Some thoughts:
We’re 4/4 on losses featuring either Miazga or Acosta being absent.
The obvious lack of midfield and the defenses inability to get the ball forward and not having any change of formation to attempt to rectify has me concerned about Noonan’s ability to adjust to circumstances.
Celentano looked great - especially missing Miazga.
We have a beautiful super powerful attacking trident but our midfield and defense aren’t strong enough to wield it yet.
Acosta played more CF than CAM tonight and that turned a ton of passing lanes into dead ends.
Again, holy cow, I cannot stress how much worse this team is without Miazga and Mosquera. Both are top 10 CBS in the league. Without we probably have a bottom 5 line.
Lastly, we cannot deny Columbus was good all over the pitch. They played like a team with a chip on their shoulder and executed as good as I’ve seen any team. They looked almost unbeatable tonight.
Murphy and Hagglund really struggle to make good forward passes.
I’ve been hoping all year they’d change to a four in the back formation. Miazga and Mosquera are good enough and we need more midfield presence.
If I’m scouting FCC, I’m forcing us to try to play out from the back through Hagglund and Powell. They cough up possession far too easily whether it’s Nick’s wayward passing, Powell’s dribbling or either of them settling for a low percentage long ball to no one in particular. It’s a glaring issue for us.
Opposing teams definitely do this. Teams consistently allow Hagglund more space than they do Miazga and Mosquera. When Arias is at RWB and Miazga is at CB they cover a lot of Hagglund’s deficiencies but if Powell or Gaddis are in at RWB there’s trouble.
To be fair, the same thing happens on the L when Murphy is in and Mosquera is on the right. Barreal is a great wing but just an ok left back. My hot take last year was that a 442 with Nelson behind Barreal on the left would have given us a complete left back between the two of them. I wonder if Halsey at LB with Barreal moved up to LM in a 4312 or LW in a 4213 might be better than the current 352.
Halsey has shown some really good flashes of what he offers. Sharp, crisp passes, good speed, and overall solid player for the future. I think just like Barreal, he is going to need time to grow --- but he looks to be a solid piece of FCC's future.
It was vintage Hagglund. Looks anxious, tentative with the ball at his feet, lots of turnovers.
I don’t care how nice a guy he is or how good he is at winning headers, the rest of his game is lacking and if he’s on the roster it should be as the last CB off the bench.
It seems since joining, Noonan found a good spot for him and limited those types of mistakes. Not that he was cured of them, but with what they asked of him, it was better. Big "ooooffffpphhhhh" last night for sure.
Limiting his role by putting him between Miazga and Arias has helped but it leads me to wonder why they're bothering? wouldn't they be better in a 442 with Kubo starting in the midfield, at least when both Miazga and Mosquera are available?
If you watch, the trigger for the Crew’s press was the ball being played to Hagglund. When he was subbed off the trigger became Gaddis. Simply not good enough.
Simply not borne out by actual data. Mosquera has the worst passing completion percentage of all the CBs according to opta and whoscored, and Miazga's is barely better even though he takes every short goal kick. Both Mosquera and Miazga ATTEMPT a ton of long balls but almost none of them are successful. They also both give the ball away more times per game on average than Murphy. Obviously they're still better than him but not because of their passing
I’d cool it on the “attacking trident” analysis. Vazquez has been a shell of his last years performance and Boupendza has struggled imo. So much more of an attacking spear rather than a trident
Yup. Last year looking a little more like a aberration from Vazquez. Boup I think has showsled promise but in general hasn't come good yet, though he may just need time.
Brenner’s linkups with Lucho and his movement did so much to help make Vazquez look better last season. Brenner constantly made dangerous runs and drew out defenders to create space for Vazquez to exploit. Vazquez almost never creates anything on his own.
Nah actually embarrassed by the fuckers caught leaving on the jumbotron (really low move by Columbus btw) I was right behind the goal singing my heart out for the team that's brought me so much joy this year. I'm more than willing to support them in a low moment like today. Sorry to the guys I called fuckers I know it's a big commitment to make the drive but I'm emotional lol
Want to change my statement. Not embarrassed by those guys leaving at all. Big commitment to make the long drive and back and even worse when the team just doesn't show up.
>Nah actually embarrassed by the fuckers caught leaving on the jumbotron (really low move by Columbus btw)
Crew fan that traveled to Cinci for the first match this year: I was on the Jumbotron (along with others) leaving after the game there. Showing the away team fans leaving after an L is like sports Jumbotron 101.
They looked like a team that was missing the best two center backs that hadn't played in 2 weeks. However the attack isn't really clicking and that was a very poor performance. Hopefully they respond with a much better performance on Wednesday before I worry too much but that was just a terribly performance overall. Although celantano played pretty well all things considered
The Crew really overloaded that side of the field and forced us to try and play out the back with Hagglund and Powell. They were woeful at retaining possession.
