ST. PAUL - The calling card of FC Cincinnati earlier this year was the defensive strength The Orange and Blue could lean on to earn results. Even when the offense wasn’t clicking, the defense would be there to ensure results and give the attacking group the confidence it needed to push forward and be creative.
That presence on the defensive side of the ball returned in a significant way Wednesday night in Minnesota. Pat Noonan’s squad turned in a tough as nails, stout, and all around dominant defensive performance that kept a desperate Minnesota United FC off the score sheet in open play and earned three points on the road.
Somewhere along the way this season, FCC had lost some of that pizazz on the defensive side of the ball. It’s not hard to see when, where and maybe why that fall off occurred exactly (a June night in San Jose and the following weekend in Cincinnati where Matt Miazga and Nick Hagglund go injured in successive matches is a good place to start looking) and it’s taken a few weeks to reconfigure, but Wednesday’s winning performance was as consistent and controlling as it’s been this season.
Miles Robinson, the Center Back who also was absent from the squad for large stretches on international duty, played the role of Captain America tonight and proved why he’s one of the best defenders in MLS. Chidozie Awaziem, one of the newest additions to FCC turned in his strongest performance thus far and Ian Murphy (making his 100th appearance for FC Cincinnati) shined in a total performance by the centerback group.
The core was challenged time and time again by a Minnesota United FC team that retooled its offense this transfer window, and each time they dispatched the danger. And when danger got a little too close to goal, Roman Celentano was there to handle it. Often looking more like a specific Pink Floyd album than a 24-year-old goalkeeper.
“Credit to Minnesota, they put a lot of pressure on us and we relied on the back line to make a lot of individual plays, to defend the box well,” FC Cincinnati Head Coach Pat Noonan after the match. “That's going to be a recipe for success down the stretch if we want to win on the road in tough games. It's not always going to be with us in control. So (FCC) went about that game in a really good way.”
It wasn’t always pretty, but it was effective. The Loons had their opportunities, and plenty of them. But in a game on the road this late in the season, that is going to happen. Especially against a team like Minnesota as they push for a playoff spot. Noonan helped contextualize tonight’s game by explaining that when you play on the road against teams with quality, you can’t expect to control 100 percent of the game. But learning how to play in that chaos and still producing a three-point performance is important for when the playoffs come, because (with how the MLS Cup Playoff format is arranged) you’re going to have to do that to win it all.
Wednesday night at Allianz Field in St. Paul, Minnesota was a tune-up game for the playoffs. Every game from here on out is a tune-up game for the playoffs. But this one in particular featured all the characteristics of one and FCC answered the bell. From the scrappy, physical, hot blooded attitude Minnesota United FC (a compliment) brought, to the energized and believing fans in the stands, to the all-out assault of offense The Orange and Blue weathered in the final 10 minutes and stoppage time, a neutral, uninformed observer may have suggested they were watching a Cup Final.
“I'm really pleased with the performance from the group,” Pat Noonan said of the match. “After a lot of the emotional and physical or emotional highs, and then you know the physical demands and emotional demands of our previous game, to be able to turn it around the way they did, I was really impressed with that. ”
“Unfortunate start to the second half with how we conceded. But even in the aftermath of that, nobody was rattled. I think we continued to play in a good way.”
FC Cincinnati passed all of the mental skills checks on the evening. They battled in an unfriendly environment, responded to adversity, did not let up for a moment, and did so all while playing against an unfamiliar opponent on a short week. You can point to specific performance outcomes in the match (if you really insist on nitpicking) that did not go the way FCC wanted them to. But even then, the signs of development are there.
To that point, all that was old is new again. The defensive performance helps raise the floor of potential outcomes and gives the offense an opportunity to once again find itself. The major theme of the final stretch of the season post international break (as prescribed by Noonan) was to have roster availability so as to build some consistency into the teams’ performances. To give the space for, in this instance, offensive relationships to flourish.
To that respect, again, if we’re nitpicking, it wasn’t a perfect night. But seeds of promise are being planted, and some seem to be taking root.
The first goal of the night was an emotional one in that it was Yuya Kubo, this time starting at striker, scoring his 10th goal of the season in his 150th appearance for The Orange and Blue. But the real magic of the score was the pass that preceded it. Awaziem -- who was only the able to advance into offensive space because the team was so confident in Robinson and Murphy – slipped a pass past the defenders and onto a sprinting Kubo, who took a one touch shot and buried the chance with expert precision.
Eagle eyed viewers will have noticed that Awaziem had nearly connected that pass twice before, but the pace on the pass left the ball just out of reach of an attacker. But the nuisance goes even further. Yuya Kubo said postgame he realized the path and space he needed to run into based on observing an entirely different sequence which Awaziem passed to Luciano Acosta more directly. With the attention Acosta attracts from defenders, there was a different space that opened itself up. So when he saw that same process begin to develop, he changed course to slip into that open space and Awaziem was ready to fire off the beautiful curling through ball pass.
The detail then goes even further. Kubo added that this goal started as a possibility because he and Awaziem connected once before during Leagues Cup 2024 in a comeback win over New York City FC, and they had been talking about how to best repeat that play while in training.
The second goal for FC Cincinnati is just another example in it’s own right. Ian Murphy plays a ball forward for Yuya Kubo on the wing, a space he knows Kubo likes to shade into when playing striker. Kubo then puts a beautiful flicked pass more centrally to Luca Orellano, who Kubo knows likes to cut into the middle for his attacks on goal. None of them know Orellano would proceed to swim through three defenders and bend an outside foot curler to the far post for a golazo, but the build-up is based on mutual understanding. A combination of familiarity, and technical skill.
This is, in a nutshell, how the relationship building consistency plays out and pays dividends over time. The switching of the lineups and positions have not always been because of preference. Pat Noonan and his staff have done perhaps one of the most impressive jobs in MLS this season in managing challenges while still excelling in the table. But, in an anecdotal kind of way, this is an example of “the process” in the final stretch of games.
“I scored because we played well,” Kubo said after the match, emphasizing the ‘we’ in the sentiment. “If we play well, then we get chances. That's why I thank my teammates.”
“I personally am getting more comfortable with (the group) but I think everyone is more on the same page right now,” Ian Murphy said of team cohesion. “You can see it with the game against Columbus. It was Alvis (Powell) and (Awaziem) and DeAndre (Yedlin). I think we have a system where we feel more comfortable now, and I feel like it's starting to show a little.”
The celebration for these three points will have to be short-lived as FCC will return to Cincy Wednesday night, train at Mercy Health Training Center on Thursday, then jet off to Nashville on Friday after training. Two days is more than enough time to purify themselves in the waters of the Little Miami River, Pat Noonan has an impressive 16-4-5 when playing on short rest.
After the New York game in Leagues Cup, we had no idea some moment, some sapling of a relationship or idea took root that it would end up scoring a goal nearly six weeks later. Hopefully, after Wednesday night in the Twin Cities we will be able to point to some spark in an important moment in the MLS Cup Playoffs and say ‘hey, that looks a lot like the play that didn’t quite work in Minnesota.’
Ideally, we all do that more than a few times.
