FC Cincinnati 2-1 Louisville City FC: Holy Shit, a Win! (And the Scrabbling Path Forward!)

Suspense is contextual.

I will be brief, I will be brief, I will be brief. [Eh, you be the judge.]

I have two big, related takeaways from FC Cincinnati finally gaining a clear positive during its 2019 season with a 2-1 win (in extra time!) over Louisville City at scenic Nippert Stadium in the over-revered, yet under-valued U.S. Open Cup. First, Louisville’s press disrupted everything Cincinnati so much thought of doing for most of regulation time. Sub-first, I do wonder whether they ran themselves legless – not that I blame them either, given how close that came to being the path to success.

Second, and most crucially, how much did knowing how to manage Louisville help FC Cincy? My personal theory: an uncomfortable amount.

By pressing the way they did – and successfully - Louisville played an underdog’s hand in this game, but Cincinnati holds a clear edge in talent. Making that count took playing around Louisville’s press – something it took Cincinnati the first five minutes of the game to break even once, but it took most of regulation to finally tilt the field in its favor and, this is key, irrevocably.

Once Louisville gave up the (glorious) second goal (Team Kekuta!), and after so much exertion, I couldn’t see them coming back into the game. The underdogs had to take their foot off the gas eventually and, once they did, Cincinnati put the game in a…well, stunningly poorly executed choke-hold. Fuck me, if I didn’t feel like I was yelling “finish him” for a whole goddamn hour.

I’m happy for the win, particularly the spirit of it. Anyone watching the huddle after Fanendo Adi scored his first goal of 2019 (srsly, that can’t be right) should feel heartened by Forrest Lasso’s cross-talk with Adi over the celebrating mob. I have no idea what Lasso said, but everyone looked bought in and that’s how you build a team – aka, Step 1 to Success in team sports.

To go the other way with a thought that feels complicated: the first 70 minutes felt like Cincy bending without breaking while getting muscled all over by Louisville. That dredged up something I’ve noticed from FC Cincy during its long, dark winter-but-it’s-summer in MLS. FC Cincinnati has one hell of a time getting on the front foot in any game. Against a team capable of dominating them, the switch never flips and that's one theory on their string of regular season losses; when playing a Louisville team doing the soccer equivalent of throwing itself onto a hand-grenade to victory, it takes, as it happens, about 78 minutes. The larger point, and I’m going to emphasize this: Cicinnati does not have a reliable way to assert itself in games.

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.

San Jose Earthquakes 1-0 FC Cincinnati: A Hopeless Hat Looking for a Hook

Not always productive...

Several key numbers express what happened in FC Cincinnati’s 0-1 loss to the San Jose Earthquakes last night. Among them?

When Major League Soccer’s tech/video stooges condense games, they typically find 20 minutes’ worth of worthwhile footage. The condensed game for San Jose v. Cincinnati ran under 15 minutes.

The ‘Quakes’ Cristian Espinoza got sent off for a (soft) second yellow card (on his part; make it worth the time, son) at the 51st minute. That left FC Cincinnati 40 minutes’ with a man up.

FC Cincinnati put three shots on goal, two of ‘em after Espinoza’s sending off (and both by Fatai Alashe, I believe), so maybe the solution for Cincinnati involves somehow arranging to always play a man up? I’m just saying, have they tried it? Just asking questions over here, people.

For all concerned, it felt like neither progress nor regression, but, by ball that’s holy, ‘twas hideous. My short read goes something like this: when Espinoza left the field, the game went from one team having some capacity to make something happen out there (San Jose) to two teams flailing hopefully forward till the final whistle put fans and observers alike out of their shared misery. To clear up any potential confusion and/or inaccuracies, the ‘Quakes didn’t dictate the match by putting under pressure on or shots up against Cincinnati; they did, however, dominate possession for as long as they had 11 players on the field, and to an extent that made it impossible for the Orange and Blue to do anything with the ball, precisely because they never had the ball.

All it took for the ‘Quakes to collect these three fragile points was Nick Lima’s set-piece precision strike at the 22nd minute. Jackson Yueill’s two “shots” give a fair taste of San Jose’s attacking puissance (Kitten-Level, Unlocked!), and that says something about converting possession into chances or maybe less pathetic shots. All the same, I’ve seen Earthquakes teams look effective and smart with the ball, but I’ve never seen one look that comfortable playing eternal keep-away. It took a lot of movement to make it work – enough to make me wonder whether they’d fade – and it did work, and maybe that's Matias Almeyda's system in action. From the second Cincinnati lost control or turned over the ball, San Jose would take hold and shuttle it around for a few, often as if they had no particular destination in mind (much like drivers in Hillsboro, Oregon, who I hate with the heat of 1,000 suns.)

Louisville City FC 0-1 FC Cincinnati: The Puddle Goal of Legend

Well, it ain't gonna fill itself, dipshit...

I have to start with this, mostly because I heard the name over and over: is the Louisville City FC broadcast team contractually obligated to say, “George Davis the Fourth” every time the guy touches the ball? Does George Davis the Third own Louisville, or something?

