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…

New York City FC 1-0 FC Cincinnati: The Many, Grace-Given Misses of Alonso Martinez

Alonso Martinez's afternoon, a visual.

FC Cincinnati has managed to stay one goal ahead of the opposition for the past month or so. That was always going to come to an end, of course – people change, hairstyles change, dog people wake up one day and realize they’re cat people, etc. – but Cincy was damned lucky to not lose in a blow out yesterday. New York City FC gave them a taste of their own medicine with a 1-0 win in the shitbox disgrace of a stadium they call home and I’m sure it tasted just as bitter.

About the Game, Briefly
It’s not often I find the lineup presented at the top of the broadcast – half of ‘em feel like misdirection from the head coach, honestly – but NYCFC’s attacking shape looked closer to the 3-2-4-1 than it did to the 4-3-3 shown in the official match report. Keeping all those players high served the familiar purpose of stifling Cincy’s build-out – which was huge – and having players closer to their goal to exploit any turnovers. One direct effect, aka, the huge one, was pinning both DeAndre Yedlin and Lukas Engel against their respective sidelines and cut off their outlets into the middle (hold this thought*). It took Cincy 20-25 minutes to sort out playing through it – they had their first coordinated break-out around the 30th minute (Luca Orellano missed) – or the loosening of NYC’s noose simply coincided with Keaton Parks limping off, but it proved too little, too late. The hosts had already found two quality looks within the first six minutes and it didn’t even take them 10 minutes to open the scoring. The pervasive role luck plays in goal-scoring is one of the more under-appreciated aspects of the game – e.g., it took (think it was) Miles Robinson’s feeble toe-picked “clearance” to steer the ball into the path of Julian Fernandez, who tucked the ball into the lower right corner of Roman Celetano’s – but the first half of the game saw New York make enough of its own luck to export it to abroad. The final stats erase that a bit, but it took (at least) 20 minutes for Cincy’s defense to get a handle on Andres Perea’s back-post runs and Alonso Martinez’ missed penalty kick at the 12th minute was the first of, gods, three(? four?) clear-cut-to-the-point-of-gilded opportunities he got. (To see the overstuffed catalog, kindly reference the full highlights.) If I had to guess at how NYCFC got that many trips to the same well, I’d put money on Pascal Jansen keeping Martinez close to Matt Miazga and putting them in as many foot races as he could; that led to the penalty call, if nothing else.

New England Revolution Scouting Report: Where Improvement Meets Failure

Builder of dreams? Master of delusions?

Their fortunes haven’t been so good and for some time. After showing up in 2023, the New England Revolution damn near fell off the map in 2024 – only the San Jose Earthquakes strayed into “Thar Be Dragons” – finishing 16 points out of the real playoffs (and nine points below the play-in round) and one slim point above Chicago Fire FC/the abyss. Caleb Porter and The Organization overhauled the roster over the off-season – see the line up /subs in last week’s 2-1 win over Red Bull New York versus the Decision Day line up/subs that handed Inter Miami CF the all-time single-season points record – which brings things current.

New England Revolution
1-3-1, 4 pts., 3 gf, 6 ga (-3); home 1-2-0, away 0-1-1
Last Results: DLLLW (yep, just five games played so far)
Strength/Location of Schedule
@ NSH (0-0 D); v CLB (0-1 L); v PHI (0-2 L); @ NYC (1-2 L); v RBNY (2-1 W)

Notes from the Field
Toward the beginning of last weekend’s broadcast, the color commentary guy announced New England had fired just 5 shots on goal in 2025. This has been confirmed. Their first goal of 2025 was an own-goal scored by New York City FC’s Thiago Martins (who, just to note it, had the audacity to lose his shit at his back-line colleagues after last weekend’s collapse at Atlanta United FC after that). How many shots did the Revs fire on goal in that one? Just one. Out of six total. Having sat through about 40 minutes of that game, I’d note a few things: 1) the Revolution didn’t look as incompetent as those top-line numbers suggest, you could see the green shoots, etc., and 2) as suggested by their other top-line numbers (e.g., 6 goals allowed), they can defend. The latter gets a bit sloppy in transition – and NYC took advantage, if just once – but it’s not defense that’s killing them. Also of note, the Revs started 2025 against taller opposition than some, maybe even many. That can be looked at two ways, of course – i.e., are those teams good, or does New England make them so by being bad? – and that’s where recent trends come in. The win over the Red Bulls – which came fucking late, by the way, and after a build-up held together by spit and the gospel according to Norman Vincent Peale (see full highlights?) – was the first time they’d won the xG battle all season (and they posted some harrowing numbers prior). They looked good for it too – had a couple things going on – e.g., Carles Gil feeding Luca Langoni through the right-side channel and playing to a late run by Ignatius Ganago – and that allowed them to more than double their shots on goal on the season. A multitude of questions hang over the win – e.g., how good are the New York teams this season, or just right now? (Red Bull has looked a little baffled every time I’ve watched them, fwiw); is the new Revs roster coming together? – and that points to the main question FC Cincinnati has to answer: are they one of the “good teams” this season?

