found some real quality looks at goal - just by smart runs, too, and he should have scored one of the two truly good ones he had - while fellow-frontrunner Vazquez chipped in with a handful of half-/quarter-chances. Now, brace yourself, because things get darker from here on out…

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, in the Ass Crack Between '21 and '22

FC Cincinnati, the stuff of mythology.

In preparing this post, I tried to sort out the rules around the 2021 Re-Entry Draft, but lost interest in just a couple minutes. One third of that impulse came from boredom with over-technical bullshit, but the list of FC Cincinnati players who are either out of contract, or who did not have their contract options picked up another third:

Options Declined (for now, I think?)
Edgar Castillo
Chris Duvall
Jonas Fjeldberg
Avionne Flanagan
Joseph-Claude Gyau
Nick Hagglund
Ben Lundt
Caleb Stanko
Przemyslaw Tyton

Out of Contract
Haris Medunjanin
Florian Valot
Maikel van der Werff

The other third of me checking out follows from essential fatalism - i.e., accepting things over which I have no control, e.g., rosters of the teams I love and follow - but, to the point at hand, the word “irreplaceable” does not cross my mind when I review that list. Moreover, I don’t even know who Fjeldberg or Flanagan are, the latter sounds made up to the point I’m not even sure he really exists, and, turning to more existential questions, can one miss something that one has never seen? Bottom line - and I say this with zero malice toward anyone on that list, and affection for a couple - all those players file under too old, too injured, or somewhere south of what’s needed for the heavy, seemingly-eternal lift of getting FC Cincy out of its three-year wallow in the gutter.

Ideally, though, some or all those players going will make room for new players to come in. A review of what’s left of Cincinnati’s roster as of today’s speaks to the need, but, call me lazy (ignore the post/thoughts, etc.), I’m not inclined to sort out options beyond bare, non-financial numbers, and here are those: at time of writing, Cincinnati has six senior roster spots open, one spot for Supplemental Slots 21-14, two for 25-28, and one more for 29-30. So, if I’m understanding the rules right, that’s grand total of 11 potential new players. Only, it’s not: the return of Alvas Powell makes it ten and it could be as few as nine if the twitter rumors around Dominique Badji translate into him signing. Based on the numbers from the MLS Players’ Association 2021 MLS Player Salaries data-dump, it looks like Powell can come in as a Supplemental Slot 21-24 player, while Badji, assuming he does come in, will occupy a senior spot. Alec Kann already shows up on Cincy’s roster as a senior player, so, assuming I have all of that right (or will be shortly), that leaves Cincinnati with:

Colorado Rapids 2-1 Portland Timbers: It Was Sebastian Blanco’s Birthday, Then Everyone Fell Asleep

Anyone got tape? Maybe we can stick this damn thing to "on."

Once they settled into the first half against the Colorado Rapids, the Portland Timbers played some of the most polished soccer of the season, good let-the-ball-do-the-work passing, great, alert first touches on the ball – especially from Diego Valeri and Darlington Nagbe, who both wrong-footed a succession of defenders in midfield; on the right Dairon Asprilla and Zarek Valentin managed possession with smart, almost casual interplay that suggested comfort and a shared confidence in the project. When the whole thing fired just right, Colorado wasn’t even chasing the ball; they could only reorient their lines of defense to the next threat.

Even better, the day dropped hints that Portland had finally figured out how to get attacking impetus out of Sebastian Blanco, who made dangerous runs into curiously open seams at least a couple times before and after burying the goal that gave the Portland Timbers the early lead. The rest of the half continued like that and, somewhere in there, it occurred to me that yesterday felt like Blanco’s birthday, the day when everything he touched would come out all right and that we would walk off the field the hero, with his teammates buying his rounds and reminiscing of his moment(s) with a twinkle in their eye that said, “yes, we will always remember this day.”

By the time the second half started, I had this middle-aged electrician from Michigan marveling at the madness of the Trump presidency on one side; maybe ten minutes later, this guy from Ethiopia sat on my other side, and I just could not stop asking questions about and country, and just tripping over the idea that I was talking to a random guy from the other side of the world in a random Hillsboro, Oregon bar. The game would take care of itself, Sebastian Blanco would get his birthday beers, maybe even birthday sex…

…it later occurred to me that I have no fucking clue when Blanco’s birthday is. The whole thing was based on a fantasy. (The guy from Ethiopia was real, though, and fascinating. He was happy to talk to someone who didn’t think Ethiopia was in Europe. He told me people have asked if he was from somewhere near Italy. “I mean, look at me,” he said. “Do I look like I’m from Italy?”) As it happens, the more relevant bit of foreshadowing came when a super-loose Roy Miller back pass gifted Dominique Badji two consecutive shots on goal, either of which he really should have buried.

Colorado v. Timbers Preview: A 72% Chance of Boredom

Five heads still comin' at ya, motherfucker!!!

This Saturday night, the Portland Timbers will visit the Colorado Rapids – and fans of both teams will be asked to endure this…at least Rapids’ fans are used to it.

I did some light scouting last night – e.g., reviewed some (condensed) tape, tried to check in with the locals by way of SB Nation’s Burgundy Wave, but they only do match reports, sooo…here's what I found on those condensed tapes.

First, I wouldn’t put a ton of stock into the Rapids’ home record. It’s solid, at 4-2-1 (unlike their road record, which is abysmal, also irrelevant), and it’s true that two of those wins came in their last two games. One of those – their 1-0 win over Sporting Kansas City – even registers as impressive on paper, but, per the condensed game, they didn’t win that game so much as survive it; SKC looked to have a lot of the better of the game (and the boxscore bears that out). Colorado looked better against Columbus Crew SC – they kept Zac Steffen respectably busy early – but they still trailed late and, while more than luck carried them through it, their first goal against Columbus was the only one from all three games that looked like something they could do again. In other words, it's not every game opposing defenses will gift them a win by losing Alan Gordon at the back post (or, ideally, Fanendo Adi).

It’s the familiar formula against Colorado, then – i.e., see they don’t accidentally bounce the ball into your team’s net, while making sure your side knocks at least one goal into their net (though a couple, three goals certainly sounds better) – and, voila, three points! And that could be easier this season than last - they're broadly middling in terms of MLS defenses - and it could be easier still on Saturday: injuries/risks to the back-line (and all over, really) have forced Colorado to cobble together defenses/a team in recent weeks; they’re only really stable at fullback (and then, not that great; Mikeil Williams/Eric Miller, in particular, shouldn’t give pause to anyone but the Rapids coaching staff). In the center, Kortne Ford (rookie, homegrown) has been the only constant over the past three games, but he, along with preferred starters, Axel Sjoberg and Jared Watts, is “questionable” for Saturday. With preferred back-up, Bobby Burling out, I’m guessing “questionable” will become “probable (with cortisone)” for one or two of Ford, Sjoberg and Watts, but Colorado’s defense isn’t 100% present regardless. For what it’s worth, Ford has looked good when he plays, and I rate Sjoberg pretty damn high; Watts, a converted midfielder, falls off without Sjoberg, so there’s that to file away.