MLS Week 8 & 9 Wrap-Up: A Short Longitudinal That Means Nothing, Yet Satisfies Something

Roger Shewitt isn't a real name. This is Roger Schmidt.

Before Major League Soccer kicked off…what I think was its Week 8, I saw the first midweek games of the season chasing its tail and decided that a condensed schedule called for a simpler post. With that in mind, I posted 10 questions to Bluesky (9, factually) that the two games played by all the teams involved would either answer, or at least begin to answer.

The Q & ensuing A are below, with some amount of riffing thrown in. Nothing of what’s below provides comprehensive coverage, it’s intended as a snapshot for a couple handfuls of events (aka, games). This could become a model for the league-wide posts. I typically know about 12 hours before you do, fwiw. Let’s get do it, let’s get down to it, Roger…Shewitt.

1) What Happens on Inter Miami CF’s Post-Mascherano Rocky Mountain Road Trip Swing?
At least the Colorado Rapids made the MLS brass’s very special boy/team work for the win. They beat them by the numbers, too, and my Bluesky timeline was full of praise for Matt Wells and Rafael Navarro’s savvy slipperiness. Miami scored the late winner through Messi, of course, but they seemed no less determined to feed German Berterame until he scored a damn goal (which he did). Despite the offside (by a fucking toenail) goal that RSL had called back, the Rocky Mountain rivalry’s Western-most team looked more rattled than I’ve seen them so far in 2026. It took them ferever to do it, but Miami won that one comfortably on goals by well-heeled opening acts like Rodrigo de Paul (82nd minute) and Luis “Ear-Biter” Suarez (83rd). “Indifferent form” means different things to different teams, but, in case you missed it, Miami hasn’t lost since Match Day 1 and they’re now 2nd in the East right behind Nashville. If this team sees a slump in 2026, looks like it’ll come later.

2) Do Either Toronto or New England Have the (or Any) Juice?
New England answered with a throaty “YYYEeesssssss!!” with dueling 2-1 wins – versus Columbus last weekend and at Atlanta last night – while Toronto answered with what can best be characterized as an animated shrug by way of back-to-back, thrilling 3-3 draws versus Austin and Philadelphia. I didn’t see anything from the Austin draw (though the final stats tell me I should have put in the time), but I saw that Philly gave Toronto a fight they merely survived thanks to a last-gasp, thoroughly gorgeous equalizer by their ‘keeper, Luka Gavran (who, based on what I saw, only stayed as high as he did at Kobe Franklin’s urging). Shit was thin, in other words, and it’s still just two points from as many games and…well, sixth place isn’t so bad, even if 11th is a mere three points below. Toggling to the other team, the Revs’ win versus Columbus had me asking whether the latter is just a bad team (they actually did a nose better by the stats) and seeing any team up to and including a random collection of fans and stadium vendors beat Atlanta should surprise no one at this point (shout-out to Sergey Miranchuk, who’s doing really well after a bad 2025!); that’s all to say the opposition always matters. Going the other way, both wins count as New England taking care of business, they’ve charted their own fate all the way up to third in the East…even if that followed from beating every (or just four) of the East’s worst teams (MTL, DC, CLB, ATL), three of them at home. Still, juice is juice.

Los Angeles FC Scouting Report & an MLS Week 6 Wrap Up: To The Plan & Progress

"Reading Cliff Notes" taken very literally.

In the event others are ever tempted to try such foolishness, I’d argue that you can get almost as much from watching a 10-minute highlight reel than you get from parachuting in to watch a full half of two teams you barely know. The stray comments you catch from the broadcast booth is the only benefit of the latter and the former makes up a little ground by keeping in the best bits, plus a little more context. Think of it as a good, though not great, cut of meat.

In other news, a brain-wave on the way home from work has finally completed The Plan going forward for this site:

1) Portland Timbers Wrap Up posted no later than Sunday; and

2) a 50%-plus wrap up of the weekend’s results topped with a preview of Portland’s next opponent posted no later than Wednesday, but ideally on Tuesday (I did it, mom!).

A couple things recommend this shift, most personal, at least one practical, but that’s enough for the editorial notes because, this week, I’m on a damn schedule. Close readers will notice that the “50%-plus” figure in No. 2. The current goal has me including blurbs on six games in the weekly wrap ups. Those will be based on highlights, with a dash of historical context, but those six games, plus the Timbers game, plus a longer review of Portland’s next opponent will get my eyes on a total of 16 teams every week – i.e., just over half the league. In an attempt to get a jump on the future, I’m already revising The Plan for when Major League Soccer switches to a handful of regional conferences in 2027-2028 (that’s actually happening, right? I didn't dream that?), but I’ll cross that bridge next fall. In the here and now, though, The Plan means ignoring seven results every week. Covering those real fast, with links to The Mothership’s wrap ups embedded in each final score:

Results I Ignored (no real surprises here)
New England Revolution 3-0 Club du Foot Montreal (expected on both sides of the score)
Real Salt Lake 3-1 Sporting Kansas City (see above)
Charlotte FC 2-1 Philadelphia Union (Union=dead to me until they get at least a draw)
Inter Miami CF 2-2 Austin FC (very Austin season so far and ignoring Miami is my joint)
New York City FC 1-1 St. Louis CITY FC (mildly surprising; becoming St. Louis-curious)
Houston Dynamo FC 0-1 Seattle Sounders (wee alarms 4 Houston; Seattle boring again)
Los Angeles Galaxy 1-2 Minnesota United FC (expected; also good for the Loons)