Philadelphia Union 4-1 FC Cincinnati: All Kinds of Things Blowing in Their Faces, Plus a Toronto FC Scouting Report!

The wind was a factor, but not an excuse.

“…I can’t imagine a world where Philadelphia pushes Cincinnati around and back like they did against the Lions. Everything I’ve seen from them tells me Cincy will defend not just higher, but more aggressively than Orlando ever did…”

Few things kick a guy’s ego harder than seeing a confident prediction (from here; scroll way down) blow up in his face in just four days’ time. The Philadelphia Union shoved FC Cincinnati into a fucking locker last Saturday, posting a 4-1 home win that left their fans merrily dooping into the night. By the time the ref blew the final whistle, Philly had made off with their lunch money, best friend and first two girlfriends.

About the Game
Both teams came to battle and both looked game for it – even after the Union forced their first goal around Cincy’s right flank a mere six minutes into the game. Related, if mostly in a vibez/spiritual sense, Kai Wagner’s decision to continue his overlapping run contained the seed narrative for the way the entire game played out. Philadelphia’s players read a bounce before Cincy’s time and time again and saw a play develop two beats ahead: whether it was a sixth sense or the sixth day into some shared Groundhog Day, everything a Union player touched turned into something a little better; they played with their wind at their backs, literally, and somehow in both directions. Another thing I noticed: Philly didn’t press, at least not in a greyhound-after-a-mechanical rabbit way; it was more pushing a 4-2-4 to the top of Cincinnati’s defensive third, daring them to play, then getting after anything that moved like a greyhound getting after a mechanical rabbit. The approach proved beyond effective. Cincy struggled to get the ball to the center-stripe and saw it roll back into their defense more times than the Union’s 14 shots (7 on goal!) suggest. Philadelphia would score two more – one at the 30th minute, which included one of those moments when you appreciated VAR for teaching refs some humility (this was an easy call in real time), the second at the 52nd when Tai Baribo wrapped up his hat trick – without Cincy showing any meaningful signs of life. Cincinnati continued to play as if running knee-deep through mud even after Evander scored A Very Evander Goal (i.e., he did it all, start to finish). I’m told Cincinnati fired seven shots somewhere from inside that void and I’m guessing three of those shots and both of the shots on goal came at the end of Alvas Powell’s run from right back to (near) glory just after the 70th minute (this made the full highlights). If this game has a “what might have been,” it was Kevin Denkey tagging his rebound off Andre Blake’s right post instead of into the goal. If that shot goes in, maybe Philly sweats a little instead of making a feast out of another turnover by way of (the impressively effective) Quinn Sullivan feeding Uruguayan striker Bruno Damiani for their fourth. The game was over before it started and Baribo is, however implausibly, the current 2025 Golden Boot leader.

Getting Reacquainted with FC Cincinnati, MLS's Maddest Makeover

Picture the "before" house on fire.

Thumbnail History
FC Cincinnati came into MLS like a paper-mache wrecking ball, starting with one of the worst roster builds in MLS history. They invested heavily in No. 8s for that inaugural 2019 roster - not a true No. 6 in sight, never mind a No. 10 - and rounded it out with a thin foundation of center backs, a couple attack-oriented fullbacks, plus a couple random wingers and two or three forwards with a history of needing service to be effective. The first of their three consecutive Wooden Spoons followed surely as night follows day. This year’s absolutely woeful San Jose Earthquakes team just unburdened them of the record for the most goals allowed in a single season, but Cincinnati may never let go of their claim to the all-time worst goal differential. They barely improved over the next two seasons (seriously, see the goals allowed by the 2021 team), and some of that surely followed from the wild game of musical chairs around the coaching seat - Alan Koch gave way to Yoann Damet, gave way to Ron Jans/some casual racism, then came Jaap Stam, there might have been another coach in there, who can say, really, then Yoann Damet again. Rebuilding from that first, fucking terrible roster was always going to take time, but doing it headless was madness. Small wonder the rehabilitation took a lot of time and, at last, some smart hiring. The Organization helped and hurt on the way to that – by throwing money at all the problems here, and (I think mostly one owner-dude) meddling on the wrong (i.e., soccer) side there – but the former translated as a willingness to burn money until the (many) problem(s) was(were) solved. The Organization kept faith through the failures – e.g., the Spoon-spank’d 2021 team had the still-capable Geoff Cameron and Haris Medunjanin, plus Luciano Acosta, Brandon Vazquez and Brenner, if in pre-threatening form – and, more crucially, seemed to genuinely learn from failure. The biggest shift came with two hirings: first, coaxing Chris Albright away from Philadelphia to act as general manager, then betting on Pat Noonan’s potential by anointing him head coach ahead of the 2022 season; second, they signed Nigerian midfielder, Obinna Nwobodo, at the beginning of the same year, a man who chews real estate and wins 75% of the battles he engages. Those two changes alone made some prior investments – e.g., Alvaro Barreal, Vazquez, and, even if it took a minute, Yuya Kubo – look a whole lot smarter. With all that in place, it took just a couple, if big, defensive signings (Matt Miazga and Yerson Mosquera) and the arrival of a budding goalkeeping star (Roman Celentano) to turn Cincinnati into a Supporters’ Shield-winning team by their 2023 season. Cincy made the semifinals of the MLS Cup playoffs that same season and might have gone farther had (Defender of the Year!) Matt Miazga not lost his whole goddamn mind at the end of a playoff win over the Red Bulls. At any rate, they lost some key players either before (Brenner, gone by April 2023) or during (Vazquez) the 2024 season, but Cincy has a remarkable talent for finding new players when they need them…it’s like they figured out how the rules work or something…