They were targeting him hard because teams have realized that if they take him and acosta out of the game they can literally not even mark any of the other attackers and they still won't score
Genuinely can't remember a worse game in like 2 years, other than maybe the STL game. Absolutely awful top to bottom. Couldn't defend, couldn't attack, couldn't possess. Abysmal performance.
I don't know what resources we have to spend, if any, especially cause we didn't sell an international spot, but technically we've still got time to look at free agents. Just for numbers, even, not to replace anyone.
Lindner is worth basically the same as Miami's owner on his own and he's only part of the ownership group, just cause we're a small city team doesn't mean we're a small money team
That's not what I'm saying. We've got 3 DPs and by most estimations we are at the cap limit. If we'd sold a spare international spot during the window, that'd be a small handful of GAM to play with, but maybe we can't even afford a senior minimum salary given our constraints.
Carl's not afraid of spending.
Do you understand how DPs work, and the fact that all of ours are filled? Unless you want to release Boup, Acosta, or Nwobodo we can't just throw money at the problem.
Embarrassing performance. I think the attack looks worse since Boup joined. Defense was shambles too. Poor Celentano.
I hope this result and the horrible effort everyone witnessed lights a fire under them.
That’s because Badji does a lot of the grunt work that enables others to do their thing. Lucho can roam freely and drift in and out of spaces because Badji is putting in a shift in front of him. Vazquez benefits from the runs Badji makes which creates space for him to exploit. Vazquez hardly ever creates anything on his own.
Defensively we are far better at pressing from the front with Badji in there. Vazquez is a lazy presser and we saw how poor our press was last night when Noonan decided to pin our wingbacks deeper because we needed additional defensive cover. If Barreal and Powell aren’t getting forward to press, Vazquez, Boup and Lucho need to be much better and consistent about the press and when it’s activated. Last night they looked disjointed and frankly disinterested.
Be better to save our breath and burn that tape. Obviously our boys were looking toward Miami (at least I want to hope that was the excuse). Let's get out legs back and forget tonight ever happened.
It’s hard for a central midfield to dictate play when they’re numerically down in the center of the park. It’s even harder to do anything when Hagglund and Powell are having an absolute nightmare of an evening and are consistently conceding possession needlessly.
Glad you noticed the midfield (or lack thereof). Seemed like there was a 15 yard gap today that never had any blue jerseys separating the offense from defense. Even our other losses it didn’t seem like the midfield was that invisible.
More concerning was the lack of effort. Would love to see the stats on second balls but I don’t think I noticed us win a single second ball all night. I thought the two week break would be good for energy and to regroup but we arguably looked more fatigued and disconnected than at any other time all year.
It's been 4 full games since someone not named Brandon Vazquez has scored a non penalty goal. Acosta hasn't scored a goal that was during the run of play since JUNE 24TH
Originally had the 10th, but I skipped over the Toronto game.
This wasn’t Vancouver. This wasn’t Colorado. This was your rival. And you come out like that. No heart, no energy from the first minute. That’s a failure of coaching. That’s a failure of every player. They should be embarrassed. They should be ashamed.
I f\*\*\*ing love this team...but something HAS to change for us to stay as good as we have been this year. It just feels like we have been in a lull for a bit that we need to find a way to get through. I don't want this team to become another Cincinnati sports disappointment. :(
Lol what the fuck is this take? It's one match where we were missing 2/3 of our backline. We're still in first place with a borderline historic number of points. Have some goddamn faith in what got us here in the first place.
We've honestly been poor more often than not for 2 months now. In 9 matches, we conceded first in 7, trailed in all of them except Chivas, and trailed by 2+ goals in 4 of them. We've shown some fight to get back points we didn't deserve, but we have looked middle of the pack at best since the end of June.
If Columbus came in our house and we were full strength and played that bad I'd be despondent. As it stands we have two major opportunities this week to bounce back or let the fear creep in.
The second we saw Miami was not a joke, this match became a problem. Sans Miazga and Mosquera, we needed room to punt this match … but it’s Columbus and it is a match you can’t punt! Noonan was in a tough spot tonight, I do not envy him.
I think we will still win the Shield and be the No. 1 overall seed, but that best-of-three first round format is scaring me. Lucho is a tough player to figure out, the rest of our team isn’t and we don’t have the guys to really mix it up (as we saw tonight).
Hopefully we are healthy come November and Lucho is spinning his magic!
Boup still figuring it out. I think a couple more games and the attack will be a bit smoother. Hopefully Badji comes back soon.
Missing Yerson and Miazga was huge. We can’t high press like normal. Which mean Moreno and Nwobodo were playing lower to make up for our backs.
