FC Cincinnati found some of their mojo again in Leagues Cup, winning three times and making the Round of 16 before bowing out of the tournament earlier than expected. The three consecutive losses in league play headed into the tournament feel present on the mind still, but the corner of health and player availability feels to have turned and the transfer window has added even more assets to the roster to bolster the squad.
There are nine games left in the regular season to get tuned up for the MLS Cup Playoffs, and lots of milestones and goals to hit in those nine games so you can’t write off any game in the stretch. Five points behind Supporters’ Shield leaders Inter Miami CF, FC Cincinnati runs the gamut of top clubs in the league to get prepared. Games against Columbus, LAFC, Philadelphia, Nashville and New York City FC mean that opportunities to make a run for the Supporters’ Shield, and become the first back-to-back winners of the Shield in a generation, is still very much in play.
These two concepts fortunately go hand-in-hand. FC Cincinnati wants to be peaking at the right time so they go into the MLS Cup Playoffs hot as can be, but can only do that by winning the games in front of them. And if they win the games in front of them, they make a run for the Shield.
Easy peasy.
Well it takes some experience getting hot. Experience FC Cincinnati has in more than a few ways. Earlier this season The Orange and Blue went on a record seven-game win streak, in 2023 they rattled off 10 unbeaten matches and only one loss in 14 matches. The point being, the concept is not foreign to them.
They’ve also added talent from the 2023 roster that has veteran experience with end of season hot streaks and knows how important consistency week over week is to that long term run.
“It can happen for a number of different reasons,” DeAndre Yedlin said of how teams can find that spark to get hot at the right time. Yedlin was part of an Inter Miami side last year that sparked its season in 2023 to a Leagues Cup trophy and just barely missed out on the 2023 MLS Cup Playoffs despite a dreadful first half of the season. “Part of it can be luck. Things just start falling your way and it's a domino effect. Things start falling your way, the confidence raises, players get more comfortable and break out of their shell a little bit. When everybody's ticking and everybody's on the same page, that's when the teams get in form and teams get hot.”
FC Cincinnati is, as the trends suggest, starting to have some of its dominoes fall. They’ve acquired a new center back to bolster the back line in Chidozie Awaziem, and Miles Robinson has returned from international duty and is once again available for the long haul of the season. They’ve also acquired a new striker in Nico Gioacchini, who has proven credentials in MLS and international seasoning from time in Italy and France.
“Certainly, we've had stretches where, I think it was seven games where we won. There was some luck with that. There was also some bad luck with some of the losses. That's just the way it goes. But we're going to do everything in our power to make sure that we come back into this night game stretch, trying to be as close to perfect.”
That “bad luck” comes in the form of injuries and other absences that left FCC shorthanded both from a talent perspective and from a leadership perspective. Injuries to players like Matt Miazga and Nick Hagglund left a hole in the locker room that took time for other leaders (like Yedlin) to understand and fill. Luciano Acosta, the team’s captain, also missed time while the club managed the pain in his foot in that stretch run, another unlucky domino that takes time to resort. Lucho, the 2023 MLS MVP, is so vital to everything FCC does (like any great player for any great team is) that it takes some adapting to learn how to play without him. It’s easy on paper to just point to players like Luca Orellano and Gerardo “Dado” Valenzula – who have been excellent in Lucho’s stead – and just expect them to fill in the gaps seamlessly, but that takes learning as well. And in a salary cap league like MLS, losing central pieces in succession like FCC did, can be devastating and unforgiving.
But given the situation now, the additions, returns and the time for rehabilitation and rest some guys (like Lucho) got, it’s fair to be optimistic that the dominoes are being picked up and reset for a more advantageous run in the final nine games.
“The goal is just to keep getting better game by game,” Luciano Acosta added to the theme of ‘what comes next after Leagues Cup.’ “We'll keep going, trying to do just that, a good job.”
“I still have recovery to do…I've been managing that with the staff, and trying to get right in every way. As I've said, the goal is to be ready to go for the (Inter Miami match on August 24) and beyond.”
The health of Luciano Acosta is the biggest domino of the set and could be the thing to make or break the season. Pat Noonan, his coaching staff and players are not going to change their habits or commitment to the process if Acosta is hurt or unavailable. But, again, given the way MLS rosters are governed Acosta is not an easily replaceable player by any stretch of the imagination.
If he’s healthy, there isn't a better player in this league, thus, part of “getting hot for the stretch run” is getting #10 healthy and clicking on all cylinders. That may come for the 24th or decision day, but either way it’s essential. Part of Leagues Cup was giving him the time he needed to get a head start on that recovery. That’s a major success.
“Up until tonight, I think the tournament was played in a really good way,” Pat Noonan said of Leagues Cup as a whole after the defeat to Philly. “As with a poor performance, you look at it all and try to see what we did well and why things went wrong tonight. We’ll get some answers, but some of those answers come the hard way. But we get a chance to get some guys to recover and hopefully have good preparation when league play resumes.”
“We’re capable of making a strong push down the stretch,” Pat Noonan said confidently after the Leagues Cup defeat to Philadelphia Union. “If it remains as is, we have the pieces to be strong down the stretch.”
FC Cincinnati is in a position to make another strong push to multiple trophies this season. But that push starts right now. They have just over a week before their next match, if they make the most of it, great things are achievable.