Total Joy Points: -1

FC Cincinnati 2-3 Columbus Crew SC: The Tragedy of Alvas Powell

From googling "tickle palace."

I don’t know what to call that besides a game that leaves you muttering, “c’mon, not like this.”

Last night, FC Cincinnati ended the best season in its – and I want fans and pundits to linger on this next word – brief history with a devastated and dizzied 2-3 loss at Tickle Palace against its dread rival, Columbus Crew SC.

First and foremost, nothing hit the gut half as hard as the blunt fact that Columbus deserved the win. Outside 15 minutes somewhere during the first part of the second half (sorry, I work real estate law), Columbus ran at a Cincy defense that toggled between adjectives all night: sturdy grew to heroic, before a quick journey through desperate yielded to a word I slipped into the conversation above, i.e., dizzied. One of the twits in the broadcast booth called the Columbus’ first goal a turning point, but I’d argue that the second pointed to where the game would ultimately end up. The only question was whether Columbus could get there before the final whistle turned the game over to soccer’s infamous tiebreaker, aka, the test of wills we all call a coin-flip, aka, the penalty shoot-out.

Columbus beat the whistle, of course, and Cincy didn’t look any better on the third goal they allowed than they did on the second. Or the first, for that matter. They didn’t just get outplayed last night; Cincy got beat. Thinking about what that does for the rivalry is the only positive I can take from the loss…

…going the other way, how dim that fire burns against what could have been had Cincinnati won ugly on the back of Aaron Boupendza putting a little more mustard on his best shot of the night? Back in the real world, Patrick Schulte came good in that moment and, I think most observers would accept that justice was served. However much it hurt to send Timmy upstate…

On a purely personal, slightly petty level, I have a notepad full of tantalizing questions that just went to waste – e.g., do you start Aaron Boupendza or Dominique Badji in the MLS Cup that will never happen? Or, if Obinna Nwobodo can go, do you start him or do you honor continuity and Yuya Kubo’s (sturdy?) service over the past two, three games? And to what percentage of a Nwobodo does that answer apply.

All those questions just got kicked to 2024.

FC Cincinnati 3-3 (4-2) Sporting Kansas City: My Butthole Is Still Puckered

The bar for a bad performance, in green and black.

I doubt any team in Major League Soccer can make as strong a case that they should “save it for league” as FC Cincinnati. When you’ve got a shot at a record-setting season, I mean, why not?

At the risk of overselling the argument, what happens to Cincy’s chances of winning the Shield (which I covet) if, say, both Matt Miazga and Obinna Nwobodo went down?

Cincinnati fans may or may not have got a glimpse of that in yesterday’s freakishly nervy, overtime, skin-of-their-teeth-and-chinny-chin-chins 3-3, plus 4-2 in PKs win over a Sporting Kansas City team that usually slums in every house they visit. SKC came within a minute of winning the game outright, but, per the recent run of results, they self-sabotage often and with alacrity. Now...the tale of the tape.

The conversation about how much squad rotation hurt the cause starts with Nick Hagglund’s nightmare start, which featured two mistakes so glaring and close enough together as to give aid and comfort to the reigning MLS King of Boner performances, Austin’s Kipp Keller. Hagglund bookended his three-minute nightmare with a net-bursting own-goal on the front end and a blown marking assignment on a set-piece on the back end that gifted SKC’s Danny Rosero a point-blank header – the Mullet of Mistakes, if you will (that’s, uh, business in front, par...never mind).

Cincinnati responded on the field before it showed up on the scoreboard. They worked the historically vulnerable right of SKC’s defense with their own historically (very much) preferred left side of their attack like an early-80s pro wrestler struggling to get into the figure-four leg-lock – and do hold that thought because it became a major theme of the night. SKC punched back harder than expected: in keeping with head coach Peter Vermes’ theory of where they are, Kansas City does, in fact, move the ball quite fluidly; they got from their end of the field to Cincinnati’s well throughout the first half, sometimes artfully. One sequence in particular – e.g., the one that ended with Johnny Russell almost breaking in but-for Yerson Mosquera’s trailing leg – had the broadcast declaring this one of SKC’s best games of the 2023 season. “Vintage Sporting Kansas City” they called it...

