FC Cincinnati 2-1 Sporting Kansas City: Progress and Precarity

Not entirely apt, I just like it.

The three points look the same in the standings - and, hello, top row - and FC Cincinnati got the expected win over a Sporting Kansas City team that has at least seven reasons to feel desperate. And yet, their 2-1 win took a lot more magic than it should have. And that matters when you think about Cincy playing taller competition.

About the Game, Briefly
Cincy looked like the cat idly swatting around a mouse over the opening 10 minutes, but the mouse started nipping at the paw from there, maybe even broke a little skin. Those little nibbles took the form of half-chances, most of the early ones through Dejan Joveljic (once, it took a hastily-assembled mob to keep him from turning a Tah Anunga giveaway into a sitter), but SKC also fired the first shots on goal and generally looked like the better bet to open the scoring…until a play that came out of the backside of nowhere turned the game on its head. Whether by choice or gamble, the visitors left Lucas Engel free on their right for most of the first half and dared Cincinnati to find a use for him. The cat bit back (a little heavy on the metaphor, sorry) when the ball finally found Engel where he could get a clean look on goal. His power/placement shot forced a save/rebound out of John Pulskamp who pushed it directly to the well-compensated and, in that moment, unmarked Kevin Denkey. He finished what might have been Cincy’s first shot of the half that ended the first half at 1-0 to the hosts. SKC shook off the blow and came out as if playing for their jobs. They knocked Cincinnati back on their heels over the opening 20 minutes of the half and even made Cincy sweat a little with a Daniel Salloi shot from no more than eight yards out and someone (probably Safi Suleymanov) coming within a foot or two (at most) of clipping an own-goal off Anunga’s heel (have to think at least one of those shows up in the full highlights). With Cincinnati bringing 80% of SKC’s energy, Pat Noonan moved to bury the game around the 65th minute by bringing on a recovering Obinna Nwobodo (for Anunga) and setting Sergio Santos loose up top; the fact he pulled (the still-recovering) Matt Miazga for Santos speaks to the mindset. The impact was far from immediate – I suspect half of Cincy’s 14 shots didn’t come until those last 10 free-wheeling minutes before the final whistle – but, for my money, those changes tipped the game and brought a little more vigor and composure to a team/shape that kept bending and chasing to that point. Even then, it took something special from Denkey – we’re talking with a diamond-studded bow and like he read first your diary, then your mind to get it 1,000% perfectly-right – for Cincinnati to score the insurance goal they ultimately needed to take all three points. When Zorhan Bassong finally broke through for SKC, and on a goal that would have shined bright on any other afternoon, they got the goal their performance deserved. Not enough, but a much-needed sliver of hope for their next game.

I Love MLS Before June, How About You? Revisiting Assumptons and Echoes Thereof

Let's lean all the way in...

Shortly before First Kick 2022, I wrote a couple post in which I set expectations for every team in Major League Soccer – one in January, aka, before most teams had done shit, and another in February that talked about which teams I thought would be competitive, or had taken good steps to get there...which I'm not sure I ever posted...shit. At any rate, two weeks before America’s top-flight, male domestic league nods off for a couple of weeks (for the most part), I took what I’d internalized based on what I’d seen to that point to project where I thought those same teams would be as of…well, today, basically, a thought process that amounted to resetting expectations.

With a solid majority of teams having 14 games behind them – which, for those teams, means they have 20 games ahead – and with some time off for every team in MLS and/or time/space to recalibrate, tonight felt like a good time to run all the theories in those posts against what's happened so far. Down below, and in alphabetical order, and with (I think) no links (success!), I’m going to look back at my preseason expectations – and, here, I pulled notes from that conceivably-unposted February post where I had them, and ran with the January notes where I didn’t, and if/when you see quotes around anything, I’m pulling it directly from those posts, the rest is paraphrasing – and then revisit what I thought going into the final two-to-four games going into the June break (dated May 16, 2022, for reference), to try to see which teams are meeting expectations, which have tripped some varying miles short thereof.

That’s it for the preamble. Hey, ho, let’s go…

Atlanta United FC
Preseason Theory
“I’m going to mentally downgrade them out of spite,” but I believe I wrote that before Thiago Andrade showed up…then again, I probably read him as a like-for-like replacement for Ezequiel Barco whenever he arrived.
Pre-June Break Projection
“So…more of the same, then?” (@ NSH, v CLB)
Updated Theory
Atlanta got exactly one point from those two games and they’re two points below the playoff line in the Eastern Conference. As of now, I’d put their ceiling at one side or the other of the playoff line – i.e., a combination of needing to clean up their own backyard and needing some stumbles to come down from above.