With that out of the way, let’s talk about the Timbers’ opposition next weekend, with

Houston Dynamo FC 3-2 Portland Timbers & MLS Week 4 in Review: Of Daggers and DPs

Don't google images of Underoos 

Major League Soccer’s Week 4 handed me a tidy little theme and for that I am thankful. That could be me trying to squeeze a big idea into the Underoos I wore as a wee man, but I’m guessing it will resonate in both directions and in a tone that every MLS fanbase will hear and appreciate it. Unbelievably, that’s it for the preamble. Maybe I should start saying yes to every home improvement project, if only to spare everyone who finds this site from reading an Adrien Brody speech every time they click through to this site. (Anyone else watch The Oscars tonight? If so, please leave the good speeches in the comments; my wife and I yell over the entire show.)

Tuning in, now, to regular programming…

Results That Surprised Me (yeah, I have links for all of these; see below)
Atlanta United FC 3-1 Philadelphia Union (sunny no longer)
Chicago Fire FC 1-2 DC United (I rate DC highly as I.H.O.P. coffee)
FC Dallas 3-3 San Diego FC (weeeeeee!!)
New England Revolution 6-1 FC Cincinnati (Cincy leaping, not stepping, backward?)
Vancouver Whitecaps 6-0 Minnesota United FC (see, goal differential, Minnesota, uncharted)

I call that a good weekend, all in all, at least for anyone who tunes in for spills, chills, thrills and the odd face-plant. Even if the wild start to 2026 doesn’t continue, I doubt you could find even one MLS fan who would have predicted that the bottom three in the East for any week in the MLS 2026 regular season would include (bottom to “top”) Philadelphia, Columbus, and Orlando. The West has at least one surprise – who saw Minnesota looking up at 12 teams at any point this season? – but seeing the teams on either side of Missouri (e.g., SKC and St. Louis) tracks. There is one more team down there in sewers of the West, paddling amid the refuse, one I expected to see and feared to behold at once. Let’s turn to how they arrive at such a lowly station. Our story begins with a man named Philip...

Colorado Rapids 2-0 Portland Timbers & a Mini-Parade of Disasters from MLS Week 2

Mistakes were made, weight was lost. Or gained.

Welcome to the Week 2 wrap, both for Major League Soccer as a whole and my Portland Timbers! The first shall be firste (though they were seconde above), but I want to start this post with some programming notes that hit like revelations. (Not really, but hype is the coin of the realm in the 21st century.)

Between my wife’s unfortunate illness (the very same one that derailed the “Level Set” series) and the resultant too much time on my hands, this week’s review got a little out of hand. That’s to say, I consumed more soccer than I either want to digest or (ewww) send back up the other way. That same experience led me to the research concept for MLS Week 3 and, ideally for every week going forward:

Watching the full 90 of every Portland Timbers game, plus the full 90 (or 60 minutes, at a minimum) of the team that Portland plays the following weekend, plus 45 minutes each of two more games – both with at least one Eastern Conference team, tentatively – then a maximum (get it together, man!) of four…or five of the 10+-minute highlight reels that Apple TV appears to have embraced for the 2026 season. [Ed. - It will be just four; gotta tighten this shit up.] If that doesn’t get my eyes on enough teams to stay current with Major League Soccer week in and out…well, I can’t say I give a shit, because that feels ample to me. That will leave some blind-spots, of course, particularly around teams that bore me, but fuck it.

With that, let’s get to this week’s notes, comments, and appreciations. To kick things off, enjoy this...

Stupid Thought for the Week
I appreciate that the offside rule must be called by the letter of the law instead of its spirit, but I will never stop resenting that reality. Seeing an attacking player get called offside for having the tip of his knee ahead of the last defender’s will never strike me as anything but a violation of the spirit of fair play, but if there’s a slipper slope in soccer officiating, this is it.

Moving on to the meat…

An Overdue Farewell & Some Thoughts [UPDATED]

It's in there, sure as my knife's going in your tire.

[UPDATE: Was it farewell or just another goodbye from a terminal case who just won't give up?]

After spending about a week thinking about it, and even writing one more Timbers post for old time’s sake, I’m pulling the plug on this project. I won’t delete it – I put 12 years into it, for fuck’s sake – but will allow it to molder until even the internet forgets it. Doubt it’ll take long…

Traffic is down, but so is my enthusiasm. I can’t remember the last time I prioritized getting something posted on time, which makes this feel like good timing – i.e., I’m getting sick of doing this just as people are getting sick of me. Don’t know if that’s a win-win or a lose-lose, but it feels natural regardless.

Because I really, really think I’m going to finally, and for real, shut down this site, I have some final observations I’d like to make about the game I’ve spent 20+ seasons writing about in one form or another and for a minimum of three teams (for the record, the New England Revolution, the Portland Timbers and FC Cincinnati.)

