When the FC Cincinnati players and coaching staff arrived at Lunken Airport early Thursday morning, spirits were high. Smiles filled faces and laughter reverberated around the waiting area.
“There’s a lot of excitement,” Head Coach Alan Koch said. “You can feel the energy from the guys this morning. They’re ready. This feels very real right now.”
It is real.
After months of anticipation of what MLS will entail — and years of anticipating if the club would even join the league — FC Cincinnati departed the city for their first game in their new league. On Saturday night, the Orange and Blue play Seattle Sounders FC at CenturyLink Stadium to open the 2019 regular season.
From the time Cincinnati was awarded an MLS expansion bid in late May until Saturday, FCC had 277 days to build a club and prepare for the new league. It’s the shortest timeline for any expansion side in modern league history. Those days include most of the 2018 USL season, offseason roster building and the 2019 preseason. Simply put: a lot happened. But what matters most is what follows from here. Can the team execute and be successful in MLS?
Playing at Seattle is the first chance to see.
“I think we are ready,” captain and center back Kendall Waston said. “We are ready and hopefully we can prove it. That’s the most important thing.”
FC Cincinnati’s first three games are against sides that have MLS Cups within the last four seasons. As for Seattle, it finished second in the MLS Western Conference in 2018 and had the third-best MLS regular-season record. But Sounders FC have also lost three-consecutive season openers.
“Seattle is a good team,” left winger Roland Lamah said. “Good players, good fans; It’s really difficult to play there. I played twice there, I lost twice and I don’t want to lose the third.”
Match info
FC Cincinnati at Seattle Sounders FC
Kickoff: 10 p.m. EST
Where: CenturyLink Stadium
Weather Forecast: Clear, 39F
Watch: FS1
Stream: FoxSportsGo
Listen: WDJO (99.5 FM, 107.9 FM and 1480 AM)
Player to watch: midfielder Nicolás Lodeiro
Lodeiro joined Sounders FC in 2016 after playing with Argentinian giants Boca Juniors. The center-attacking mid is one of the league’s best playmakers. In 73 regular-season games with Seattle, he has 19 goals and 36 assists.
He played in the 2010 and 2014 FIFA World Cup with the Uruguay National Team.
Club connections
None.