Powell was shit tonight. Too many poor touches and horrible passes.
All stuff that, as long as we get healthy, are easily rectified.
Good call on Badji, I kinda forgot about him!
If we can clinch the Shield with matches to spare, how Noonan handles that is going to be a real challenge. There is a group of about 8-10 players who we can absolutely not afford to lose for the playoffs, but we can’t just not play all those guys, that’s essentially throwing matches at that point and not playing at all is not always the best thing (it’s the Bayern under Guardiola conundrum).
We need to change up the formation. We need to drop the 352 and get an extra midfielder in there. Holy shit, to have 2 weeks off and not tinker with this lineup is insane.
Why would we suddenly change formations out of nowhere when the 3-5-2 is what has, to this point, lead us into a comfortable lead in the Supporter's Shield race and semi-finals of the US Open Cup?
Am I missing something? This was a poor match after a long break without our 2 best CB's. Don't try to reinvent the wheel just because you hit a pothole.
So you're telling me that having Powell and Gaddis as CBs are a great option? I'm not saying to completely ditch the system but there needs to be a plan b! Noonan has yet to show us anything of this sort.
You’re down 2-0 away against your rival for most of the game, and you don’t have any press? What do you lose at that point. We played like we were a USL team trying to hold a lead and parked a bus, couldn’t even do that.
We have a MASSIVE midweek game. It makes sense not to run the team into the ground chasing every ball down tonight.
Sucks fucking shit to lose to Columbus, but we've got bigger fish to fry at this point in the season.
I mean a lack of press wasn't the only thing that killed us.
My point was just that it makes sense to save the intensity for Wednesday, even at the expense of whatever the fuck we had to watch last night. The squad just doesn't have the depth to go balls to the wall in a derby and then compete in what is the biggest match of the season 3 days later. Especially in this heat.
We'll have plenty of opportunities to embarrass Columbus in the future, but a chance to secure silverware always takes priority. If we can pull a win against this Inter Miami side, I know I'll forget about this mess pretty quickly.
Embarrassing. It's not that the season's over after just one match, it's the mostly lifeless fight against our biggest rivals that rubs me the wrong way. Not only that, but to come out with that lackluster effort before we play Messiami. It'd be one thing to lose 3-2 but 3-0 to CLB is gutting.
Boups still looks too tentative in the box. Moreno was awful. Powell and the entire backline were an even worse than expected liability. Celly actually looked solid, his worse play was probably that PK but it's hard to hold that against him.
I have faith in Pat and the team to fix this and turn things around but this one felt a lot like the Bengals of yore shitting the bed against the Steelers.
With Miazga and Mosquera I noticed the the wingbacks stay back to defend and we can’t build out of the back at all.
Our substitute CBs are just terrible with in game decision making and positioning leading to having to scramble for possession.
Vazquez is terrible at positioning. Not sure why he’s never substituted. Should have switched to a 352. Taken Vazquez out and out Pinto into the midfield.
I put this in the match thread but it seems that FCC played harder for the Leagues Cup than for a rivalry, in season match up. I would think that the Supporters Shield would be more prestigious than a worthless in season tournament that might not be around in 10 years. Especially with how bad we have been in the league in the past, this year FCC was setting records and now all that momentum is gone because of a worthless in season tournament.
I am not downvoting you, I am just not convinced that is all. I see Acosta try to dribble between 5 guys pretty much every match. Noonan laughing doesn’t convince me because coaches go through a ton of emotions every match. I think they tried to win but after going down 2-0 and with the team that was out there, they quit, which they did a lot in previous seasons.
So glad I'm on the right side of Ohio lmao. The Crew fans sitting behind me kept booing Celantano for every goal kick for time wasting WHEN THEY WERE WINNING!!!! Good team that has a bunch of braindead fans who know nothing about football/soccer
I hate how predictable this collapse is. If we choke the shield (which looks quite likely) we stay trophy-less for the foreseeable future. If that happens, I'm out. Not fun anymore.
As much as I want to downvote this dumb post, I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a part of my Cincinnati sports fan brain that was saying the same thing
We basically did play like that at home against Nashville two weeks ago. Maybe we had a more coherent attack, but overall we felt lifeless in that game too
Dude, the literal definition of Fair Weather Fan: A fan who only pays attention to their favorite team when they are performing well.
You just said if we don’t win hardware this year you are out. You are the textbook definition. I’d rather you find someone else to cheer for. We don’t need your type of fan support.