Give Them Grace
If you’ve ever screwed up at work (or at home, or just at life; raise your hand, this is a safe space), and you knew the specific thing you did wrong like your first name, last name and middle initial, and still had to sit in silence while someone walked you through that same error, i.e., the one you know on the same resentment-fueled granular level that you know your romantic partner’s worst habits, as if you made the mistake out of ignorance or idiocy, well, you know how that breaks your brain and generally makes you feel like you want to slash a parking lot’s worth of tires. Don’t worry, that won’t be the last run-on sentence in this post. Tradition means something around here.

Notes on the MLS Stretch-Run, with the Portland Timbers, FC Cincinnati & Spinal Tap

I've always wanted a girl who believes in Chicago.

We’ve reached that special time in the Major League Soccer calendar when pundits start stitching together posts that look like proofs – i.e., the ones that breakdown all the permutations that will see your local team either eliminated (aka, ded) or alive to fight for one more…let’s face it, almost certainly pointless weekend. A few teams have already been eliminated, of course – goodbye, DC, adieu, Montreal – but that still leaves plenty of teams counting long-dead chickens and hoping they can pawn them off on somebody.

With that in mind, you can add the following to the games I’ll be ignoring for this look ahead at this MLS Week, I dunno, 29? (Nope! It’s Week 33.)

Club du Foot Montreal v St. Louis CITY FC
New England Revolution v Toronto FC
Real Salt Lake v Sporting Kansas City

That doesn’t mean I’ll cover every other game at length, especially when the stakes fall short of existential – i.e., I don’t have much to say about Atlanta United FC v Columbus Crew beyond noting that Columbus needs to win this one and it’ll say something if they don’t, because it’s been a minute since that team saw a W (I count four games). One could argue the same applies to FC Dallas v Austin FC, but that one hits too close to home for me to ignore it.

At any rate, I pulled this together with an eye to get myself back in a sexy regular season mood after the international break. More whip-around than analysis – this will be the biggest possible picture, don’t expect anything on absences (unless I remember them; rare) and keep dreaming on a tactical breakdown - the facts and theories will come fast, but hopefully enough with enough meat on them to make it worth the time. Think the protein blast of riding down the highway on a motorcycle with your mouth open.

Right…starting with games of the most local interest (born in Cincinnati, live in Portland, OR):

FC Cincinnati 0-1 Philadelphia Union: Is It a Slip When You're Shoved(?) & A Whip Around the East

What Pavel Bucha was up against...

Why don’t you love your home, FC Cincinnati? So much love in the stadium, so little love on the field.

On the plus side, it hurt more coming than it did going – i.e., not all’s lost, even as the Supporters’ Shield looks further away than it did Saturday morning – because, with one nerve-racking exception, a couple results broke Cincy’s way this weekend and, in another lane, one spoiled team’s morale took a vicious shot to the pills. With next weekend off (it’s another damn international break, isn’t it?) and a little time to kill today, I decided to take a broader look at the Eastern Conference as the regular season rounds into the stretch. Sadly, the chances at a photo finish atop the conference dropped a bit, due to…

FC Cincinnati 0-1 Philadelphia Union
About the Game, Briefly and Broadly
In a game that moved 15% faster than every other one played this last weekend (made that up, but stick with me), Cincinnati spent too much of it struggling to keep up. The Union ran them over in midfield – Pavel Bucha, in particular, got mobbed like the freakin’ Beatles circa ’64 every time he so much as glanced the ball – and that kept the weight of the game leaning against Cincy’s back four-to-six. Anyone who checked just the score and final stats would walk away with a different impression – for all I know, a majority of Cincinnati fans might agree with them – but, for me, it was the visitors who signed their name on this statement game. If they scored the beautiful game by who won the most 50/50s, Philly took this one walking away.

To their very real credit, Cincinnati’s back four-to-six held firm through it all. They didn’t give up many easy chances – Tai Baribo’s step ahead of Nick Hagglund around the 30th minute might have been the easiest look for either team all night (check the highlights, nominate your candidate) – and thereby held up their end of the game. In a haunting call-back to recent home games past (more below), the Union’s midfield largely limited the Orange and Blue’s attack to hopeful little raids, most of those running into a thicket and harried on all sides. Evander smuggled through most of their chances – at times, with a whiff of tunnel-vision and an arguable failure to contemplate delegating – but both he and Kevin Denkey forced at least one hard save out of Philly’s ‘keeper, Andrew Rick. Dreaming now of what a little more calm and control behind them might have done for the effort…

FC Cincinnati 1-0 New York City FC, a Hot Date in Philly & A Saucy Spin 'Round the East

Too heavy for you, FRIEND?!

As I was thinking about everything to what’s on my mind to the late timing of this post, I decided to put up the FC Cincinnati post first. If nothing else, the weekend complicated their shit more than anything in Major League Soccer’s Western Conference affected the Portland Timbers.

This post also counts as my first stab at a new format/concept. On the most basic level, it involves: 1) kicking around (or just kicking) FC Cincy’s most recent result; 2) checking in on the team Cincy plays next, in this case the Philadelphia Union, and 3) taking a quick tour around the relevant parts of the Eastern Conference for perspective on the grand scheme. As for what you can expect, more style than substance, for starters, and leaning into what I’d call, for lack of a better word, riffing. Why? This is supposed to be fun, dammit. Moving on to something that wasn’t fun…

FC Cincinnati 0-1 New York City FC
About the Game, Briefly and Broadly
A classic example of one of those goddamn games where your local team’s stumbles leave the proverbial door open for the opposition. In a game that found too few, NYCFC found/built the better chances – up to and including coming within a touch or two of waking the ball into the back of the net at the 76th minute (has to be in here, right?). Cincy’s attack looked anxious and flummoxed, never looked wholly connected and, in the earliest part of the game, got short-circuited by one too many impatient shots from range by Evander. To his credit, he put a tricky one on goal somewhere in the mid-20s(?), but even that effort didn’t do more than build the pile of hopeful shots on shot higher.

