As Evander missed the decisive penalty in FC Cincinnati’s 4-3 shootout loss to FC Juarez in the CONCACAF Leagues Cup, the air was full of both the orange light of a Queen City sunset and mixed feelings. The loss, which succeeded a 2-2 draw after 90 minutes, may have been settled via mere lottery, but the razor-thin margin of final result did not, in fact, tell the entire story.
The Mexican side, which currently finds itself 17th out of 18 teams in the Liga MX, was unlucky to not come away with all three points. For around three quarters of the match, Juarez had the Orange and Blue on strings. “I thought it was a lacklustre first 60 minutes,” said head coach Pat Noonan after the match, and he was right. Juarez not only dominated—they dominated by exposing some of the long-held cracks in FC Cincy’s tactical system.
FCC started the match playing a 5-2-3 position out of possession with Gerardo Valenzuela and Brian Anunga in midfield. Valenzuela, a natural attacking midfielder, did not provide much defensive presence in the middle third, a location on the pitch that Juarez just so happened to focus a lot of their play into. The Mexican side, conversely, kicked off with three central midfielders, two of whom (Denzell Garcia and Homer Martinez) possess potent defensive skillsets.
To counteract this imbalance, Cincinnati pressed high, but the effect of this was to leave themselves vulnerable to more direct balls from Juarez’s defense to their more attacking midfield players. With Anunga and Valenzuela bypassed, the task of goal prevention fell upon center backs Gilberto Flores and Teenage Hadebe stepping out of position to tackle and intercept. The entire thing created a domino effect that left the ever-wiley but simultaneously ever-not-very-fast Matt Miazga exposed against Juarez’s front three.
It is important to note that Cincinnati came into this game both as the team in better form, and, arguably, a better side than FC Juarez on paper. Because of this, the effect of this game’s tactical mismatch was not entirely to render Cincinnati wholly toothless, but it at the very least left them looking by far the more vulnerable of the two sides in the first half.
FC Cincinnati’s problems in attack were partially linked to these defensive deficiencies. Valenzuela and Lukas Engel, two players who usually chip in to alleviate Evander’s creative burden, found it difficult to get up the pitch in the face of Juarez’s attacking pressure, leaving the Orange and Blue’s front three isolated.
But there was a much simpler, much more glaring issue that impeded FC Cincinnati’s firepower: Kevin Denkey. Or a lack thereof. Kei Kamara has a long and storied MLS career, but at this late point in his career, he has mostly lost the ability to create chances for himself. Therefore, Evander, the man of the hour, found himself squeezed between lines, unable to work his way forwards too far lest he leave his midfield and backline open to collapse, unable to work his way backwards too far lest he leave Kamara alone on an island. He could not showcase his magical powers.
The result of this? A 1-0 Juarez lead at halftime. Cincinnati may have had more shots, but Juarez had the better shots, including Ricardinho’s 39th minute header that looped over an air-clutching Roman Celentano. Cincinnati had more possession, but the match was played mostly in either the middle third of the pitch and their own defensive third.
Juarez were punching up with aplomb. The third quarter of the match began with much the same story—in spite of Noonan’s introduction of two-way Czech midfielder Pavel Bucha, the ball remained painfully stuck in limbo and Cincy were unable to make any inroads. Compounding the turgid performance, the Orange and Blue fell two goals behind in the 63rd minute, when Juarez midfielder Guilherme Castilho thumped home a rebound from close range after a chaotic melee in the box. Something, undoubtedly, had to change.
Enter two surprising heroes: teenage Mexican midfielder Stiven Jimenez and diminutive 21-year-old winger Ender Echenique, recently acquired from FC Caracas in his home nation of Venezuela. The pair had resumes that were either non-existent (this was Echenique’s debut), or nearly non-existent (Jimenez was making his first appearance of the entire season for the club) for Cincinnati, but with limited options on the bench, both were thrown on immediately following Juarez’s second goal for the struggling Valenzuela and Kamara.
Instantly, everything changed for Cincy. It’s difficult to statistically measure the impact that Jimenez and Echenique had on the game, but their presences were felt almost immediately. The former may stand at only five foot six, but during his time on the field on the night he used every inch of that frame to be defensively disruptive, plugging vital gaps that Juarez had previously been able to exploit. On the ball, he had a steeliness that belied his lack of experience—he completed 12 of 13 passes, and all 12 were played crisp and calm. He always seemed to find space for himself to make the right decision, and he nearly always did.
Jimenez’s appearance at midfield allowed both Evander and Luca Orellano to focus more strictly on their attacking duties. But just as important to this freedom was Echenique. A terrific dribbler for his previous club, Ender never fully got into his bag here, but man oh man, he was fast. His speed clearly struck fear in the Juarez backline, and his clever movement began to drag defenders out of position. By the end of the match he had tallied a few thrilling drives into the final third of the pitch, and showcased solid end product with several threaded, deft passes to teammates. Like Jimenez, Echenique was both evidently talented and, perhaps even more importantly, a profile that FCC have been crying out for.
FC Cincinnati no longer had a traditional striker on the pitch, but they instantly became much more dangerous. “We wanted some speed, and we wanted to stretch the field,” said Noonan of the tactical decision. And that’s exactly what happened. Evander, a purveyor of the spellbinding with the ball at his feet, and the most important of cogs in Cincinnati’s system, was let loose. The result? Two goals in six minutes.
First, in the 71st minute, the Brazilian wizard casually trotted into shooting range after a Lukas Engel outlet pass before unleashing a deviously swerving thunderbolt from 25 yards that completely bamboozled Sebastian Jurado in the Juarez goal. Then, in the 77th minute, Evander drove a corner into such a dangerous area in the Juarez box that Oscar Estupiñan, a substitute center-forward for the Mexican side, simply had to get his head to the ball to alleviate the perilous situation. The ball glanced off the area just above his eyebrows and into his own net. 2-2.
The Orange and Blue eventually lost the match after their star man, who had wrestled them back into the match, ironically missed the decisive penalty in the shootout that succeeded the game. But this was but an afterthought to a game that raised a few important questions. For one, just how worrying is FCC’s current lack of options in key positions? Well, it is important to note that a few players were injured for this game: the previously mentioned Denkey, and space-eating Nigerian midfielder Obinna Nwobodo. This was certainly not an FC Cincy side at full strength.
In a season where the games come thick and fast, where weary legs will only grow wearier as the playoffs grow closer, teams really cannot have too much depth. Some way, somehow, Cincinnati must find a way to add to their regular rotation. Already, it has been reported that the club have taken action, with Ghanaian midfielder Samuel Gidi’s services being secured from Zilina in the Slovak top division. Gidi, who recovered the ball seven and a half times per game last season, is a step in the right direction, the kind of ball-playing destroyer that could easily find himself contributing in multiple competitions towards the end of the year.
But can the answers to these problems also come from within? Are Jimenez and Echenique really the guys? Well, the jury is still out. They were superb in this game, but with such a small sample size, it is hard to say for certain if they will be able to do it on the regular. But, at the very least, they give FCC hope. They are young, they are hungry, and they match skillsets that the club is crying out for. If even one of the two is the real deal, they could potentially save Cincinnati valuable money in a short, high-pressure transfer market. They could be invaluable.
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