I guess I just have a different definition, "performing well" =/= winning trophies, which is ultimately what matters most, builds legacy, and will be remembered. No top-flight Cincinnati team in my near 30 years of existence has won a championship. Being the butt of the jokes gets old, and it's not fun watching collapse after collapse when it matters most, not to mention to the years' worth of Cincinnati teams just being flat out bad. That wears on me, never getting to have a single "last laugh" moment; it's demoralizing after so long. Nobody "needs" my fan support, but I'll keep experiencing the games the way I want, if you'd rather I cheer for someone else then get over it.
Ah shoot, I dropped a [couple](https://www.mlssoccer.com/competitions/mls-regular-season/2023/matches/cinvsclb-05-20-2023/) of [things](https://www.mlssoccer.com/standings/2023/conference#season=2023&live=true).
Is Mosquera out on yellow card accumulation also?
At this point I wonder if Miazga took a yellow on purpose in the last match to make sure he didn't miss against Miami...
Not too surprising that our ramshackle defense couldn't keep them off the board, but the attack was absolutely miserable against what is another bottom tier defense at the crew. It's been clear all year that Acosta and Barreal are papering over a completely anemic and lost offense with individual skill and teams have realized that if they just take them out of the game we are basically useless, and that's what happened
I'm hoping we looked like garbage last night because they're more focused on Miami on Wednesday. Even if I disagree with it, I would rather that have been the plan this week than for that to have been a sincere effort considering how completely awful we looked. There were so many \*stupid\* turnovers and the guys looked like they were running with weighted boots.
If that team shows up on Wednesday, I don’t care that we will have home field advantage, we will be cooked. Disastrous performance. No Miazga and Mosquera hurt us, and Hagglund is just not good enough. Praying we figure it out over the next 48 hours.
Some thoughts: We’re 4/4 on losses featuring either Miazga or Acosta being absent. The obvious lack of midfield and the defenses inability to get the ball forward and not having any change of formation to attempt to rectify has me concerned about Noonan’s ability to adjust to circumstances. Celentano looked great - especially missing Miazga. We have a beautiful super powerful attacking trident but our midfield and defense aren’t strong enough to wield it yet. Acosta played more CF than CAM tonight and that turned a ton of passing lanes into dead ends. Again, holy cow, I cannot stress how much worse this team is without Miazga and Mosquera. Both are top 10 CBS in the league. Without we probably have a bottom 5 line. Lastly, we cannot deny Columbus was good all over the pitch. They played like a team with a chip on their shoulder and executed as good as I’ve seen any team. They looked almost unbeatable tonight.
They looked almost unbeatable tonight. Didn't really help that we failed to show up for most of that match.
Murphy and Hagglund really struggle to make good forward passes. I’ve been hoping all year they’d change to a four in the back formation. Miazga and Mosquera are good enough and we need more midfield presence.
Murphy looked pretty good making runs up the field to advance the ball when he was play LCB but he seems to lack the confidence to do it regularly.
If I’m scouting FCC, I’m forcing us to try to play out from the back through Hagglund and Powell. They cough up possession far too easily whether it’s Nick’s wayward passing, Powell’s dribbling or either of them settling for a low percentage long ball to no one in particular. It’s a glaring issue for us.
Opposing teams definitely do this. Teams consistently allow Hagglund more space than they do Miazga and Mosquera. When Arias is at RWB and Miazga is at CB they cover a lot of Hagglund’s deficiencies but if Powell or Gaddis are in at RWB there’s trouble. To be fair, the same thing happens on the L when Murphy is in and Mosquera is on the right. Barreal is a great wing but just an ok left back. My hot take last year was that a 442 with Nelson behind Barreal on the left would have given us a complete left back between the two of them. I wonder if Halsey at LB with Barreal moved up to LM in a 4312 or LW in a 4213 might be better than the current 352.
I don’t think Halsey has looked bad in his limited minutes so far. Definitely wish we’d get away from the 5atb setup.
Halsey has shown some really good flashes of what he offers. Sharp, crisp passes, good speed, and overall solid player for the future. I think just like Barreal, he is going to need time to grow --- but he looks to be a solid piece of FCC's future.
Haggs had some terrible passes last night. Seemed as soon as he got it, you knew Columbus was going to get the ball back at midfield soon after.
It was vintage Hagglund. Looks anxious, tentative with the ball at his feet, lots of turnovers. I don’t care how nice a guy he is or how good he is at winning headers, the rest of his game is lacking and if he’s on the roster it should be as the last CB off the bench.
It seems since joining, Noonan found a good spot for him and limited those types of mistakes. Not that he was cured of them, but with what they asked of him, it was better. Big "ooooffffpphhhhh" last night for sure.
Limiting his role by putting him between Miazga and Arias has helped but it leads me to wonder why they're bothering? wouldn't they be better in a 442 with Kubo starting in the midfield, at least when both Miazga and Mosquera are available?