NYC didn’t create much more – neither team did – but they made the most out of their four shots on goal (all arguably bested by Hannes Wolf’s shot off the post). And yet, it still took a defense-wide gaffe by Cincy to clear the path for Alonso Martinez’s winner – e.g., Matt Miazga got pulled miles left (for some goddamn reason), he forced Nick Hagglund to come across when he played a soft pass out of a press, and that opened the entire right half of the field to one of The-Men-Most-Likely-to-Break-a-High-Line in all of MLS. Maybe mistakes were made in the chase, maybe Roman Celentano should have come out (gods only know how many demons live up Miazga’s ass), but the footrace was over before it started and, when you get right down to it, good defending means never having to make hard choices.

Facing Up to the Stretch Run for FC Cincinnati: I've Seen Worse

De nada.

The concept is simple, maybe even pointless. [Ed. – Don’t listen to him.] The post below has the simple, direct purpose of looking backwards and forward for every Major League Soccer team that “poses a threat” to FC Cincinnati’s chances in the very much alive Supporters’ Shield race. As noted/argued in my previous post on Cincy’s win over the (full disclosure, and) my Portland Timbers, Cincy has succeeded in picking up points whilst surviving injury – and to the tune of second/tied on points for Shield-Quest with San Diego (probably?) FC.

Not every team below necessarily belongs in the Shield conversation, but I opted to take a wide view for this post. While I provide a lot of details on each team – e.g., their record over the past 10 games and their remaining schedule, mainly – I’m neither equipped to nor interested in strapping in for much analysis; related, while I acknowledge trades that have happened since the beginning of August, only a handful of the names rang a bell, so I don’t have much to offer beyond their name and the letter that connotes their position on the field. The notes I have will focus on past results, players that seem worth noting, and some informed speculation on the games they have left – and they won’t be lengthy or linky.

As a quick, hopeful editorial note: I intend (emphasis on intend) to spend the rest of the season focusing on the teams either closest to FC Cincinnati, or the one that did something on the past weekend that feels worth flagging. Caveat lector: that’s more concept-in-progress than work-in-progress.

Think that’s everything. Let’s start by framing…

1st) FC Cincinnati
16-7-4, 27 games played; 52 pts., 42 gf, 34 ga (+8); home 7-3-2, away 9-4-2
Last 10 Results: WWWWLWWDLW (7-2-1)
Strength/Location of Schedule
@ NE (1-0 W); @ MTL (3-1 W); @ ORL (2-1 W); v CHI (2-1 W); v CLB (2-4 L); v MIA (3-0 W); @ RSL (1-0 W); @ MIA (0-0 D); v CLT (0-1 L); @ POR (3-2 W)
Remaining Schedule: v NYC; v PHI, v NSH; @ LAG; v ORL; @ RBNY; v MTL
Additions: Ayoub Jabbari (F); Samuel Gidi (M)
Losses: DeAndre Yedlin

Don’t love the Yedlin trade in the here and now – though, to be clear, I’m open to embracing whatever value it ultimately provides – and hope it doesn’t bite ‘em. Ayoub Jabbari and Samuel Gidi are names I have read on the internet. Obligatory “hope they’re good,” and…moving on…

Portland Timbers 2-3 FC Cincinnati: Going (Too) Deep on What Is Likely a Hiccup

I wish they'd stop too, my dude.

I had a working theory about both the Portland Timbers and FC Cincinnati going into Saturday’s game, to wit, Cincinnati (generally) starts strong, then throttles back and invites the opposition back in, while the Timbers like to take their sweet-ass time to get going, sometimes to where they dig themselves into a hole they can’t climb out of.

When Saturday’s 2-3 home loss for the Timbers generally supported both sides of the theory – i.e., Cincy rolled to a 3-0 lead and looked like a fair bet to run away with it before Portland clawed back two goals and piled on enough shots for an equalizer or more – and that got me all a-flutter about confirming the theory, so I circled back to mine both teams’ recent schedules (Cincy's, Portland's) for circumstantial evidence. About 40 minutes of working that mine yielded some data to support theory. It also turned up enough Fool’s gold to recommend sealing up the mine, paying off the creditors, and walking away. Still, to lay some of it out there…

I worked with a 20-game sample for both teams, including Leagues Cup results, while excluding those from the U.S. Open Cup (you ask why, I ask why not?). That period extends back to around the beginning of May, over which time both Cincy and Portland have fared well enough, 10-6-4 and 8-7-5, respectively. The difference is there, of course, and grows a bit more once you dig in.