FC Cincinnati 3-1 Nashville SC: The Hardest Easy Thing

Simplifies where you focus, really.

It starts with a question: did FC Cincinnati’s 3-1 win over Nashville SC look easy as the final score to you?

Answer however the spirit moves you, but, when you do, I’d encourage you to think as broadly as possible. Think of all the questions you want answered, basically, and go from there.

With all that in mind, here’s what I saw:

A Cincinnati team forever on the brink of breaking through versus a Nashville team forever falling short. Sure, Nashville knocked canyon-sized dents into their own chances when two of their players did two very stupid things in as many minutes – I’m talking stuff that someone who paid them to throw the game would tell them not to do, because it would telegraph the con (guys! call me!) – but they also might have had their better moments when they had the fewest players. But even that nods to the flipside of the final result – and the game.

Badly as they played – and put me in the “very” camp when it comes to a vote – Nashville still came within a penalty call that (rightly) fell apart upon review of tying this game (should be in here somewhere, if not blame them, not me). They produced flurries on either side of that and it all came after Taylor Washington got his second yellow for...he tried to grab the ball, I think(?), and Fafa Picault picked up his second yellow for, honestly, what do you call Picault’s lunge into Santiago Arias (right?)? A protest against uneven refereeing? A you-can’t-fire-me-I-quit cry for attention? Both came so close together that we never had time to figure out how one sending off would affect the game...

...and yet, can you think of a time when Nashville ever really looked in this game? They scored the first goal, but that blew through a vast fucking desert like the last tumbleweed in the world, a singular sign of life in a vast, expansive nothing. Nashville struggled to step into Cincinnati’s defensive third under any kind of control, which means they struggled to find Hany Mukhtar, and that’s how Nashville ends a game with six shots total and just one of them on/in goal. And that’s more or less what I mean by “forever falling short.” 90% of everything Nashville tried fizzled out. Maybe it’s simple as having no Plan B for the Plan A, aka, “Get Hany the Ball,” but, again, Nashville made their best attacking moments during a last-ditch push for the equalizer – i.e., after Mukhtar came off. More than anything else – and this thought is by no means original to me – Nashville ended the night as a team in desperate need of a Big Think...

...so, why did it take FC Cincy so long to put that team away?

Red Bull New York 1-2 FC Cincinnati: Tactics & Strategery

No, I can't explain the W references...

Sometimes I get strategy and tactics confused. It’s less a question of knowing what one word/concept means versus the other, so much as deciding where one meets the other on its way in the other direction.

I had a whole narrative banged out for this game. It had smart little sub-plots, intrigue between the characters, maybe even a touch of hubris. Then FC Cincinnati went and won the damn thing with a late goal by, yeah, I’ll say it, my favorite who likes to match orange & blue, Obinna Nwobodo. [Ed. - The Mothership didn't provide much for individual highlights, so you'll have to dig into the full ones if you want video on, say, the penalty calls.]

Cincy beat a rising(?) Red Bull New York team in its own house, but that’s not the important thing about this game; moreover, just naming Nwobodo opens up a path to talking about what happened in last night’s 2-1 win. [Ed. – Fuck me, man. Just spit out the final score.]

I did some preliminary research on the Red Bulls yesterday, stuff I chose not to post on the grounds that I was looking at it last night, Cincy played them last night, etc. Most of what I learned dealt with characteristics that simultaneously define and limit them as a team. Famously, they press, they play “energy drink soccer,” etc. But it’s also not that – and I have to credit Calen Carr for giving me the right thought process during RBNY’s stomping of Atlanta United FC a few weeks back. They don’t press so much as they try to dictate where on the field the game gets played; to borrow another phrase Carr uses all the time, “they tilt the field.” “Pressing” and “energy drink” soccer conjure mental images of players chasing ball and players like headless ‘roided-up greyhounds and that misses it; if you watch them, the move close to the ball, often at a walk, then they start with the chasing. They mind their Ps and Qs before setting the defensive posture to “MY BALL!”

That strategy (right?) worked very well through the first half. Cincinnati didn’t do much over the first 25 minutes of the game and they couldn't do anything for the next 20. New York (I know it’s New Jersey....just roll with it) got and scored their penalty at the beginning of that period – and, just to note, I wouldn’t have called that, letter of the law be damned; sure, Hagglund’s hand strayed to face, but Kyle Duncan wasn’t gonna make shit out of that, he didn’t really unbalance him, etc. – but they way they controlled the game struck me as more significant. Cincy barely got across the center-line until something like the 46th minute when they (don’t remember who) finally fired a decent shot from a quality chance on goal and, yes, I do think that’s how xG should work. (I’ve got issues all over...)