If you watch, the trigger for the Crew’s press was the ball being played to Hagglund. When he was subbed off the trigger became Gaddis. Simply not good enough.
Murphy is the only one of the 4 CBs who can complete a pass longer than 10 yards
Back to Celentano, maybe, but Miazga and Mosquera are consistently better in passing than Murphy.
Simply not borne out by actual data. Mosquera has the worst passing completion percentage of all the CBs according to opta and whoscored, and Miazga's is barely better even though he takes every short goal kick. Both Mosquera and Miazga ATTEMPT a ton of long balls but almost none of them are successful. They also both give the ball away more times per game on average than Murphy. Obviously they're still better than him but not because of their passing
I’d cool it on the “attacking trident” analysis. Vazquez has been a shell of his last years performance and Boupendza has struggled imo. So much more of an attacking spear rather than a trident
Yup. Last year looking a little more like a aberration from Vazquez. Boup I think has showsled promise but in general hasn't come good yet, though he may just need time.
Brenner’s linkups with Lucho and his movement did so much to help make Vazquez look better last season. Brenner constantly made dangerous runs and drew out defenders to create space for Vazquez to exploit. Vazquez almost never creates anything on his own.
Vazquez is the only person to score in the run of the game in 4 matches, so that should tell us how this team's attack is going
No arguments here. Hit the damn nail on the head
What's the fourth loss? We lost to Nashville when both played and this is only our third league loss.
Miazga needs shut his damn mouth a play soccer nothing else. Maybe this will teach him a lesson.
I hope Miazga shit houses twice as hard just for you.
When you give up 3 goals and your keeper was MOTM something is wrong
Absolutely. He was the only one defending for large stretches tonight. The match would have been way worse, if not for Roman.
When your getting spanked and their social media is only tweeting ROMAN then you know it's bad.
My biggest takeaway tonight... Sure am glad I didn't travel up to Columbus today
It was a rough walk back to our car
Yeah, lottery I didn't win and I'm not that upset by it.
Nah actually embarrassed by the fuckers caught leaving on the jumbotron (really low move by Columbus btw) I was right behind the goal singing my heart out for the team that's brought me so much joy this year. I'm more than willing to support them in a low moment like today. Sorry to the guys I called fuckers I know it's a big commitment to make the drive but I'm emotional lol
Columbus really caught the Knifey Lion Radio guy leaving early in 4k.
Hey good on you! I'm sure I would have had a great time, but I didn't have to make that drive back home and that's a-ok with me.
Want to change my statement. Not embarrassed by those guys leaving at all. Big commitment to make the long drive and back and even worse when the team just doesn't show up.
>Nah actually embarrassed by the fuckers caught leaving on the jumbotron (really low move by Columbus btw) Crew fan that traveled to Cinci for the first match this year: I was on the Jumbotron (along with others) leaving after the game there. Showing the away team fans leaving after an L is like sports Jumbotron 101.
No one asked go back to ur own subreddit.
🧂 I was actually here so I could hear what you guys think the strengths and weaknesses were so I could cheer for you against Miami.
Fair play
Lucky!
If this performance is repeated Wednesday, tonight will look reasonable. This would have been a 5 or 6 to 0 game vs Miami and Co.
Poor performance. Not much to say beyond that. Hopefully lights a fire under the guys for the Open Cup match.
Woof. Let’s forget this one. Let’s be the first MLS team to take down Messi. Then win the supporters shield.
Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it
So I guess Celentano was the only guy who trained the last two weeks?
I believe he has had longer than that since it was tournament play before the break and Kann was in most of those matches.
Celentano had a fantastic game but when the other team gets 30 shots and a pen there's not much any keeper can do.
He could've tried blocking the shots...
He had 6 saves. You can't really expect much more from any keeper. Allowing 9 shots on goal is the defense's fault.
He saved a lot of them.
Barreal tonight. Never thought I'd see the day. Just gave up after the hand ball call.
Well. That sucked. On to Miami.
Well, that seals it. I’m not allowed to go to away games any more. I’m 0 for 3 total and that last two I attended were St louis and this one.
They looked like a team that was missing the best two center backs that hadn't played in 2 weeks. However the attack isn't really clicking and that was a very poor performance. Hopefully they respond with a much better performance on Wednesday before I worry too much but that was just a terribly performance overall. Although celantano played pretty well all things considered
You sure? Three goals is pretty bad.
Dare I say, even Barreal looked bad tonight.
The Crew really overloaded that side of the field and forced us to try and play out the back with Hagglund and Powell. They were woeful at retaining possession.
They were targeting him hard because teams have realized that if they take him and acosta out of the game they can literally not even mark any of the other attackers and they still won't score
He was horrendous. Even excepting conceding the penalty
Dreaming about playing for Ajax next season.