The Timbers conceded first eleven times total: Portland failed to score in five of those games and, naturally, lost them; of the six other games when they conceded first, the Timbers rallied to win two of them (v COL, v STL), came back to draw two (v SEA, v MIN) and lost the other two (@ SJ, v CIN). The sum of that yields a 2-7-2 record when conceding first across all games and, for some, an upset tummy. That leaves Portland with a 6-0-3 record when scoring first (or sometimes not scoring at all, e.g., the goal-free turd at RSL), a vast improvement, of course, but weighing eleven games against nine comes perilously close to a wash, so, moving on...

Cincy has scored first over 13 of their past 20 games, four of them wins when they blanked the opposition, nine of them games when they scored first. They held on to win most of those games – only a sociopath sneers at a 6-1-2 record – but it did lead to dropped points (3-3 v Dallas), one searing loss (2-4 home loss to Columbus) and arguably some nervy finishes - e.g., the 3-2 “road” win over Monterrey in Leagues Cup and the nail-gnawing end to Saturday’s game. The rest played out as 2-1 wins over Austin, Orlando and Chicago, hardly the end of the world, but breathing easier feels nice too.

Portland Timbers v FC Cincinnati: A Preview/Parenting Crisis

Which is which? And can you trust what I tell you?

To make one thing clear from the top, I may or may not have two children*, but there’s no question as to which is the favorite. Even with the past three and two-thirds season asking one of them, “why can’t you be more like your brother?,” the Portland Timbers will always be my team and FC Cincinnati my sincerely cherished side-piece. [Psst...I love you, girl! I’ll leave her for you, I swear.]

(* With how often I’ve neglected Cincy, through both good times and bad, I have, at most, a fingernail’s hold on neglectful divorced dad going through…just all of it.)

That said, rooting for both kids makes plenty of sense given the state of play. They both need the win – Cincinnati to keep up with the Supporters’ Shield race/melee, the Timbers to keep in touching distance of hosting a first-round playoff game (or, worst case, just making the damn playoffs) – so any and all results serve a purpose one way or the other…and yet, and as much as I hate to ask, things have been going really well for Cincinnati lately – I know; no, I know – but it has just been so, so long since the Timbers, y’know, had a good season. I’m not asking Cincinnati to let them win, I’m just making things emotionally complicated the way a parent does when, deep down, he’s absolutely asking Cincinnati to let Portland win, but not in a fake way, because I still want them to feel good. Wow, did it feel good to get that off my chest! (Father of two, going great…)

Moving on…

Per the title, the rest of this post throws out the first five coherent thoughts I’d tell fans of one team about the other. My list won’t be everyone’s list, so I’d (literally) love to have anyone who finds this toss in their own thoughts in either the comments or to the skeets when this goes up on Bluesky…somewhat related, I stopped checking Reddit, almost certainly from failure to match the intensity of, oh, 75% of the posters. That’s to say, I miss some chatter, just not that chatter.

Right, like they do in MLS, let’s kick this off with the home team.

Inter Miami CF 0-0 FC Cincinnati: Patience with the Grind & Exorcised Demons(?)

I hear his screams from beyond...

Does MLS still produce the Instant Replay series, the ones where they take a longer look to decide whether a ref fucked up, or did they retire those along with Simon Borg?

Thinking about that time when DeAndre Yedlin gave himself a cramp by falling into the back of some now-forgotten Inter Miami CF attacker somewhere after the 60th minute. That one quacked like a penalty kick, but Tori Penso didn’t call it and VAR didn’t second-guess her, so what’s the point in picking through the log for that particular piece of corn…

…related, anyone else get the feeling MLS keeps controversial calls/non-calls out of the highlight packages they throw together? Just noticed they didn’t include the late winner they yanked away from Miles Robinson in the full highlights for this one either...guess you bury the bodies where folks can’t find 'em… (To their credit, they did post a whole sidebar video on Robinson's thing.)

Inter Miami CF 0-0 FC Cincinnati
About the Game, Very Briefly
Looked sweaty as balls down in Florida and even Miami’s players looked half-cooked by the 80th minute, but both teams played a lively game in the swamp air. The hosts had the better of the game, but Cincy looked to have the better of the chances – particularly after an unstoned viewing of the highlights – and that captures the way the game played out in as few words as I can manage.

Miami’s high, aggressive defending made it hard for any Cincinnati player ahead of Roman Celentano to play the ball facing forward. Balls into the midfield space went backwards or sideways eight times out of ten and seven balls of ten played forward were long and hopeful. The latter (mostly) kept Miami from turning Cincy over in or around their defensive third (mostly; there were some inevitable miscues), but the Orange and Blue did a lot of defending and passing inside their own half. Miami created more chances – Luis Suarez probably shot and teed up their better ones (e.g., the back-post cross to Fafa Picault, saved by Celentano) – and overlapped around Cincy’s left a couple times, but they had to survive more shots on goal and have decent reason to count themselves a little lucky to escape with a point.

FC Cincinnati 2-4 Columbus Crew: Sizing Pat Noonan for a Hairshirt

Wait'll I get this off, you little shit...