New England Revolution 1-1 FC Cincinnati: Notes on a Hypothesis

Tirelessly searching for answers to today's vexing questions

When the New England Revolution’s Dylan Borrero went down awkwardly and was stretchered off around the 20th minute, I remember looking at the Revs’ somewhat headless attach (aka, Justin Rennicks) and wondering whether they could keep up with a mostly all-there FC Cincinnati attack. I would have done better to recall a note from my very own preview for the game:

“...unless Cincy fans see Gil’s name on the injury report...Cincy will be facing a solid, talented Revs team regardless of who starts.”

Young homegrown Esmir Bajraktarevic stepped in for Borrero and the Revs’ rhythm section barely missed a beat. Then again, that turned mostly played out to in the big-picture response. Things didn’t look so hot for the Revs in the near-term. And that “solid, talented team” theory could have looked different, maybe even should have.

To finally turn to FC Cincinnati – i.e., the actual subject of the post – they didn’t waste much time in putting that that theory to the test. Taking any kind of lead would do and Rennicks looked to have handed them one when he tagged a ball Alvaro Barreal clipped past him into the area with his right hand. I didn’t like the call – while there was no question Rennicks tagged the ball with his hand, I never got an angle that confirmed he did it in the “no-no zone” (can we make that happen, guys?) – but referee Alex Chilowicz pointed to the penalty spot...which happened to be the very same one from which Luciano Acosta got stuffed by the Revs’ Dorde Petrovic (how is this not a highlight, MLS?). For what it’s worth, I’m reading the miss as God seconding my doubts on the penalty call...

Cincinnati had dropped a couple stones’ worth of pressure on New England to that point – I thought Brandon Vazquez had pinged one off a post somewhere in there (the highlights memory-holed that one too, if he did) – and the corner that followed in less than a minute after the missed PK followed when they dropped on another one. The cross looked innocuous enough when it floated in, but Yerson Mosquera made a masterpiece of it when he slipped away from Andrew Farrell (a rock all afternoon; one of MLS’ best emergency defenders, still doing it) and into Dave Romney’s (also strong yesterday) blind-spot; ah, Mosquera’s li’l, legal bump into Romney’s back, the masterstroke. Once Cincinnati scored the opener, the test was on.

FC Cincinnati 2-1 Portland Timbers: That Hurt, but It's Over, Bring It In, Guys

Bad man, tenuous metaphor.

If you haven’t watched Peacemaker (which I'd call both specific and 2/3 recommended), and want to duck any spoilers, now is a great time to skip to the third (sorry!) fourth paragraph.

For those who have, you’ll recall that Peacemaker has this horrible, actual-Klan bigot of a father who raises his two sons on violence. They get along great, no clear sibling rivalry, etc. (stick with me through this stretch), but he still has them fight to, in the white supremacist tradition, “toughen them up” in service of the terrible idea that motivates such assholes. At any rate, one time he sends them into a pit he dug in his front yard (again, these are not deep thinkers) for another fight and he’s nakedly pulling for one brother over the other and, wouldn’t you know it, his favored child catches a punch wrong and dies...

...that’s less a perfect analogy than the latest pop culture reference I’ve read about obviously favoring one child over another and things going sideways.

First and foremost (and unlike the fight in Peacemaker), FC Cincinnati and the Portland Timbers put on a better-than-expected show tonight. They traded somewhere around the same number of blows, fought roughly as hard - though, to my surprise, Cincy out-muscled the Timbers – and deviate too wildly on the numbers. While the Timbers had their share, Cincinnati ultimately found the wider openings, held off something of a grabasstic (two “s’s” in that or...?) rally, and ultimately held on for what I’d call a by and large deserved 2-1 win. And, unlike that horrible bigot of a father, I still love and support both of my sons.

I went into the game more worried about the Timbers, naturally, but I’d argue tonight showed them still progressing. They managed to pace more than one portion of the game – the start of both halves, mainly, and then the end after Cincinnati fully committed to the counter to close out the game. Cincy, meanwhile, took over longer stretches – particularly the 20-minute spell of the first half, when they clawed control of the game back from Portland and pressed and pressed until they broke through (hold that thought), and again after stifling the Timbers’ attempted rally at the start of the second – and all that feels like a good shorthand for the state of both teams. Portland’s improving, but Cincinnati has a capacity to stomp its foot on the game in a way the Timbers do not...

...have a mentioned how hard it is to focus on both sides of the ball yet? Which, as implied, goes against the concept of focusing? So, doing my best on the rest, with an assist from the highlights.

Orlando City SC 0-0 FC Cincinnati: More Dutiful Than Beautiful

You can move a lot without going anywhere...

In last week’s Review/Preview, I called Orlando Ciy SC v FC Cincinnati a “Big Early Test.” The hosts failed the test harder than the visitors in yesterday’s 0-0 loss, but Cincinnati doesn’t have a lot to cheer either.

