FC Cincinnati fall in “deserved” Hell is Real defeat 2-1
Damon Gumbert
“Super disappointing,” a beleaguered Pat Noonan said following the 2-1 loss to the Columbus Crew on Saturday. The consistently stoic coach appeared downtrodden, emotionally defeated by a complete dismantling of his FC Cincinnati side.
It’s not hard to pinpoint what went wrong in this match for the Orange and Blue; Noonan called it out perfectly himself: “What we let it turn into is a total lack of discipline.”
In the first half of Saturday's match, the team made six shots, with four of those being on target. They managed one goal, a tap-in for Kevin Denkey off a fluky Evander assist where the ball ricocheted off his back foot and landed in front of Denkey, but had not resorted to taking low-percentage chances.
The second half was a completely different story. The second most prolific offense in Major League Soccer this season only managed to make one shot on goal in six attempts after the halfway point. Three of those shots came from Evander well outside the box, forcing plays and sending the ball flying into the stands.
When asked why the offense looked as bad as it has all season, Noonan said, “Decision making. I mean, we were as poor on the ball with time and space and good options as you can be. Just looked like individuals.”
Evander was not alone in his poor decision-making. Denkey attempted a half-field shot after seeing Columbus goalkeeper Patrick Schulte off his line, but the attempt was flat and easily pulled in by Schulte.
At times over the two matches this week, it appeared that Denkey was more concerned with scoring goals than winning the game. During Wednesday's match against the Vancouver Whitecaps, Denkey made a run late in the match, taking on multiple defenders. Evander came streaking from midfield to receive a pass from Denkey, which the striker instead decided to take a low-percentage shot that was easily blocked and sent out of bounds. Evander fell to the ground exhausted and then got up and chastised his teammate.
Poor decision-making wasn’t exclusive to the offense, though. The defense, which looked fairly strong for most of the match, did not come out of the match unscathed. Matt Miazga will miss the next match against the San Jose Earthquakes after receiving a yellow card, his fifth this season, after pulling down Daniel Gazdag by his jersey in the second half.
Miazga’s game was already not going well before the yellow, having conceded a penalty kick at the end of the first half. Miazga went to ground and chose to tackle Max Arfsten in the box. Arfsten did a good job of putting himself between Miazga and the ball, forcing the foul and getting the penalty.
Hindsight being 20/20, the better play may have been to try and block any pass that Arfsten was intending to make, since he had run out of room and was nearing the touchline.
Set piece defending also proved to be a problem for FC Cincinnati. Columbus’s first goal came from a corner kick where Kenji Mboma Dem was tasked to mark striker Jamal Thiare. Thiare easily shrugged off Mboma Dem and leapt over Miles Robinson from behind, heading the ball past Celentano.
Noonan said about that play, “So, on that play though, yeah, it’s, he’s in that space but also how we prevent guys from getting into that space is also an issue. So, it’s not singular to him not being able to head it.”
Less than two minutes later, Columbus had another corner kick; this time Mboma Dem was able to contain Thiare and Robinson headed the ball clear with ease.
For all the flak that Robinson has received this season, some justified and some not, this was arguably his best game of the season. Robinson played all 90 minutes and led the starting XI in passing percentage (93), defensive contributions (11), and clearances (9).
Another integral piece of the defense will miss Saturday’s match with Miazga, and before the week is over could see that ban be extended. Dado Valenzuela was shown a red card in the 90+4 minute after kicking at the ball but entirely missing and hitting Crew player Taha Habroune. The foul caused a massive confrontation where the center referee attempted to remove Valenzuela from the fracas but mostly just pushed him more into it.
After Valenzuela was shown the red card and was leaving the pitch, he continued to be called out by Mohammed Farsi, who may also see a suspension in the coming days. Valenzuela is seen on camera motioning for Farsi to meet him in the tunnel after the match, to which Farsi attempted to do after the final whistle, charging towards the tunnel before being stopped by the backup goalkeeper for Columbus.
Other players helped hold Farsi back, but eventually members of both teams went running into the tunnel. It was not clear initially what happened from there, but cameras show the two teams being separated by security and team officials on both sides.
“I don’t know,” Noonan said when asked if he could shed some light on what happened in the tunnel. “I mean, a bunch of people running. You saw the same thing I did. Tried to congratulate the officials, who I think did a good job, and Laurent [Courtois]. So, I’m not chasing down all the nonsense that ensued because of us.”
“I was just looking to see, to make sure I can protect anything then,” Matt Miazga said of the tunnel dust-up. “But it wasn’t much. It was just a lot of talking back and forth. Nothing's going to happen.”
While decision making on the pitch was a concern for Noonan, his own decision making may have been what let this match get out of hand.
Noonan ran out the same lineup that he did on Wednesday against Vancouver, with the only change being that Robinson and Sam Gidi swapped sides on the back line. It was fairly clear by the end of the first half that Arfsten had Pavel Bucha’s number.
In last season’s playoff series, Ender Echenique was playing on the right side at wingback, putting him up against Arfsten. Echenique ran Arfsten ragged over three games, blowing past him and causing havoc on that side. In this matchup, Arfsten was the one giving Bucha fits, easily outpacing the Czech-born player.
Rather than sub off Bucha, who played a full 90 minutes on Wednesday, or move him into the midfield, Noonan left him on and in that position for the whole match and allowed him to continually get exposed on the right side.
Evander and Denkey also both played a full 90 minutes on Wednesday, and both players were visibly running on fumes in the second half. Denkey eventually gets subbed out for Ayoub Jabbari in the 70th minute, arguably 10 or more minutes later than he should have been. Evander stayed in the whole match, becoming translucent in the final 20 minutes, barely touching the ball and putting no effort in on the defensive side.
A problem with how Noonan picked his reserves was: who do you have that you can bring on if Evander does need to come off? Valenzuela can move into the 10 position, and at times near the end of the match he seemingly took over that responsibility when Evander couldn’t, but he has also put in a significant amount of minutes over three days.
The bench included Bryan Ramirez, Kyle Smith, Teenage Hadebe, Alvas Powell, Nick Hagglund, and Brian Anunga, all of whom are defensive substitutions. There were two offensive subs available to play, Jabbari and Tom Barlow.
Did the team really need three center back replacements when usually two of the three starters stay on for a full 90 minutes? Yes, there could have been injuries, and it’s better to be safe than sorry, but having Kristian Fletcher as an option to come on late in the match may have been the better selection given the short rest that these players were all on.
Noonan also decided to go with aging players on the bench, opting to have Hadebe, Powell, and Smith rather than Andrei Chirila and Ayoub Lahjar. A downside to having a completely healthy team is that you do have to make decisions like this, but I think most people would be hard-pressed to say that Powell has made more of an impact this season than Lahjar or Hadebe has than Chirila.
It will be interesting to see if any of those younger players can make the squad next weekend with Valenzuela and Miazga both set to miss that match.
On how the team moves on, Noonan said, “We addressed it a little bit, and we’ll address it again as we move forward about hopefully learning from it, but I still don’t think a lot of the things that took place tonight should happen.”
“That was as disappointing as a defeat as we’ve had in the five years since I’ve been here.”