After the Columbus Crew scored their fourth goal, the camera panned to a young woman in the stands who alternated between glaring at the field in disbelief and shooting “what the fuck just happened” glances toward her father. Cincinnati’s staff should have escorted that young woman into the locker room (after all the players were dressed and decent, of course) to have her level that same withering glare at every player who suited up for FC Cincinnati on Saturday. Or maybe send in a six-year-old boy still in tears from watching his idols lose. Time for the autopsy…

FC Cincinnati 2-4 Columbus Crew
About the Game
Before getting my hands into the viscera (don’t worry; I don’t do snuff images), I want to preface the general comments with one quick note: the highlights looked worse and more hopeless than the full 90. The final stats weren't so bad, and Columbus held a slim 3-2 lead from the 60th minute and into second half stoppage and Cincy got…kinda sorta back into it with two…vaguely promising stretches of play in the late 70s and the late 80s. It wouldn’t have erased the 60 lost minutes that saw FC Cincinnati’s original two-goal lead evaporate, but a face-saving draw would have been nice, or at least nicer…

As anyone who turned off the world and turned on this game knows, FC Cincy took a two-goal lead before the Columbus Crew got their pants on (Pavel Bucha's opener; Cincy's second fit better down below). Sadly, once they got them on (about 15 minutes in) they commenced to thrashing the home team with their belts. All without their pants falling down…

Mistakes by Cincy’s defense added the final bricks to Columbus’ comeback – first, the deflection off Tah Anunga’s arm (right?), then the own goal/general clustercuss set off by Miles Robinson’s late defensive lunge – but Columbus laid the foundation with two things: by blowing through Cincy’s midfield going forward and smothering Cincy's outlets/transition. This hardly accounts for everything that happened coming at and going out Cincy’s defensive third, but I spotted two things that details that accounted for some of it:

FC Cincinnati Weekly, Part I: Flooding a Sinking Ship

Thanks, Mary!

What was better: Evander’s snap strike from the right channel to open the scoring, or the ball he clipped through the closing window between Chicago’s Sam Rogers and Jeff Gal to set up Kevin Denkey’s tap-in?

Answers may vary according to taste, but both moments mattered in a game that turned on little moments of quality. (And the answer is the assist.) To quickly kick around what happened…

FC Cincinnati 2-1 Chicago Fire FC
Cincy had the Fire pinned into their half for the opening 10+ minutes. The weight of the siege didn’t translate to any great chances and Chicago ultimately broke out, first by a couple long balls, then by getting on the ball and playing out. The snap strike flagged above came in the 19th minute, a mere five minutes into the Fire’s revival, which left them chasing the game on top of finding the beat. The rest of the first half reflected those opening 10+ minutes like an elongated mirror: the Fire found more of the chances, with Hugo Cuypers running down a ball over the top and forcing a sprawling save out of Roman Celentano probably giving them their best, and things settled into a spirted, if controlled back and forth until the halftime whistle. Cincinnati put another length between them and the Fire with Denkey’s goal at the 50th minute – again, just an incredible pass by Evander (and didn’t this look a lot like one of the goals versus Orlando? Yep!) – which obliged Chicago to take another deep breath and kick a little harder. Philip Zinckernagel did pull one back at the 58th minute – decent goal, too – and with plenty of time left and the Fire dutifully fired away to the end. A lot of those came from range – maybe talk to Mauricio Pineda about patience – and those forced some further saves from Celentano. Set pieces, corner kicks in particular, caused their share of chaos, the ball touched the ground too many times, etc., but Cincy’s make-shift back three scrambled it away every time and various Fire players nodded the ball over the net every time they didn’t.

It wasn’t a dominant performance from Cincinnati, by any means, but still one I’m confident most fans will bless; with an “Ave Maria” thrown in for getting ahead in the Supporters’ Shield race. And I’m also sure Chicago wonders what might have been had anyone stepped to Evander at the 19th minute, but the final numbers tell a tale of a reasonably-balanced game between two teams separated by eight places and fourteen points in the Eastern Conference standings – which begs the question, what to make of Chicago?

Indefinite Hiatus

 The author needs to take a minute to resolve some health issues. Dammit.

FC Cincinnati & MLS East (Mostly) Week 18 Check-In: So...How's It Going?

Forever just two personnel moves away...

And…I finally have the time/energy to post an Eastern Conference-wide check-in with an FC Cincinnati cherry on top. Huzzah.

Down below, you'll find all the teams in Major League Soccer’s Eastern Conference listed in the order of their current place in the conference standings, along with the most basic factual information about each of them. After that comes a quick riff on how their 2025 looks so far based on 1) my impression of a given team based on seeing them one way or the other over the season and 2) their last 10 results, more or less.

I pulled Cincy out of the regular order and lifted them to the top with an eye to dwelling on my very own Special Little Guys of the East. If you want depth or real knowledge about individual players, I suggest you hit up local sources – something I encourage people to do in any event and often as they can - or, if you’re into that certain flavor of weird, your local team’s subreddit.

The point of the exercise is to look past injuries to key players or arguments about how totally and thoroughly unstoppable any given team will be if [Player A] would just start doing [X], or if only the stupid fucking coach would get his head out of his ass and start [Player B] or move [Player C] to left back, and to flatten the notes on each team to the cold, hard calculus of the results they’ve compiled, where and against what quality of opposition, and holy run-on sentence, Melville. The animating thought behind it seeks to correct the human habit of holding onto a detail – say, a big win over a good team – and interpreting a team through that flawed lens for weeks, or even months, thereafter. With 18 games crossed off on the calendar for most teams, MLS fans finally have a forest to stare at and, personally, that feels like a better way to clock what’s going on than, to muddle a phrase, get into the trees…and, rimshot.