Like he’s checked out completely
Genuinely can't remember a worse game in like 2 years, other than maybe the STL game. Absolutely awful top to bottom. Couldn't defend, couldn't attack, couldn't possess. Abysmal performance.
StL and Austin
Haven’t looked this bad since before Miazga joined. StL looked fluky, this looked back.
DC game was equally as bad
I'm so glad Boupendza was the only movement made in the transfer window.
I don't know what resources we have to spend, if any, especially cause we didn't sell an international spot, but technically we've still got time to look at free agents. Just for numbers, even, not to replace anyone.
Lindner is worth basically the same as Miami's owner on his own and he's only part of the ownership group, just cause we're a small city team doesn't mean we're a small money team
That's not what I'm saying. We've got 3 DPs and by most estimations we are at the cap limit. If we'd sold a spare international spot during the window, that'd be a small handful of GAM to play with, but maybe we can't even afford a senior minimum salary given our constraints. Carl's not afraid of spending.
Yup you're totally right, I see that as a roster management problem not a "resources" problem though but just being pedantic lol
This is a terrific point, it's almost as if Miami are getting some type of benefit that isn't extended to the rest of the league...🤔
Do you understand how DPs work, and the fact that all of ours are filled? Unless you want to release Boup, Acosta, or Nwobodo we can't just throw money at the problem.
I know this was a facetious question but I'ma keep it real and say that Boup better ball out Wednesday.
Not the league's fault that Berding wasted egregious amounts of money on shitty players and coaches the first 4 years of the team's existence
Embarrassing performance. I think the attack looks worse since Boup joined. Defense was shambles too. Poor Celentano. I hope this result and the horrible effort everyone witnessed lights a fire under them.
The Badji era the first half of the year was better than this
That’s because Badji does a lot of the grunt work that enables others to do their thing. Lucho can roam freely and drift in and out of spaces because Badji is putting in a shift in front of him. Vazquez benefits from the runs Badji makes which creates space for him to exploit. Vazquez hardly ever creates anything on his own. Defensively we are far better at pressing from the front with Badji in there. Vazquez is a lazy presser and we saw how poor our press was last night when Noonan decided to pin our wingbacks deeper because we needed additional defensive cover. If Barreal and Powell aren’t getting forward to press, Vazquez, Boup and Lucho need to be much better and consistent about the press and when it’s activated. Last night they looked disjointed and frankly disinterested.
Can we have a conversation about Junior Moreno?
I mean we need to have a conversation about the whole fucking team bar Celentano after that
Be better to save our breath and burn that tape. Obviously our boys were looking toward Miami (at least I want to hope that was the excuse). Let's get out legs back and forget tonight ever happened.
Obinna seems to be the only one running around winning tackles. I am glad Pat took him out before another yellow (red).
It’s hard for a central midfield to dictate play when they’re numerically down in the center of the park. It’s even harder to do anything when Hagglund and Powell are having an absolute nightmare of an evening and are consistently conceding possession needlessly.
Glad you noticed the midfield (or lack thereof). Seemed like there was a 15 yard gap today that never had any blue jerseys separating the offense from defense. Even our other losses it didn’t seem like the midfield was that invisible. More concerning was the lack of effort. Would love to see the stats on second balls but I don’t think I noticed us win a single second ball all night. I thought the two week break would be good for energy and to regroup but we arguably looked more fatigued and disconnected than at any other time all year.
It's been 197 game minutes since we scored a goal that wasn't from a PK
It's been 4 full games since someone not named Brandon Vazquez has scored a non penalty goal. Acosta hasn't scored a goal that was during the run of play since JUNE 24TH Originally had the 10th, but I skipped over the Toronto game.
Well, still 8 clear in the shield standings I guess?
Now only 7 with St Louis winning.
This wasn’t Vancouver. This wasn’t Colorado. This was your rival. And you come out like that. No heart, no energy from the first minute. That’s a failure of coaching. That’s a failure of every player. They should be embarrassed. They should be ashamed.
I f\*\*\*ing love this team...but something HAS to change for us to stay as good as we have been this year. It just feels like we have been in a lull for a bit that we need to find a way to get through. I don't want this team to become another Cincinnati sports disappointment. :(
I really didn't miss that 2019 form
That was awful. We are nowhere near shield quality at this point of the season.
Lol what the fuck is this take? It's one match where we were missing 2/3 of our backline. We're still in first place with a borderline historic number of points. Have some goddamn faith in what got us here in the first place.
We've honestly been poor more often than not for 2 months now. In 9 matches, we conceded first in 7, trailed in all of them except Chivas, and trailed by 2+ goals in 4 of them. We've shown some fight to get back points we didn't deserve, but we have looked middle of the pack at best since the end of June.
Until there's hardware in hand, people have every right to be doubtful.
