FC Cincinnati v Red Bull New York Preview: Keeping the Bulls at Bay

Their logo compels them.

It’s been respectable for FC Cincinnati lately, good even, and they’ve battled multiple Eastern giants to one point per. It looks another week of the same thing on the menu, but, fuck it, it’s 2022, so let ‘er rip and dream big. First, some relevant facts:

Red Bull New York
Record/Basics: 9-5-5, 32 points, 3-2-4 home; 6-3-1 away; 29 gf, 20 ga, +9 goal differential
Last 10: TTTLWLWLWW (1-3-1 on the road, including all three road losses of 2022; hmmm...)
Oppo: v POR, @ PHI, v CHI, @ MIA, v DC, @ CLT, v TOR, @ LAFC, v ATL, @ SKC

What We Know About Them
Taking inspiration from the corporate logo on their shirts, the Red Bulls chase every pass, ball and player like blood-doped demons. Oh, and their forwards – mostly Patrick Klimala and Tom Barlow – have been crap this season (just 7 goals and 3 assists between them). Still, they’re difficult to play against and just as hard to beat and their road form, though worse lately (see above, maybe celebrate a little), ranks near the top of the league.

When it comes to goals for/allowed, they’re on the right side of average (24.7) in both categories; going the other way, they scored nearly half their goals in just four games - 4-1 @ TOR, 3-0 @ ORL, 3-3 v CHI, 4-1 v DCU. Game-to-game, then, they don’t score a lot (that’s good!), but, with that defense(/defensive scheme), they don’t need to (awww); then again, they’d given up two goals in every road game prior to their last, a 1-0 road-win over a serially hapless Sporting Kansas City team. About that...

Notes on Recent Form
Big picture, they’ve won four of their last six – a pretty compelling feat regardless of team/venue/form. It’s that specific context that makes their offensive production borderline embarrassing: they posted shitter-level xG in three of their past five games (0.7 or less), and topped out at 1.4 at home against Toronto. That said, that 0.7 xG fails to capture the way they seemed to flick a switch at the start of the 2nd half at SKC and find great looks (four for sure, maybe five) until Aaron Long nodded home off a corner. They went down a man for the final 20+ minutes of that game (due to stoppage time) and, a couple chances aside (one of them cleared off the line), they made SKC piss ‘em them all way with a combination of rabid-hyper-puppy harrassment and shithousery (Klimala, in particular, who found his special purpose).

Portland Timbers Preview: On Fears of Getting Run Over

We all need a hero...

Red Bull New York has yet to win at home in the 2022 season. that’s the cheeriest thought I have to pass on about the Portland Timbers’ trip to Harrison, New Jersey this weekend.

The buzz from Yimmi Chara’s back-to-back bicycle-kick goals wore off weeks ago, leaving Portland’s fans sipping stale coffee in the hopes that, if nothing else, they can stay awake until the Timbers do. The Timbers’ goals-for number stalled just over three games ago (is it possible for that number to go down?) - think the exact number is 282 minutes plus stoppage time - and I’m imagineering like a motherfucker, but still can’t picture how that changes against a Red Bulls team that, assuming they play as they normally do, will press every passer for large stretches of this game. On the plus side, Josecarlos Van Rankin is suspended for this one.

He's the most draining culprit, of course, but not many Timbers have looked like a realist’s picture of composure for several weeks. I can see any number of Portland players making a loose pass or failing to control the same, and turnovers like that will put the Red Bulls between two and five passes from scoring. The Red Bulls have scored reliably this season - they’ve only been kept off the board twice so far (again, both games at home). Just one more note on this: as with their pressing, you don’t see the goal coming until they ball has already gone in. That’s to say, unless I’m very wrong about how this game will play out, Portland’s Aljaz Ivacic will need to come alert and limber for this one.

The only break I really see Portland catching: the theoretical possibility that they’ll be able to transition against the Red Bulls gegen-press (against v gegen?). The Red Bulls do throw numbers into their press, something that should help the Timbers get vertical; going the other way, their press has looked super well-organized in all the investigative safaris I’ve undertaken - and I’ve got a second on that perception from the broadcast both more than once. Add a couple steady backstops (e.g., Aaron Long and Sean Nealis), a pair of herding-dog maniacs in front of them (e.g., Christian Casseres, Jr. and Frank Amaya, most of the time), and you’re left waiting for Carlos Coronel to bail you out with something stupid. Bottom line, Red Bull has been for any team to play through - they’ve given up just seven goals so far (average = 0.78 goals per game) - and that doesn’t pair so good with…you know.

MLS Weakly, 03 14 2021: Olympic Qualifying, Preseason....We Got GAMES, Y'All!

