FC Cincinnati 1-0 Philadelphia Union: (Back-Up) Paths of Glory

Again, that's 2 15/16th by one measure.

I wasn’t going to start this post with the question of whether FC Cincinnati’s big, CB-birthed late winner was or was not offside, but then I opened the phone and saw both the image and the measurement at right. Ian Murphy’s nod into the goal-mouth mosh-pit did look half a body offside in real time, but the call survived VAR’s second look and that ushered in Yerson Mosquera’s put-back and Cincy’s 1-0 win over the Philadelphia Union into the history books…

…that said, if that 2 15/16” measurement is accurate, that makes one hell of a statement on the OCD-madness of the post-modern offside rule. That is a fucking fraction, not a cheat-code.

Next thought: bring on Columbus Crew SC and getting the lighting dialed in because TQL Stadium is hosting a goddamn party next Saturday. A body usually has to go to Hollywood to get such perfect plotting.

To acknowledge the obvious, yes, this site fell off the FC Cincinnati beat in August of this season…and then again after the beginning of October. The explanation for that lapse in this boy scout’s duty speaks the thought that will carry this post to its conclusion – i.e., there’s not a lot to say besides, FC Cincinnati good, fire bad, and, whatever else you do, keep on lashing the hounds until they expire or reach the perfect destination, aka, MLS Cup 2023. Just two games stand between Cincy and one of the most thoroughly-redemptive doubles you’ll ever see in this budding whack-job of a league. As others have pointed out – which, here, means MLS’s in-house scribe Matt Doyle in the preview hit for last night’s game – the fact Cincy won anything at all in Year 5 constitutes enough of a miracle. The fact that the trophy in hand is the Supporters’ Shield – i.e., the one that requires consistent, almost grinding success – already gets the story of their 2023 season halfway to Hollywood.

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...)

A Still More Casual Fan's Review: MLS Week 6, Not the Best, fwiw, and FC Cincinnati on the Grind

More of this energy, please.

As hinted it...maybe on twitter, maybe just in my head, I’m thinning out these review posts – and mostly on the grounds that not a lot of people read them. The biggest change will be a switch from writing long blurbs about featured games – with the accompanying pain of marching through nearly all of them - to just writing a narrative that puts the prior weekend’s action in context. And categories. I can’t get enough of those goddamn things. Like popcorn that tastes like jalapeno...

To summarize/judge MLS Week 6 as a whole...it wasn’t the best. Too many ties, too much slouching toward the mid-table, too little rising, shining, showing God your glory, glory, and so on. All the ties involves crap teams and most of the blowouts saw crap teams on the logical end of that equation. It could have used a little more pizazz, basically. Not unlike the one match that will continue to feature at the top of each and every one of these reviews – any game involving FC Cincinnati. On with the show, this is it....

FC Cincinnati 1-0 Inter Miami CF: I Mean, It Was Good. No, It Was Good....

So...do the dots on The Mothership’s xG charts represent the shots on goal? For what it’s worth, I did count 10 dots in Miami’s slowly rising line and noticed how it nudged them one step ahead of a FC Cincy in the second half – at least until they very end when the host’s late chances could have well and truly sealed the game and padded the final score.

Then again, wouldn’t that have misrepresented the game just a touch?

I’d argue a goal-less draw would have provided a fairer result for a Miami team that often gave a little better than they got. A team gets what it earns, of course – and the visitors and/or Phil Neville (or an ill-advised on-field adjustment) did hand Cincy the game winner by having DeAndre Yedlin and Josef Martinez guard Yerson Mosquera at the near post – but Miami did a handful of things better than Cincinnati on the day, most of them following from winning the lion’s share of the 50/50 balls. Going the other way, Miami’s passing map tells another story with its mullet shape – i.e., thick and luxuriantly connected at the back but thinned out up front.

That, in a nutshell, is what makes the final result fair: Cincy defended very well, they didn’t give Miami many clear looks, and Roman Celentano cleaned up the rest – for instance, a shot that a largely locked-out Josef Martinez didn’t hit hard enough to rattle anyone. The only time I recall seeing Celentano really beat was the bomb Franco Negri bounced off the crossbar from the depths of Miami’s attacking third (which I imagine has to be somewhere in the highlights). For all times the visitors set up a siege just beyond the top of Cincinnati’s 18, they rarely broke through the lines, which limited them to half-looks – a reality that, for me, begs the question of why Neville doesn’t consider starting the young Shanyder Borgelin until their regular big-‘n’-bulky, Leo Campana, can tie on his starting boots.

FC Cincinnati 1- 0 Seattle Sounders: Smooth Like Victor...

Victor Mature, in a less than mature moment...

I can’t tell you how much hearing the broadcast booth dip into the cliche about tonight’s game being “kind of like a playoff game” got under my skin...

...and yet the sons o’ bitches got it more right than wrong. The game labored under the pacing of a slow-burn drama, but FC Cincinnati’s 1-0 home win over the (once) red-hot Seattle Sounders (I’ve earned that; Portland Timbers fan) came to life shortly after Seattle decided to take chances. To that point, yep, both teams really did play it in the risk-averse fashion of a playoff game – something I find utterly bizarre given how little any given game counts in the MLS regular season. I get playing for the win, but I also get swinging for the fences when points matter as little as they do right now, aka, buckle up for 20 weeks’ worth of loose claims about this result or that one “proving [YOUR TEAM] really belongs this season.” Yessir, “statement win” articles are already dropping.

As noted/argued in my game thread on this one, a watchable soccer game relies on one team sincerely believing it’s the better on as a starting premise. If Seattle felt that tonight, they didn’t show it, at least not at the beginning. To harp on a theme I expect I’ll be playing all season long, Seattle pumped up their aura with two season-opening wins, but...had you described the setting and opposition of each – i.e., the Colorado Rapids and Real Salt Lake, both in Seattle – I doubt you’d have to make a long case for them getting all six points. As implied at the top of the game thread, I saw Cincinnati away as Seattle’s first real challenge of 2023.

Before going any further, I want to make one thing clear: I will not be indulging in any “your team really belongs” narratives until sometime after the 20th week in the season. Going the other way, Cincy put together an impressive evening, maybe even a complete one. Call it a mature performance, the kind of wily veteran shit you see in a team that feels a breeze at its back. That’s not always entertaining to watch – won’t lie, I was bored for fair stretches of this one – but a well-managed game provides comforts and satisfactions of its own.

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.