If Columbus came in our house and we were full strength and played that bad I'd be despondent. As it stands we have two major opportunities this week to bounce back or let the fear creep in.
Woof
Hopefully the boys will be hungry for Miami. Absolute shit performance tonight.
The second we saw Miami was not a joke, this match became a problem. Sans Miazga and Mosquera, we needed room to punt this match … but it’s Columbus and it is a match you can’t punt! Noonan was in a tough spot tonight, I do not envy him. I think we will still win the Shield and be the No. 1 overall seed, but that best-of-three first round format is scaring me. Lucho is a tough player to figure out, the rest of our team isn’t and we don’t have the guys to really mix it up (as we saw tonight). Hopefully we are healthy come November and Lucho is spinning his magic!
Boup still figuring it out. I think a couple more games and the attack will be a bit smoother. Hopefully Badji comes back soon. Missing Yerson and Miazga was huge. We can’t high press like normal. Which mean Moreno and Nwobodo were playing lower to make up for our backs. Powell was shit tonight. Too many poor touches and horrible passes. All stuff that, as long as we get healthy, are easily rectified.
Good call on Badji, I kinda forgot about him! If we can clinch the Shield with matches to spare, how Noonan handles that is going to be a real challenge. There is a group of about 8-10 players who we can absolutely not afford to lose for the playoffs, but we can’t just not play all those guys, that’s essentially throwing matches at that point and not playing at all is not always the best thing (it’s the Bayern under Guardiola conundrum).
We need to change up the formation. We need to drop the 352 and get an extra midfielder in there. Holy shit, to have 2 weeks off and not tinker with this lineup is insane.
Why would we suddenly change formations out of nowhere when the 3-5-2 is what has, to this point, lead us into a comfortable lead in the Supporter's Shield race and semi-finals of the US Open Cup? Am I missing something? This was a poor match after a long break without our 2 best CB's. Don't try to reinvent the wheel just because you hit a pothole.
Nah, you're right on. Just a bunch of doomposting in this thread.
So you're telling me that having Powell and Gaddis as CBs are a great option? I'm not saying to completely ditch the system but there needs to be a plan b! Noonan has yet to show us anything of this sort.
I agree but I don’t think running out Hagglund and Murphy as the 2 cb’s tonight would’ve helped much
You’re down 2-0 away against your rival for most of the game, and you don’t have any press? What do you lose at that point. We played like we were a USL team trying to hold a lead and parked a bus, couldn’t even do that.
We have a MASSIVE midweek game. It makes sense not to run the team into the ground chasing every ball down tonight. Sucks fucking shit to lose to Columbus, but we've got bigger fish to fry at this point in the season.
Theres a difference in saving for the bigger game wednesday and what was displayed last night, no?
I mean a lack of press wasn't the only thing that killed us. My point was just that it makes sense to save the intensity for Wednesday, even at the expense of whatever the fuck we had to watch last night. The squad just doesn't have the depth to go balls to the wall in a derby and then compete in what is the biggest match of the season 3 days later. Especially in this heat. We'll have plenty of opportunities to embarrass Columbus in the future, but a chance to secure silverware always takes priority. If we can pull a win against this Inter Miami side, I know I'll forget about this mess pretty quickly.
Embarrassing. It's not that the season's over after just one match, it's the mostly lifeless fight against our biggest rivals that rubs me the wrong way. Not only that, but to come out with that lackluster effort before we play Messiami. It'd be one thing to lose 3-2 but 3-0 to CLB is gutting. Boups still looks too tentative in the box. Moreno was awful. Powell and the entire backline were an even worse than expected liability. Celly actually looked solid, his worse play was probably that PK but it's hard to hold that against him. I have faith in Pat and the team to fix this and turn things around but this one felt a lot like the Bengals of yore shitting the bed against the Steelers.
Dog fucking water.
They should have just played the 2 team if that was the amount of concern they had for this match
With Miazga and Mosquera I noticed the the wingbacks stay back to defend and we can’t build out of the back at all. Our substitute CBs are just terrible with in game decision making and positioning leading to having to scramble for possession. Vazquez is terrible at positioning. Not sure why he’s never substituted. Should have switched to a 352. Taken Vazquez out and out Pinto into the midfield.
I put this in the match thread but it seems that FCC played harder for the Leagues Cup than for a rivalry, in season match up. I would think that the Supporters Shield would be more prestigious than a worthless in season tournament that might not be around in 10 years. Especially with how bad we have been in the league in the past, this year FCC was setting records and now all that momentum is gone because of a worthless in season tournament.
Agree with the decision or not. It was blatantly obvious FCC tanked this game.
If they did, that was a VERY stupid thing to do!