Damn that stray glance I caught while bouncing between games last night, because I knew the final score going in. I still watched every damn minute...well, a lot minutes (a solid 85%) of this game just now and don’t entirely regret the experience. If nothing else, Cincy tidied up the mess in midfield after the opener. Junior Moreno looked steady and I liked the way he (mostly) set up to allow Obinna Nwobodo to prowl further up-field – and to pretty decent effect. Nwobodo set up what may have been the best shot of the game - i.e., the one a happily more-visible Brandon Vazquez chipped against the crossbar – and that speaks to a larger truth, i.e., if either team was going to score yesterday, it would have been Cincinnati.

Turning to the flip-side of that thought, Orlando simply does not generate much offense – or at least haven’t over their first two games of 2023. They’ve fired 13 shots total so far (see this and see that) and with just two on frame (and was one of them the penalty that won it against Red Bull New York?). Having sat through my first full(ish) 90 with them, yeah, can confirm it's a lot of aimless shit, moving in and about the top of the attacking third and to no notable affect. Honestly, you have to assume their fans are bored shitless so far.

I heard talk from the broadcast booth about Orlando “heavily-rotating” its squad ahead of Tuesday’s CCL game against Mexico’s Tigres UANL, but Orlando still squeezed 45-65 minutes out of several clear starters - e.g., Mauricio Pereyra, Robin Jansson, Facundo Torres and Ercan Kara – though let the record note the rumblings from the broadcast booth about looking for options beyond Kara to give the attack some kind of juice.

So, that’s who and what Cincinnati was up against. And, sure and to their credit, they did all right with it. The team found a minimum of two great looks for Luciano Acosta, Brenner fired at least one shot in anger, and Vazquez finally made his 2023 debut, making smart passes – if I recall right, he dimed the big, fat diagonal that teed up Acosta’s better chance - spreading the field with hard, effective running and getting into decent-to-good places in the box. Unfortunately, Orlando’s Pedro Gallese saved all of those, most of them comfortably. To sum Cincinnati’s evening into one pithy phrase...it was fine.

FC Cincinnati 2-1 Houston Dynamo FC: Notes on the First Engagement

Bygone era, my friend.

First, where the hell was the beer boot? You can’t get that level of (admittedly, highly-specific) juice on the internet and then fail to feature it? Was it Cincy’s fault for failing to sell them like the hot cakes they are? Was it AppleTV for missing an opportunity to find one? (That said, the camera team kept flashing to a kid eating dipping dots as if he'd discovered love for the first time...in a Disney channel kind of way...wait.)

I’ll start with the good news: FC Cincinnati won its home opener against Houston Dynamo FC by a 2-1 scoreline. Was that line fat enough? Not for my liking, but not every trip to the park can be a stroll, at least not this early in the season.

A couple Cincinnati players looked regular-season-ready – going with Roman Celentano and Obinna Nwobodo as the big, bright stand-outs (and what a time for the latter to break his duck?) – and, outside them (and a couple others), the overall performance rated somewhere between respectable, decent, and good. I’ll flag a couple soft spots later, but I really like two players as human stand-ins for the kind of night Cincinnati had.

Alvaro Barreal is the big one for me – and you can cut his effigy any number of ways. For instance, you can say (and/or theorize) that after seeing its more famous names get blocked out of the game, Cincy made adjustments to open a wide lane for Barreal on the left. To his credit, Barreal took swashbuckling advantage of that space – here, I’m thinking of the pass he picked up in the first half that sent what was left of Houston’s defense into a fire-drill – and, despite being positioned high left to the point Cincy defaulted to a back four (as opposed to the back five shown in Pravda’s line-up) for large stretches, the man made a man-of-the-match’s share worth of defensive interventions...

...and yet, that one time, when Nelson Quinones torched him so bad up Houston’s left that Barreal took a yellow, if just to save his dignity? If that broad concept wasn’t Cincinnati’s performance in a nutshell, I ask you what was?

And do I see Yerson Mosquera standing as another candidate? I have what I feel like accurate recollections of him single-handedly cutting off Houston’s attacking lanes with turf-eating recovery runs on three separate occasions. He didn’t give up much in the air, not that I saw anyway, and most of his actions fell somewhere between “no comment” and “oh, that’s good...”

FC Cincinnati 2022 Season Review/Preview: Competence's Unexpected Dilemmas

The view from 2019-2021. Fucker looks massive.

I decided to park on a review of FC Cincinnati’s 2022 season for a variety of reasons – the choice to check out in mid-July among them (it’s possible my middle name, “Anders,” is Norwegian for “erratic”) – but not really knowing how to read their season-ending 0-1 loss to the now-MLS-Cup-bound Philadelphia Union played its part as well. In so many words, I understood Cincy had defied virtually every observer’s expectations, but couldn’t really place them in a league-wide context.