It’s not so bad to start with George Davis the Fourth - beats the howlers I had lined up about how Louisville closed out the first half with a flurry of goals, and it ended 72 hours and 38 minutes later (and don’t check me math, I barely did) - because the man with the long, formal name wreaked havoc down Louisville’s right. Or, rather, Blake Smith’s left side of FC Cincinnati’s defense. I’ve been high on Smith for as long as I’ve watched FC Cincinnati, and I’ve never seen a player make him work and/or guess as hard as…sigh, George Davis the Fourth (treat?). Fortunately, FC Cincy’s defense held, even where Blake did not - though they did have a trouser-filler around the 51st minute that neither I, nor Louisville can’t believe they didn’t put away - and FC Cincinnati walks away from this absurdist 90 with the 1-0 win.

Who knew they’d make The Puddle Goal hold up? (On that, I can’t wait till I can easily find isolated highlights for FC Cincy games, so I can show the water-logged freakshow that won this game for them. I mean, sure, sit through the highlights (at the Match Center, along with everything else you need!)). As goals go, it’s pretty fortunate and messed up. Corben Bone is clearly among the blessed.

For all the truth of “they all count” when it comes to goals, this game, along with the one before it, should make fairly clear that FC Cincinnati has real work ahead on its way to the 2018 USL Championship. (Also, has the league named its trophy? Shit, has MLS? If not, they both need to get on that shit.) I’m looking at the top eight in the USL East right now, and I’m seeing a healthy share of teams who gave FC Cincy a run for its money this season - not just Louisville and Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC (both of whom played well enough to get all three points), but teams like Bethlehem Steel FC and Nashville SC.

Back to the game(s) at hand (is it accurate to call these two games, were they that different?), Louisville’s best chances to win it dried up around the 58th minute, when Speedy Williams (who also received full-name treatment) skied what I and the broadcast agreed was a sitter. They had at least two great shots in the Saturday’s “first half” - both ably parried by a rock-solid Spencer Richey - and Louisville squeezed FC Cincy’s defense over at least two distressingly extended periods, once in Second First Half (i.e., the rest of the first half played earlier tonight), but also during this rather fascinating time in the actual second half that wound up turning the game.

Atlanta United 2 1-5 FC Cincinnati: The Etiquette of Mercy

Only picture Stalin.

To continue from the title, this became a real issue when FC Cincinnati took a 4-0 lead over Atlanta United Muppet Babies. Atlanta United 2. No disrespect. It just popped into my head.

Anyway, Cincinnati took a 4-0 lead over The Stripes (see, FC Cincy? a quick, catchy nickname) at the 55th minute and, that crystalized the scenario: Atlanta 2, The Prophecy (last one). OK, for real.

When Cincinnati took a 4-0 lead over Atlanta 2, two realities were clear: Atlanta 2 would never stop making just egregious mistakes in defense - the stuff of nightmares - and, if Cincinnati kept playing with the same intensity, the game would end with a score high enough to break wills, maybe even cause some of those young scamps to consider going back to school for a highly-fungible philosophy degree. Cincinnati had already killed the game, basically, but with 35 minutes left on the clock. And all those people watching.

So, what to do? How do you sell that to the fans? Since they can’t throw in the towel to end a game (think of the power of that as a motivational tool for a coach!), can professional soccer teams land on a kind of soccer/pro-wrestling hybrid that lets the right team walk out with the win, while still keeping the fans entertained?

A comeback is out of the question, obviously, and what team can’t benefit from working another muscle out there - say, playing “live-fire keep-away” (aka, keeping possession in a competitive game) to kill a game without the game even knowing it (ninja) - something FC Cincy started doing around the 76th minute (and, full disclosure, I started fast-forwarding the archived feed from that point forward). This game could only end with a scenario that played out once in my own backyard, only with Cincinnati as the cat, and Atlanta 2 as the bird she was too stupid to kill. (That brings me back to the mascot issue: FC Cincy didn’t think of biting the whole “Bearcat” thing? Just for another nickname?) So, no universe existed in which this game is competitive and, how does a team play 35 minutes of back-foot soccer without bleeding even a couple unmerited goal-differential-eating goals?

Short answer: the Orange and Blue (see? too long) managed the game by absorbing pressure when they had to and, whenever Atlanta 2 started pressing against the unspoken rules of live-fire keep-away, Cincinnati would send players forward. And, after a period when that détente seemed to get a little fuzzy for Atlanta 2, Cincinnati turned the…post-fatal screw and raised the score to its final 5-1 score line (for highlights, box scores, and more, see the match center!).

Look, the game was comically unclose. Atlanta 2 held possession with, honestly, remarkable poise and, sometimes, elegance for a team that, by the looks of them, are two years into legal drinking on average (per the Match Center, which has all the stats and video I can offer). They have some sincerely talented players out there: Jon Gallagher, Jack Metcalf, George Bello, and, personal favorite, Laurent Kissiedou. After a lot of thought - and he’s hard to place - I wound up equating him to Eddie Gaven. Regardless, Kissiedou had the entire, “make-shit-happen” minute somewhere in the early 60s, and that was genuinely impressive, even if it only threatened to reverse the tides. Also, Devon Sandoval could have dropped the ball to Kissiedou, instead of spinning and taking that shot around the 32nd minute – though, in Sandoval’s defense, that turn nearly came off (and credit to Spencer Richey for stuffing it). They’re not a terrible team, Atlanta United 2…and Shawn Nicklaw fired an absolute cruise missile to give them their lone goal.