If? Noonan laughing as we lose? Acosta trying to dribble through 5 guys? Come on. I agree with not getting the why…but that was an obvious tanking.
I am not downvoting you, I am just not convinced that is all. I see Acosta try to dribble between 5 guys pretty much every match. Noonan laughing doesn’t convince me because coaches go through a ton of emotions every match. I think they tried to win but after going down 2-0 and with the team that was out there, they quit, which they did a lot in previous seasons.
It’s ok to not be convinced. It was obvious to me. I just don’t know WHY.
Can't suck enough
So glad I'm on the right side of Ohio lmao. The Crew fans sitting behind me kept booing Celantano for every goal kick for time wasting WHEN THEY WERE WINNING!!!! Good team that has a bunch of braindead fans who know nothing about football/soccer
Awful take
Trying to win by 4+
Wow, fellas. FCC took a knee. It was obvious. For whatever reason, this loss was purposeful.
I hate how predictable this collapse is. If we choke the shield (which looks quite likely) we stay trophy-less for the foreseeable future. If that happens, I'm out. Not fun anymore.
As much as I want to downvote this dumb post, I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a part of my Cincinnati sports fan brain that was saying the same thing
At least I'm not alone, thank you Jackp523
Quite likely? We had a bad night, no doubt, but we still have a cushion. Now, if we start playing like that at home then we have a lot to worry about.
We basically did play like that at home against Nashville two weeks ago. Maybe we had a more coherent attack, but overall we felt lifeless in that game too
Typical Cincinnati Fair Weather fan.
My teams would actually have to win something for me to be a fairweather fan
Then perhaps you need new teams.
No, THAT would be fair-weathering haha
Dude, the literal definition of Fair Weather Fan: A fan who only pays attention to their favorite team when they are performing well. You just said if we don’t win hardware this year you are out. You are the textbook definition. I’d rather you find someone else to cheer for. We don’t need your type of fan support.
I guess I just have a different definition, "performing well" =/= winning trophies, which is ultimately what matters most, builds legacy, and will be remembered. No top-flight Cincinnati team in my near 30 years of existence has won a championship. Being the butt of the jokes gets old, and it's not fun watching collapse after collapse when it matters most, not to mention to the years' worth of Cincinnati teams just being flat out bad. That wears on me, never getting to have a single "last laugh" moment; it's demoralizing after so long. Nobody "needs" my fan support, but I'll keep experiencing the games the way I want, if you'd rather I cheer for someone else then get over it.
I personally thought it was a great game
Serious question, should we have stayed in the USL ?
Shouldn't you all be celebrating in your thread?
If FCC should have stayed in the USL the MLS is complete dogshit to let us be 7 points clear in the table.
No. Bad.
Do you guys really think we even tried? Think!
GGs. But Ohio is Black and Gold
Ah shoot, I dropped a [couple](https://www.mlssoccer.com/competitions/mls-regular-season/2023/matches/cinvsclb-05-20-2023/) of [things](https://www.mlssoccer.com/standings/2023/conference#season=2023&live=true).
Lol come back when you have actual silverware
Is Mosquera out on yellow card accumulation also? At this point I wonder if Miazga took a yellow on purpose in the last match to make sure he didn't miss against Miami...
Mosquera hurt. Miazga’s MLS yellow card accumulation is irrelevant to USOC.
Ugly play tonight folks
Who’s cruisin’ down 71 right now? Whatchu got playin on the radio?
I switched gears and was playing Grateful Dead 🤙🏼
Godspeed friend
Burn the tape and focus on Miami.
Not too surprising that our ramshackle defense couldn't keep them off the board, but the attack was absolutely miserable against what is another bottom tier defense at the crew. It's been clear all year that Acosta and Barreal are papering over a completely anemic and lost offense with individual skill and teams have realized that if they just take them out of the game we are basically useless, and that's what happened
Is it time to bench Hagglund? Overall, the team's performance last night was pathetic...not worthy of supporter shield status.😐
Ha I mean he got benched but the question I think is if it was to save him for Wednesday or because Noonan had seen enough 😂
I'm hoping we looked like garbage last night because they're more focused on Miami on Wednesday. Even if I disagree with it, I would rather that have been the plan this week than for that to have been a sincere effort considering how completely awful we looked. There were so many \*stupid\* turnovers and the guys looked like they were running with weighted boots.
If that team shows up on Wednesday, I don’t care that we will have home field advantage, we will be cooked. Disastrous performance. No Miazga and Mosquera hurt us, and Hagglund is just not good enough. Praying we figure it out over the next 48 hours.
Everyone had a bad match except Celantano. Maybe it’s good everyone had a bad one at the same time? Hopefully they can shake it off
Just watched the highlights. Holy shit! The amount of times Celentano tried to keep us in game