Seeing both Philadelphia and Los Angeles FC kick great lumps out of the opposition in their respective semifinals – though, just to note it, LAFC played a more one-way game – went some distance to filling in that blank. FC Cincinnati didn’t just have their best-ever season, they had a very good one. To lift a line out of Matt Doyle’s year-end review:

“’Everything from June 18 to Decision Day is the highlight’ also has an argument, as over that 20-game stretch, Cincy lost just twice. That’s the best of anybody in MLS.”

The bitter little boy who lives inside my head compels me to point out that 10 of those games ended as draws, a point Doyle concedes sotto voce when he notes that “Cincy dropped more points from leading positions this year than anyone but the Revs” (and is it just me or did five teams drop the most points from leading positions? I’ve read that stat somewhere for at least three teams). That bitter little boy missed a deeper truth that I thought I’d written at some point this season, but, because I can’t find it, here it is again: those ten draws meant that Cincinnati went toe-to-toe against all kinds of teams, six of them future playoff teams (including New York City FC), and gave away very little. Call that a long of saying that all those dropped points didn’t matter after Decision Day: what mattered was that Cincy showed they stood just as high as (literally) half the teams in Major League Soccer. And, when you’ve got that, getting into the playoffs amounts to having a chance in every game going forward. As Red Bull New York learned in the hardest of ways.

All that’s better than laudable. It’s beautiful, especially given the dark slapstick that came before. From there, the question becomes how to get better in 2023.

FC Cincinnati 1-1 Nashville SC: On Forgetting What It's Like to Feel

This, only drooling to stay interested.

I don’t have a lot of say about FC Cincinnati’s 1-1 draw at TQL Stadium against Nashville SC, because what is there to say about more of the same? Cincy has now drawn six of their past eight game, enough to keep them alive, but too little to take them in a direction of any particular interest. The point kept them above the playoff line, and that’s nice, but they owe that somewhat to Charlotte’s surprise/loud choke at Toronto FC. Also, look who’s looming in the rearview (Chicago Fire FC; and to think I wrote them off just last Friday.)

Twenty-four hours passed between the time I half-watched the second half and the time just spent struggling to stay awake/interested and the main thing I want at this point is those 50 minutes back. The more I look at the xG lines the data-nerds traced onto the stats page, the more I wonder whether I’m clear on how those things work...and, I’ll be damned if that isn’t the last interesting thing I have to say.

Several Cincinnati players had good-to-great games – e.g., I continue to marvel at Obinna Nwobodo’s range, movement and soccer intelligence (man has Spider-sense, swear to gods), Ian Murphy should start so long as he’s fit, at least in my mind, and Brandon Vazquez scored another great goal and he’s already three goals above what would have made me happy (what? oh yeah, Nashville scored too...eh). A couple players didn’t do so hot – e.g., I have nothing but respect for Yuya Kubo, but he still holds the ball too damn long; I feel the same about Alvaro Barreal, he got a lucky, yet useful assist, but that doesn’t mean there’s a No. 10 shirt in his future – but that’s the game.

Cincy has...eleven games left (? that can’t be right, but I’ve counted three times and...fuck it; it’ll happen) to find another gear. A tough stretch of the season that started as somewhat inspirational – see the 1-1 draw at the Philadelphia Union and the 4-4 home draw/party versus New York City FC petered out into home draws versus Red Bull New York and (most of) the Vancouver Whitecaps and....pffft. After that, what else do you say? It’s not progress, it’s not failure; it’s stasis.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FC Cincinnati 1-1 Red Bull New York: When Constellations Are Just Random, Useless Dots

Having the technology doesn't make using it right...

This won’t take long. I’m trying to get two of these things in tonight...

If I had to choose one way to explain FC Cincinnati’s 1-1 home draw to Red Bull New York, I’d go with the passing accuracy and total passes numbers, plus a pair of passing maps that look like constellations. The Red Bulls do best when they can force the opposition to play their game – particularly the part about forever pushing the ball forward, and with all the frustrated constipation of trying to make a turducken out of a set of badly-matched birds. Cincinnati had all of....I’m calling it about 25 minutes’ worth of impetus in that game in total; the rest of it was just 10 mammals reacting to stimuli. Solid game by Roman Celentano, by the way....

To lay my cards on the table, I’m a little pissy about this draw and mostly because I’m fairly convinced it didn’t have to be this way.

J. R. R. Tolkein getting the penalty call in the 28th-minute didn’t hurt, obviously, and, I don’t care how lonely this hill is, I would never have called that as a penalty. Raymon Gaddis clearly played the ball, one that hung in the air like a slow-pitched softball and, if he kicked J. R. R. in mid-flight, I mean, haven’t we all wanted to do that, if only for the terrible dialogue and dwarf songs alone?

