FC Cincinnati 1-0 Penn FC: Fanendo Adi's Rosetta Stone Qualities

It can also be a soft, cushioned lie.

I want to start with a question: if you’d never seen people play soccer before, how would you know that, say, Bayern Munich, or glory-days Barcelona FC were good-to-great teams? On one hand, sure, if you watched 90 minutes of a game and just followed the reaction of the crowd (even on the simplest level of hearing the elation that follows a goal), you’d understand those teams to be better than their opposition…

…but if you don’t know the quality of the opposition, all you could really say is, “that team in the blue and red vertical stripes sure looked better yesterday! Do you like your blorpduckle with a splooge of kepetzal? (That’s me doing alien cuisine, the point is I’m an alien observing a soccer…never mind.)

For as long as I’ve followed FC Cincinnati this season - and period that started with the June 9th road win against North Carolina FC, and includes everything up to tonight’s surprisingly (probably?) tight 1-0 home win over Penn FC, but not last week’s draw against Nashville FC (busy) and the friendly, because fuck friendlies, if you can prevent a player from skiing, they shouldn’t play exhibitions by the same logic, but I digress. (Also, for the curious, here’s my origin story as relates to FC Cincinnati, aka, I come by this semi-honestly.)

Over that period of time, FC Cincinnati has generally looked the better team on the field in those games (for the record, this is now my 8th game, and I’ll work on the sidebar. someday), and today was no exception. Another general trend: FC Cincy seems to take 15-20 minutes to come into a game, and today was no exception. The chances piled up in the end, until Emanuel Ledesma - always the man most likely to - ricocheted a free-kick off the back of the Lucky Mkosana (i.e., the ironically-named dreadlocked dude who posed a moderate active threat for Penn FC tonight), and into the goal. And that wasn’t even Ledesman’s best chance, because that came in the 54th minute when he made space for himself and pounded a powerful lefty off the post. Still, Ledesma scored the winner, as he has for much of Cincy’s 2018. They’ve got players like that all over the roster too, attacking players contributing steadily, whether it’s Danni Konig, Nazmi Albadawi, or even Corben Bone.

FC Cincinnati 2-1 New York Red Bulls II: Who You Got?

It comes with dessert. No way.

Just to note it, I’m reminded that I know something less than fuck-all about the Western Conference every time I check scores for the USL. Please get to MLS soon, FC Cincinnati; because ignorance pains me…

To stick with the subject, the general…mien of FC Cincinnati’s 2-1 win over New York Red Bulls II (“RBII” hereafter) also pained me a little: elegant as an elephant on roller blades, refined as a Salisbury Steak TV dinner, this game played out as pure bumper cars until around the 40th minute (what? I feel like “Salisbury Steak” should be capitalized). It slipped in and out of looking like two teams playing soccer instead of Aussie Rules Football for the rest of the game, but, full credit to them, Cincinnati did look the better team at the sharper ends of the field (i.e., defense and offense). The numbers bear me out on that “slop-fest” theory, btw; I’ve never seen passing accuracy numbers that low, and holy shit, how did anything positive happen out there with that much fuck-uppery going on?

To note something else, RBII was the toughest team (per their record) that FC Cincy has played in a while, and maybe that accounts for all the gore on the field…am I? Yeah, I’m exaggerating that a bit. All I’m saying is the game was physical, and I think Blake Smith could easily have been sent off when he rose from a rough challenge and shoved an RBII player to the dirt. What would have transpired from there is anyone’s guess, but that didn’t happen, and that’s a counter-factual, and I don’t deal in that crap. Back to the factual, RBII came within one wispy whisker of tying the game in stoppage time (and you can see that, and “the numbers” referred to above, via The Match Center). Cincinnati came within one defender’s mid-section of growing their lead one minute later, so the galactic wheels of virtue continue to spin true.

In fewer words, this game was close, but it wasn’t. RBII attacked relentlessly, while FC Cincy attacked ruthlessly, and won the game as a result. The only place Cincinnati came out clearly ahead was the score-line, and that means why is at least one of the questions in play. Having been introduced to RBII just now, I can’t address their side of things - though I will say that Andrew Tinari, Amando Moreno and (especially) Lucas Stauffer showed up for them throughout the game. As for Cincinnati, they flipped a chunk of their line-up in the midst of a busy week and futzed with the formation (not a big fan of that 4-3-3), and part of me blames the inelegance of the close result for that. On the flipside of that, seeing the players who stuck to the roster - e.g., your Manny Ledesmas, your Blake Smiths, your Forrest Lassos - could say something about who FC Cincy views as useful, if not indispensable. (Hold up: I neither watched nor checked on FC Cincinnati’s midweek win over Charlotte Independence; that said, just did and just confirmed the noteworthy rotations.)

North Carolina 0-2 FC Cincinnati: Mostly Groping Toward Understanding

Hell adjacent, but also a start.

First of all, I’m gonna fuck up some names. Second, I don’t really know this team, FC Cincinnati, either, because this was my first 90 minutes with them. A speed date, if you will. That said, I think I picked up a reasonable sense as to who does what on FC Cincinnati, or at least this specific version of their roster. Or against this specific opponent. Again, this is the first step to me knowing what I’m talking about, and give it a month or two.

Hold on, backing up: FC Cincinnati beat North Carolina FC 2-0 in the Containment Area for Relocated Yankees, North Carolina (that’s Cary, NC). They looked reasonable for the win, but North Carolina gave them plenty of breathing room by taking…just terrible shots, more around than on goal. And that “around” was very general. As noted in my catch-up post on FC Cincy, they have a decent knack for creating wide-open chances, and tonight was no exception. There, I’m thinking their second, more than their first: when Nazmi Albadawi found Emery Welshman in that much space on Cincy’s right, it isolated the (surprisingly nimble) forward against (I’m guessing) Carolina’s left-sided centerback, and Welshman sat him right on his can with a cut inside, fired the shot, and, boom, FC Cincinnati bags their insurance goal in the 87(-ish) minute, game very much over, and Cincinnati three points clear on top of the United Soccer League’s Eastern Conference. (Just five points behind Western Conference leaders Real Monarch SLC; also this puts Cincy level on points with Timbers 2, but with a game in hand.)

To step back still further, it’s sort of a trip starting with this team where I did - i.e., tonight - but I don’t think my personal experience differs so much from an “O.G.” Cincinnati fan. (Again) This team is two years old and counting, for fuck’s sake, and, at time of writing, I’m not sure how new or old any of these twits are to the team. For instance, Emanuel Ledesma, team points leader, came over from the New York Cosmos just this season. Russell Cicerone, the player who stood out most tonight, turns out he’s a rookie, an at least one-time MAC player of the year award, and, no, I’m not looking that up, because who cares what you did in college, kid, but damn good game tonight. You made that first goal, but, wow, didn’t Danni Konig literally wrestle that fucker home? And that was Cincinnati’s first goal. Also, when did Konig sign? Ah, just May 2017.

My point is, players can’t have deep roots with this team, because this team does not have deep roots. There is no “street cred” with this bunch. We’re all fucking newbies at this rodeo.

Now, to the game itself and what it told me about who does what, I absolutely insist on beginning with the statement that you can’t possibly know the tip of shit about a team by watching one game. There are too many variables involved - starting with the quality of the opposition (wait for it) - to allow any reasonable person to think he (or she) can make any kind of firm statement about any player, the tactics, or just anything about a team after just one viewing. With that firmly in mind, dig this…