Call it due diligence, call it ass-covering, I'm good.

First, and happily, there will be soccer this week - and in games that’ll count - when the U.S. Men’s Olympic Team (USMOT?) kicks off its crash-course qualification schedule in Mexico. I mean, this thing will be over in a flash.

The USMOT starts with Costa Rica on Thursday (3:30 pm PST), then the Dominican Republic on Sunday (5 pm PST), then the following Wednesday against Mexico (7:30 pm PST; all games airing on FS1). They’ll need to finish either first or second in their Group (A) to qualify for the semifinals and, in order to qualify for Tokyo (assuming it happens), they’ll just need to win that semifinal; the final, as it turns out, is for bragging rights alone. And, to finish the thought, their potential universe of opponents for that semifinal include, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, and Canada - and who among isn’t hoping for the 54-40 or Fight Derby?

As for handicapping, I have fan acquaintance-level familiarity with most of the roster (the exceptions: Matthew Freese, Mauricio Pineda, Johnny Cardoso, Ulysses Llanez, Andres Perea, and Sebastian Saucedo, and Sebastian Soto), but, because I don’t know even a quarter’s worth of dick about the opposition, I won’t pretend to have anything insightful, never mind useful to say. Matt Doyle raised a couple questions about the final roster - short version: he’s dubious on the calls at forward (for why no Jeremy Ebobisse?) and the FC Cincinnati 2019-esque midfield construction (for why no Eryk Williamson?) - so I’ll let those points stand. Overall, though, I’m just happy to know I’ll have some familiar faces kicking a ball in anger (and, ideally, joy) late next week - and in games that count.

The meaningless games have started as well - i.e., Major League Soccer preseason is (finally) under way - giving MLS fans the first (meaningless) results of the 2021 season. Not many teams have played so far, and fewer still have played anything bigger than an intra-squad scrimmage, but FC Cincinnati was one of them. I’ll get to that (reported shit-show) when I get to them, but here are the other results that count (e.g., not intra-squad (Dallas? Houston?), not victimizing the local college team, etc.):

Atlanta United 3-0 Tormenta FC (c’mon, they made up that name)
Chicago Fire 2-1 New York City FC
Sporting Kansas City 4-0 Phoenix Rising

To answer at least one person’s question (you, at the back), Jesus, no, I won’t list every preseason result between now and First Kick; blame the little frisson I feel at seeing games between teams I recognize this time ‘round. The SKC result looks about right and maybe I’d have something to add about Atlanta’s result if I knew what a “tormenta” was, but the result in the Chicago v NYCFC game feels worth bookmarking - for now, anyway.

FC Cincinnati 1-2 DC United: Fall Down, Go Boom

I laugh every time. And I have children.

There is almost nothing to say about FC Cincinnati that doesn’t acknowledge a damning reality about the team - i.e., that they’re more or less doomd the second they go behind a goal. After that, every other thing you want to state or argue about them is academic.

As such, no, it didn’t help when their young stand-in goalkeeper, Bobby Edwards, screwed all the way up on a thoroughly innocuous DC United set-piece by misreading the flight of the ball and then “recovering” by trying too damn hard to prevent a corner kick. He effectively corralled the ball for DC’s Donovan Pines, instead, who collected the ball and poked it home. To get a real-time sense of how unexpected all that was, track Andrew Gutman’s movement and attention during that play. He clearly assumed it was over after glancing at Edwards’ attempt to keep in the ball; little did he know, Edwards would fall down and Cincinnati’s goal would go “boom.”

Now one year, plus one fucked-up year into their existence - what’s that, like a year and five-fourths or some shit? - FC Cincinnati still has no reliable approach to goal, neither a functioning attacking mechanism (e.g., get behind and play crosses) nor any one player or combination of attacking players to play through to get things moving. It’s just guys running around hoping the next pass finds an open player with a good sight of goal - preferably a better one than Joe Gyau’s shot through a thicket of players at or around the 25th minute.

More to the point, the earlier to opposition goes up, the more time FC Cincy spends chasing the game and/or opening themselves up on the counter. This played out in almost insulting effect in Cincinnati’s 1-2 home loss yesterday. As the good lord tormented Job, so the soccer fates gleefully gifted the theretofore struggling Brandon Vazquez with the gift of a bobble by DC’s stand-in ‘keeper, the experienced Chris Seitz. That tied the game on paper, but another, more meaningful dynamic had taken hold on the field: DC kept breaking through in midfield and pushing even-numbered counters against Cincinnati’s back-pedaling defense. On one occasion before Cincy equalized, a cross to the far side found a wide-open (I think) Erik Sorga, who skied his shot over a (basically) open net with a first-time strike.