Call that a long, digressive way of saying, I wouldn’t have called that penalty, but that doesn’t erase the fact it 1) wasn’t crazy and 2) was called, and that’s how the Red Bulls turned a whole lot of mostly nothing into one more point on the road. Celentano made all of two saves tonight (and came close on the PK), one of them that asked no more of him than catching a placement shot at head level from range, and that gives a good measure of New Jersey’s “dominance” tonight, and the limits of their present approach to the game. They succeeded in stifling everything Cincy thought to do, as soon as they tried it – boiling over Luciano Acosta’s frustration in the process – but the return they got was almost entirely negative. RBNY only managed one good shot on goal that stuck with me (Morgan, from range, circa the 63rd), but the rest topped out at their trademark frenetic aimlessness. They’re the soccer equivalent of someone who can win the fight for the knife in a street fight, but don’t know what to do with it from there.

Now, to pick up the mail from the complaints department...

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).

New England v FC Cincy Preview: New Sensation (and I Did the INXS Song Just Get Stuck in Your Head?)

First image for "a bright shiny future." Wow.

I tune in with anticipation for FC Cincinnati games in 2022. Not dread. Beautiful. Starting with some numbers...

New England Revolution
Record/Basics: 6-5-6, 24 points, 4-2-3 home; 2-3-3 away; 27 gf, 26 ga, +1 goal differential
Last 10: LWTTWTWTWT* (2-0-3 at home; more favorable than not, tho shit’s done changed)
Oppo: @ DC, v MIA, v CLB, @ ATL, @ CIN, v PHI, @ SKC, v ORL, v MIN, @ VAN

What We Know About Them
First, there have changes since the last time Cincy played New England – e.g., no more Matt Turner, no more Adam Buksa (ergo, no more this) – but something else changed as well: the Revs haven’t lost since the last day of April (30 days in April, right?). Still, hey have plenty of talent – your Bous, your Gils, your...rest of the team – and, after starting slower than an 80-year-old getting out of a low-slung sedan, they’re presently breathing down the back of Cincinnati’s collective necks. And the Orange and Blue play this one on the road.

Notes on Recent Form
[* Fucking Form Guide and its shifting dates...]

After watching, oh, 2/3 of last Wednesday’s 0-0 draw at the Vancouver Whitecaps and poking around some box scores, I noted some commonalities. New England generally likes possession, whether at home or on the road (they got ~60/40 in three of their last five, but had a 6% margin at lowest), but they no longer run up the chances (as I recall them doing). The 1-1 draw at the Union aside (danger, Will Robinson, danger!), they’ve generally gone shot-for-shot against the opposition; perhaps more tellingly (or hopeful), they’ve posted modest xG lately – e.g., from a low of 0.5 against Minnesota, but the rest (again, Philly excepted) fell in the just over 1.0 line.

Some details run between the numbers – e.g., they got an assist in the win over Sporting Kansas City with an Uri Rossell red card around half time, and they played up the gut (and got a little lucky) against the Loons, but they showed some tendency to play toward their left – i.e., toward newbie Dylan Borrero’s – in a couple other games. One more thing to flag, they’ve run over their season-average goal differential and/or pattern lately, but not by much. You can see who they played over their past five games, and where, I’m just providing some context for the results.

Philadelphia Union v FC Cincinnati Preview: Go Forward, Move Ahead, etc.

Scoring against Philly, a visual.

As anyone who finds this preview already knows, FC Cincinnati breaks back into the regular season swing with a trip to Chester,PA/the Philadelphia Union. A tall order, certainly, but the odds of Cincy pinching a point have improved in recent weeks. Let’s start with some facts:

Philadelphia Union
Record/Basics: 6-1-7, 3-0-4 home; 19 gf, 10 ga, +9 goal differential
Last 10: WWWLTTTTWT (4-1-5; 2-0-3 home)
Oppo: @ NYC, v CLT, v CLB, @ TOR, v MTL, @ LAFC, v RBNY, v MIA, @ POR, @ NE

What We Know About Them
They don’t lose, especially at home, but they also stopped beating everyone but the (fucking) Portland Timbers (in fucking Portland) after Match Day 7. Because the Union played two tricky games...and Portland on the road, picking out their latest trends gets tricky. That said, I think they possess when they have to (e.g., at home), but generally don’t give a shit about possession “the concept” and exploit in-game dynamics. Philly has fallen off the pace on goals scored of late, even if the opposition explains it away - those last five are tougher than leather - but they are also flaming-rings-of-hell-hard to score against. People have kicked them for the bender of ties they’re on, but, again, see the opposition and make your own call on what to call that share of the points. Related, and unless I miss my guess, your average Philly fan sees home against FC Cincinnati as a must-win.

Notes on Recent Form
First and foremost, not giving up the Snuggles-soft goals the way the Timbers did will carry Cincy halfway to one point. In the results worth noting, they showed well at LAFC despite giving up two soft goals and, had they not got in their own hustling way, they would have taken all three points at home against the Red Bulls; one more soft goal, two more points wafted into the night air like a silent, unclaimed fart. The Union coughed up an eye-catching number of good looks to New England, but it also looked like it didn’t take more than showing a little interest for the Union to get back into the game. Finally, I was too bored to look into the goal-less home-draw at Miami, but the headline doesn’t scream “league elite,” now does it?