But, Jesus Christ, if they don’t give more assists to the opposition than all the opposition’s midfielders combined? Like a change machine you only need to whistle at, I tell you…

FC Cincinnati 3-0 Charleston Battery: Wire to Wire, and Beyond

It's greased lightning!

It’s rare to see a 2-0 win as dominant as the one FC Cincinnati dropped on the visiting Charleston Battery (and, yes, I realize the game actually ended 3-0 - and FC Cincy deserved all of that third goal - but it goes against a premise, so…ssshhhh, bear with me). The orange and blue (that’s FC Cincy, who needs a snappier nickname) controlled every aspect of the game, but without looking likely to run up the score. They thoroughly contained the Battery, sometimes in their own half for soccer’s equivalent of eternity, and, with one exception (Ataulla Guerra pinging a bomb off Spencer Richey’s crossbar), Cincinnati’s defenders never gave the visitors more than a glimpse of daylight (e.g., Forrest Lasso rotating/sliding to snuff Patrick Okonwko’s and/or Charleston's best second-half chance).

Both teams came in boasting unbeaten streaks that I can’t stop visualizing as cars rumbling up for an evening of street racing (see The Fast & the Furious, Grease, and maybe Rebel Without a Cause; haven’t seen that one): 15 for Cincinnati and 11 for Charleston. The home team ended the visitor’s streak with confidence-eating finality. The Battery kept their shape by and large, and I think I’d find that distressing - i.e., falling 3-0 when you didn’t shit the proverbial bed (that’s probably not a proverb). Think failing a test when you actually prepared for the thing.

Box scores don’t always put the details in proper relief, but I’d hold up two, maybe two and a half stats (in the match center, where you’ll find highlights too) that capture what decided this game: FC Cincy’s 2-of-3 advantage in duels and their huge advantage in shooting accuracy (75% to 16.7%) - and the latter goes back to another number, e.g., the slim margin in the total number of shots. Those numbers underline two things: 1) how well the Battery held its shape for nearly the full 90*, and 2) how little that mattered, thanks to how well Cincinnati threw around its weight.

* The few honest breakdowns Charleston did suffer produced the result - more specifically, the final score. The third goal - of which, yes, it did happen - concluded the only period of pressure that saw the Battery tremble on the verge of cracking. That came late - around the 85th, and lasted till the final whistle - when Fanendo Adi and Justin Hoyte put at least three clean shots on goal, and Nazmi Albadawi played the dangerous ball that led to Skylar Thomas’ soul-bruising stoppage time own-goal. The other goal came in first-half stoppage time when Albadawi chased down a loose trap by a Charleston player (who, incidentally, had just intercepted a Cincinnati pass), and then combined with Emory Welshman, and Corben Bone, who would finish off Albadawi’s assist, to score.

New York City FC 2-1 San Jose Earthquakes: Scrappy, Yet Just

You seen Godoy?

That wasn’t the prettiest game, by any means; in fact, the first goal, scored by the San Jose Earthquakes, set the tone nicely, in that it came as the New York City FC’s winner would – e.g. pressure forcing an error, thereby creating a goal. Wow, is that a mess of words and punctuation.

For all that, New York deserved its 2-1 win, and, to swing back to a pre-game tweet, I don’t see much to fear from the specific iteration of San Jose that played today. Their defense held up admirably under, oh, 500 pounds’ of pressure from New York, even with San Jose’s midfield too separated, but with San Jose’s attack struggling to get going, they got overwhelmed in the end.

Now, some specifics on both teams.

New York City FC

- It’s been said countless times, but it bears repeating: David Villa (two assists) was one hell of a signing, both for NYCFC and MLS. He made something out of a mushy cross to set up NYCFC’s momentum-sucking equalizer.

- I have two notes on the “middle 3” of NYCFC’s 4-3-3. First, Alex Ring and Maxi Moralez bring enough to let the 37-year-old Andrea Pirlo play just about the only game he can, by way of aggression/eating ground and an ever-available passing combination outlet, respectively. Ring, in particular, gives two-way cover for the Italian legend, but, second, you really have to ask whether it’s worth it. Tommy McNamara scored NYCFC’s winner thanks to a run I’m not sure Pirlo would ever make. (And, I gotta say, Villa seems to LOVE playing with Wallace...see the celebration.)

- In spite of Alexander Callens (admittedly forced) error on San Jose’s lone goal (I'll lard up the links once I can get to them sans spoilers), between him, Maxime Chanot, and Frederic Brillant, NYCFC looks like it has a pretty damned solid CB rotation for 2017.

- Rodney Wallace gets deserved praise for his solid two-way play, but it’s having Roland Matarrita behind him that makes NYCFC’s left as strong as it is. San Jose couldn’t get a damn thing going down that side…which makes for a great segue.