The lone positive about FC Cincinnati’s 2-0 loss at Inter Miami over the weekend was that there were no physical injuries. Bruised egos and damaged psyches, perhaps, but physically FCC appears to have emerged unscathed.
Next up is a home match vs. Montreal on Saturday before a week off for an international break. Columbus, fresh off a Leagues Cup crown, visits TQL Stadium on September 14 for the first time since last season’s epic Eastern Conference final. In the meantime, the Garys need to get their you-know-what sorted out or they risk being run over by MLS’s top team. (The Crew currently hold the MLS Cup and Leagues Cup belts, so they’re the kings even if they’re third in the East.)
FC Cincinnati extended a handful of ignominious streaks vs. Miami. For the fourth successive match against MLS opposition, they conceded multiple goals. For the fourth straight game in all competitions, FCC allowed the first goal. The defeat was also the fourth consecutive league loss for the visitors, who played a man up from the 42nd minute on and failed to score. In 172 minutes with a man advantage this season, FC Cincinnati has scored just once. “We didn’t suffer very much,” Miami head coach Tata Martino noted afterwards, a subtle jab at the Orange and Blue’s feeble attack.
FCC is very much mathematically alive in its pursuit of the top seed in the East and a second straight Supporters’ Shield, but the setback in South Florida has removed any realistic hope of in-season silverware. East-leading Miami is ahead of second-place FC Cincinnati by eight points with eight league matches to play. The local lads are just five points ahead of third-place Columbus, which has three games in hand.
The Orange and Blue began Saturday in a lethargic trance, a far cry from their 6-1 flattening of Miami in early July. Legendary striker and irritant Luis Suarez’s goals in the first and sixth minutes were the difference in a match in which the visitors won the expected goals battle by a wide margin (1.6 to 0.4).
Assistant coach Dom Kinnear, manning the touchline for the suspended Pat Noonan, thought FCC was in a good place pre-match. “We had meetings at the hotel, talked about the intensity,” Kinnear told the media post-match. “Talked about, Hey, there’s going to be possible lingering memories from the last time we played them. It was mentioned again before the game. So (it’s) hard to explain, because the game means so much. And the preparation into the game, I thought was correct with the practices and the intensity of practices. We just came out really flat, and we got punished for it.”
Adding future absence to Saturday’s substandard showing were the yellow cards Lucho Acosta and DeAndre Yedlin received. The cautions were the seventh of the season for each player, meaning FC Cincinnati’s captain and de facto vice captain will miss the Montreal match. Both will get a three-week break prior to Columbus. Acosta gets additional rest for his troublesome foot.
With MLS Cup the lone realistic trophy to win for this group, FCC’s run-in to the playoffs is all about health—with Acosta’s foot being the team’s most concerning appendage at this point—and being in the best possible form for late October and early November. Noonan knows that, too. Short-term setbacks like Acosta hitting a roadblock in building match fitness due to his three-week break are tolerable with this in mind.
Montreal awaits on Saturday, a week after it shipped five goals in a shutout loss to a New England side eight points adrift of the playoff line. Sound the alarm bells if the scoreboard fails to see any action over the weekend, regardless of FC Cincinnati taking the long view on the season.
Grant Freking writes FC Cincinnati coverage for Cincinnati Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter at @GrantFreking.
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