With that, let’s kick things off the East’s silver-medal team:

FC Cincinnati 1-2 DC United, Disappointment, Malaise and a Dash of FC Dallas

A guerrilla warfare situation.

After watching FC Cincinnati stall out to a 1-2 loss versus DC United – i.e., the team currently 12th in the East and who started yesterday with half as many points as Cincinnati – I looped back to their midweek 3-3 home draw versus FC Dallas – i.e., the team currently 11th in the West, who have as many points (18) as DC on the first day of June. That was last night.

Before sitting down to type this, I looped back to my notes on last weekend’s 2-4 loss at Atlanta United FC. At that time, that performance/result presented as a bad day at the office meets an ambush – think the foxhole scene in Red Dawn, the original, not the remake – because who thought an Atlanta team eight games into tripping over their own dicks, particularly on the attacking end, would run over a defense, 1) operating with all hands present, and 2) that had allowed (about) just one goal per game to that point in the season?

So…how many bad days at the office does it take to add up to a slump?

About the Game(s)
When Kevin Denkey crowned a full-field attacking move at the 15th minute that went down easy as an oyster, signs pointed to the machinery being back in place and turning smoothly. Sure, DC had already gone up a goal by then – see Gabriel Pirani’s finish at the second minute from the top of the 18 off a (too) simple set piece – and, after some light preventive bunkering, they returned to a press that forced Cincinnati to play through traffic all over the field. Still, Cincy had managed it well enough, up to and including getting close to goal with avenues and options. Denkey’s goal got the Bailey bopping and DC United didn’t have Christian Benteke to manage, so more of the same seemed possible, maybe even likely…

…and then Conner “Excuse Me, Who?” Antley popped up at the back post on a corner to head DC back into the lead. Two set pieces, two goals; you literally hate to see it.

Atlanta United FC 4-2 FC Cincinnati: Bewitched, Bedazzled & Kinda Weird

Plenty to go around, sadly.

As anyone who has interacted with the MLS Season Pass interface knows, it can still slip in the odd the spoiler. For instance, I caught the fact that Miles Robinson scored a goal out of the corner of my eye before starting the full replay, so I had that at back of mind when Atlanta United FC opened the scoring at the 15th minute. I only got halfway through, "nothing to worry about" when Atlanta scored a second goal. I spent the rest of the game hoping that the caption read “Miles Robinson hat trick.” It did not. Atlanta carried that early lead to the final whistle, and only a little uncomfortably, outrunning Cincinnati to a 4-2 win at home.

About the Game
Atlanta looked a (promising) mess over the opening ten minutes with balls played in behind to phantom runs and a full-field defensive shape that looked doomed to watch Cincinnati pull them apart; the two quality shots the visitors created – one a close solo run by Gerardo Valenzuela, the other a sparkling team effort – had the feeling of heavy knocks rattling a door. Next thing you know, Nick Hagglund went down and off on a hard charge by Emmanuel Latte Lath (“I'll show you soft, Ronny!”; weird injury, too; ribs and lung?) and, mere minutes later, Derrick Williams headed home what might have been Atlanta’s first competent pass of the game on a set piece and it was off to the races. Atlanta scored again, of course, with a tap-in by Ajani Fortune five short minutes later after Saba "Well Janice*" Lobjanidze bewitched and bedazzled Lukas Engel on Cincy’s left (* I get so much free delight from closed captioning). From there, a broadcast booth narrative developed that Atlanta had pounced on a defense still working out its assignments. That argument holds up better in a world where Latte Lath didn’t miss two massive, free-free-free opportunities (more on one of those later), all of which fell outside that crucial window. Atlanta had gilded chances at an even half-dozen goals - a rightly shocking note given Cincinnati's typically tight defense - but all those chances ran against an undercurrent of Cincy playing through them with relative ease. That's to say, this was a weird one.

No one knew the game would end where it did when Robinson’s goal finally came just after halftime, of course, especially with Taylor Twellman treating Atlanta’s woes over the first 15 minutes of every second half as a disaster to count on. That note came against the backdrop of some of the best attacking builds Cincinnati has produced all season; the chances rained and the shots poured until they piled up to nearly 30, with nine on goal. Not all of them made Brad Guzan sweat – I’d say Evander’s 60th minute effort gave his Old Spice the biggest workout – but his every save and the 21 shots off target (some of them more wise than good) meant more time playing catch-up for Cincy and with less time to get there. Another defensive breakdown – and on a set piece, again, and with the ball bouncing all over inside the six, again – restored Atlanta’s two-goal margin at the 66th minute, forcing Cincy back into a sprint. The Orange and Blue pulled within one a mere four minutes later when Valenzuela finally got his prize for a great game, but it wouldn’t take look for them to succumb to the game’s other defining feature, fully-bodied defensive breakdowns by the visitors. That hadn’t happened since the opening weeks of 2025 (e.g., the ass-kicking at Philly), but Jamal Thiare insured the win in stoppage time on what must have been Atlanta’s third clean break behind Cincy’s defense. Everything that could go wrong did, basically, and it was more than enough to erase a good amount of right.

Columbus Crew 1-1 FC Cincinnati: A(n Inconclusive) Clash of Titans

AAhhhhhh! Stop-motion!

