Every now and then during a long Major League Soccer season, stories that come across my news feed that make me drop everything and scramble to see if the report is true. Matt Miazga being released by FC Cincinnati with two months left in the season checked that box.
Reported on Friday by independent journalist Laurel Pfhaler, the news has yet to be confirmed by the club. Miazga penned his own farewell on Instagram—a worthy read for the comments from teammates past and present—and underwent an exit physical, but there’s been no update from the club’s training facility in Milford this week.
From August 13, 2022, through June 15, 2024, Miazga was the primary reason for FC Cincinnati’s ascension into one of the league’s most consistently stingy and committed defenses. Using his athletic gifts and the perpetual motion machine that is his voice box, he was the beating heart and undisputed captain of Head Coach Pat Noonan’s three-man back line. A simple statistic backs up Miazga’s influence over this near-two-year period:
- 2022: 2 losses in 12 matches
- 2023: 3 losses in 36 matches
- 2024: 5 losses in 20 matches
Ten losses in 68 matches. In 2021, the Orange and Blue had 22 losses in league play alone. In 2023, Miazga garnered MLS Defender of the Year honors for his exploits during the club’s Supporters’ Shield-winning campaign. The defense posted 12 clean sheets during Miazga’s 34 starts.
But the integrity of FC Cincinnati’s defense and Miazga’s standing as one of the league’s preeminent center backs was forever changed on June 15, 2024, in San Jose. Running at full speed, he attempted a last-ditch sliding clearance and clattered into the goalpost leg-first, instantly rupturing the posterior cruciate ligament and meniscus in his left knee. The next time he’d play would be April 12, 2025.
Three weeks before Miazga’s injury, the Orange and Blue owned a seven-match winning streak. By the end of June 2024, the center back room was in crisis. Miles Robinson was out on national team duty, and Miazga and Nick Hagglund were out with season-ending injuries. Two-plus years later, Cincinnati is still searching for the defensive solidity of the Prime Miazga era.
In the final months of the 2024 season, Chidozie Awaziem and Teenage Hadebe were brought in. In 2025, Awaziem and longtime regular Ian Murphy were out, and in came Lukas Engel and Gilberto Flores. Prior to the start of the current campaign, Engel moved on, and Kyle Smith and academy product Andrei Chirila entered the rotation. Flores was sent out on loan in late July.
Injuries are a natural part of professional sports, but so much of the center back shuffle would have ceased to exist if Miazga had been able to tuck in his left leg at the last moment during that summer night in San Jose. He returned to play in 23 matches in 2025, but his season ended September 15 with another leg injury. He appeared in 17 contests this season. General Manager Chris Albright apparently shopped Miazga over the winter and during the recent Secondary Transfer Window and found no takers.
Miazga’s history with Cincinnati can’t be written without reliving his suspension in the 2023 postseason, which kept him out of the 1-0 quarterfinal victory over Philadelphia and the 3-2 extra time defeat to Columbus in the conference final. After picking up a caution in Game 1 of the best-of-three first round series vs. Red Bulls, Miazga’s former team, the native New Jerseyan received a pair of yellows in the Game 2 victory.
The second yellow was for—depending on your perspective—either taunting or showing love to the Red Bull crowd. Post-match, he entered a stadium area reserved for match referees, earning a suspension that ended his season and crept into 2024. The lapse in judgment robbed the Orange and Blue of Miazga’s presence against Philly, who they narrowly survived, and Columbus, who possessed the league’s most dangerous attack.
It’s a shame Miazga won’t get a farewell salute from the TQL Stadium crowd. Even Mother Nature wouldn’t let the fans address him in absentia on Saturday night, forcing a postponement of the scheduled tangle with visiting D.C. United.
But not every club luminary gets to depart with a heart-tingling farewell. Hell, just ask Joey Votto. Surely, Albright and his team have a plan for replacing Miazga and his salary slot with a free agent. For now, Cincinnati moves on without its former id, ego, and superego tonight in Philadelphia.
Grant Freking is in his eighth year of FC Cincinnati coverage for Cincinnati Magazine.
