If you saw Paul Walters smile just a little bigger than everyone else last Thursday night when FC Cincinnati took a 1-0 lead over Club Querétaro, you can understand why now. Walters, 20, was told prior to that match that if FC Cincinnati won their opening game in Leagues Cup to secure their passage to the knockout stages, he would be in line to make his first team debut in the second match of the group stage.
At Full-Time on Thursday, Roman Celentano (who kept a clean sheet that night) went directly to Walters knowing this is how the situation was going to play out, and told the FCC Academy product “Get Ready for Monday, Big Man.”
Walters was ready for Monday, and FC Cincinnati needed him to be.
Somewhat left behind from the dramatics of Monday night’s come from behind victory over New York City FC, where The Orange and Blue scored four times in the final ten minutes to secure not only a victory but also the first time they have won when trailing by two goals in the club’s history, Walters stood on his head to keep FC Cincinnati in the game and give them a chance to even make the comeback with a career professional best of eight saves to keep New York at bay.
The other eight-save game in Walters’ portfolio was an MLS NEXT Pro match with FC Cincinnati 2. So to make such a statement in his debut first team match certainly shone sun on this young player’s potential. But potential is for the future, FCC needed him now and he delivered. Rolling across the box to make diving saves, leaping to punch shots away from danger, absorbing them when he framed up his saves and caught them.
It wasn’t a perfect night, Walters lamented post game that he “basically gifted them that second goal,” when he was unable to collect a rebound on a shot and the rebound rolled to an NYCFC player who scored the second goal for NYCFC. But when the chips were down, the Cincinnati native who was proud to play for his hometown club answered the call.
For 80 minutes his story seemed to be the only one that would come out of TQL Stadium with any positive effect. Even if, let's say, FC Cincinnati hadn’t mounted what can only be described as one of the most impressive comebacks in Leagues Cup history and suffered a disappointing 2-0 defeat, Walters’ performance still would have been excellent and exciting.
But what transpired in the final 10 minutes of the match is where club lore is born. It made for the kind of game that people remember where they were, what they were doing, or who they were with when they watched the game. Announced attendance was just over 22,000, but hundreds of thousands will swear they were among them standing and cheering as Sergio Santos cashed in the final goal of a frenetic stretch that gave FC Cincinnati the victory.
Some may have left early. And you could hardly blame them. It’s the second game in the club’s history played on a Monday night, and even then it was a late kickoff due to it being a Leagues Cup match. People have work in the morning, kids to think about as school starts soon. The math was on their side, FC Cincinnati had literally never mounted a two-goal comeback for a win. But in the retelling of this game, when the details are lost to history, no one will include ‘and I left in the 77 minute’ to their retelling.
What they will include is the fourth goal in 600 real life seconds, even fewer of which were spent playing soccer as the celebration had already begun. What they will include is the blast of sound that erupted each time when Pavel Bucha, Yamil Asad, Yuya Kubo and Santos scored to earn the comeback victory.
“You hear the crowd tonight. I thought it sounded like it was sold out, honestly, at the end of the game, it was electric,” Pat Noonan said in his postgame press conference. “You could feel the momentum shift.”
This game had unique stakes attached to it in that both teams were already through to the knockout stages. A win, loss, PK win or PK loss all resulted in FCC and NYCFC playing a game in the Round of 32. So in the grand scheme of things it’s hard to quantify how important Monday night was. The stakes did provide the opportunity for players like Walters to make his debut, and it allowed for managed minutes for players like Chidozie Awaziem and Ian Murphy. Others, like Bucha and Kubo got to start on the bench and save their legs and those still suffering from nagging injuries like Luciano Acosta and DeAndre Yedlin are afforded another day of rest before the hard choices of selection for a knockout stage game need to be made regarding their availability.
But for FC Cincinnati, there was clear motivation for success beyond the literal results and points that were on the line.
“This win helped our team a lot, because it was so important for us,” Pavel Bucha, FC Cincinnati’s first goalscorer and tide turner, said postgame. “Even though we were sure that we advanced before the game, We still needed to win at home.”
“This season, we have lost so many games in front of our fans, and we wanted to give them some joy. I'm so happy for them and for us.”
“It was important that we took the last performance and kind of continued to feel what it's like to win games in a short stretch,” Noonan added as to the importance of the win in the larger scheme of the tournament and season. “That's important, despite having already been in the knockout round, winning for the confidence of the group is important. So that was kind of the focus going into it. Winning comes in a lot of different forms, and it's always good to see, ‘okay, we can be down multiple goals and still be in a game,’ and still understand that if you can just find the one moment to get the goal, to get the momentum...you could feel the momentum shift with the goal, and then certainly the second goal, the guys, you know, they took off from there.”
It was made clear from the beginning of the tournament that this group stage and subsequent knockout stages were about finding their groove again. Part of that is learning, or perhaps remembering how to win a match in non-ideal situations. So to not only get a result, but get a result like this, is huge moving forward.
It’s hard to imagine the team feeling more confident about themselves than they do now. Confidence, a largely undefined substance in this instance, can be earned or lost in different scenarios. There have been games this season that FCC have won where they left the field feeling worse about themselves than they did when they entered. But with four goals late to earn a victory in a game that featured all the depth that this club has to offer, the locker room was energized and that ‘mojo’ seemed to return just a little bit.
“Just incredible team spirit,” forward Corey Baird said of the vibes in the locker room postgame. Baird earned high praise from his Head Coach postgame for the energy he brought for a full 90 minutes and his flexibility to move to the wingback position when called upon. “stuff like this makes you really believe any game you go into, no matter how poorly it starts or what's going on, we can find a way to win.”
“It was a tough stretch before (Leagues Cup), at least for us. We lost some key players and some key voices. So over the last two games it's really been about other guys stepping up… So I think it's been good for us to kind of get some of this with a different group, without those faces and having guys who step up, and I think guys have been doing that.”
There was every reason for FC Cincinnati to hunker down and just take the 2-0 loss and move on to the knockout stages. The starting lineup in the match didn’t look anything like one we’ve seen this season, largely the performance was quality despite some of the goalscoring opportunities and with preplanned subs and rotation, the goal was achieved in terms of seeing the team through to the knockout stages with health in mind. But even in this “meaningless” game like some called it due to the low stakes, FC Cincinnati had their own goals in mind – perhaps more philosophical in nature – and worked to achieve them to the bitter end.
The circumstances did not favor them, but The Orange and Blue won in spite of them. A true sign, in my opinion, of a winning culture.
And for any of those out there who may have left early. Don’t worry, that can be our little secret, no one else has to know. If you need a character witness for your presence, give me a call, I’ll back you up. Because Monday, August 5 at TQL Stadium was the kind of night you remember attending, no matter where you were for all the action.