I skipped a write- up for FC Cincinnati’s 1-0 win at Toronto FC for a couple reasons, its lack of educational value among them. Saturday’s 1-1 draw at the Columbus Crew, on the other hand, checked all the boxes the Toronto win couldn’t, chief among them: seeing how Cincy stacks up against a consensus best team in Major League Soccer. So, let’s get into that..

About the Game
When it comes to getting off on the right fight in a rivalry game on the road, it’s hard to beat scoring the first goal. Cincinnati took that big first step early (6th minute!) when the put a beautiful bow on a shit-show in Columbus’ area with a Kevin Denkey tap-in at the back post. The buildup featured some other encouraging details – e.g., Luca Orellano working Columbus’ left like a masseuse, Evander chipping in with a rare bicycle-kick assist – leaving Cincy fans asking what was there to love about the goal but everything? The host’s long (thoughtful?) response started from that point and, in some ways, lasted until the final whistle. Cincinnati gave as good as they got – particularly through the first half – but, per the final, official stats, they also spent much of the afternoon managing the pressure Columbus piled on. My notes (not the best, fwiw) didn’t flag any great looks for Cincinnati after Pavel Bucha’s well-placed rip toward the left upper 90 of Patrick Schulte’s goal around the 20th minute, so the balance of their highlights came on the defensive side of the ball. Given the venue and opposition, there’s nothing wrong with that; I’d go one further and say I saw plenty to admire, particularly among the last line of defense (to a personal preference, I like to see Matt Miazga step up and Miles Robinson clean up behind him). The full highlights show most of Columbus’ finer moments in both the first and second halves, including a few that, but for the hands/feet of Roman Celentano, would have given them an equalizer or the win (though, mysteriously, it skipped a free, if somewhat tricky header that Jacen Russell-Rowe should have put away). For what it’s worth, I got some bonus comfort out of the fact that it took a penalty kick to beat Celentano and loving embrace that as an indication that Cincy has its shit together in defense and they have decent back-up for the “regular” starters – Miazga, Robinson and Nick Hagglund (who, apart from getting gently, yet justly screwed on the handball that lead to the penalty kick, played a good one). In the here and now, that was good enough to smuggle a point out of Columbus, keep two more from Columbus’ points total, and Cincinnati a nose ahead in the Eastern Conference standings 14 weeks into the season.

All in all, this game pitted two good, well-coached, well-constructed teams against one another and, for the most part, played out on those terms. The main thing I want to see after sitting through that is what Cincinnati looks like when they host the return leg in mid-July. While I didn’t mind seeing them cede possession at a 2:1 fire-sale in Columbus, seeing them get on the ball and dictate periods of the home leg would give me a little more faith in their capacity to do that kind of thing when circumstances require it. I’ll flesh out that thought a little more below, but first…

FC Cincinnati 2-1 Austin FC: It's All Coming Up Evander

Mistakes can be made, that's all.

Today has been unexpectedly Cincinnati heavy. Before wrapping up FC Cincinnati’s broadly satisfying 2-1 win over a visiting Austin FC, I caught the tail end of an episode of the Partridge Family titled, “I Left My Heart in Cincinnati” that was positively drunk with old footage from Kings Island. Seeing the Blue Racer running against the Red one and The Banana Splits took my back to a world both of and before my time and it did me good (awww) and bad (so, so old).

About the Game
Cincy somewhere between a couple and a few chances to run riot over Austin over the opening 20 minutes. They took an early lead at the 12th minute when Yuya Kubo ran against a retreating Austin back-line that seemed open to giving him whatever option he wanted. After some briefly bobbled connections, the ball found Lukas Engel still farther to Austin’s right, who slipped a one-time pass into Evander loitering around the left side of the 18. I went with the verb “loiter” to capture the easy freedom of Evander’s positioning, but the opening goal showed the danger of leaving him there without an army of angry chaperones. And that puts Chehkov’s gun on the table for future reference.

Luca Orellano had come close two minutes before the opener and Kevin Denkey spurned a good opening with a shot straight at Austin’s Brad Stuver a mere three minutes on the other side of it. Consult the full highlights for some more highlight-reel adjacent moments – e.g., Denkey and Evander danced as well as they have all season Saturday afternoon – including what would have been an easy candidate for Goal of the Week (have that at around the 20th minute) had Evander clipped the curl on his one-time shot from 35+ yards out a degree or two shorter. Despite a bevy of invitations, Cincy’s second goal wouldn’t materialize for some time.

Austin pushed back, of course, and threatened to pull back a goal as early as the 17th minute on a cross that Brandon Vazquez should have put somewhere between on goal and away (which doesn't appear in the highlights due to the enshittification of MLS's video product), but, per the official stats they didn’t create a ton of chances and fired just two of them on Stuver’s goal. I don’t know how all that useless energy translated for Austin fans, but I’m guessing it felt like Purgatory for Cincinnati fans, or worse, the last episode of Lost. If you found this post, I don’t need to explain the perils of 1-0 lead to you, but seeing Cincy come within a desperate lunge or two of coughing up a stupid equalizer for the simple, stupid reason of failing to decisively clear a long ball provided a sobering reminder of said perils. It takes just one mistake, right? Say, an arm left thoughtlessly hanging when covering a cross from Cincy’s left?