The team FC Cincinnati put on the field Saturday night in Harrison, New Jersey, wasn’t wildly different from others that had taken the field for The Orange and Blue this season, but it certainly felt like that at times.
With a shift in shape and, perhaps, a shift in mindset, FC Cincinnati out attacked their opponents on the road and earned a 2.8 to 2 xG differential – and it was even wider until the final moments of stoppage time.
Unfortunately, and ultimately, the new look did not lead to a positive result. In a 90-minute, wire-to-wire slugfest of back and forth play with both teams earning a glut of attacking opportunities, FC Cincinnati came up short on the road again and fell to Red Bull New York at Sports Illustrated Stadium by a score of 4-2.
Any of the positives you could glean from the performance were impossible to feel in the moment, or at least extremely difficult to feel as the result marked the fourth loss of the season and another opportunity lost where it felt like a win was there for the taking.
“In a game where there was a lot of attacking opportunities for both teams…they took their chances better than we did, because there was certainly enough out there as far as our attacks and moments to finish plays off, and they got more of those moments right,” FC Cincinnati Head Coach Pat Noonan said after the match in a press conference at Sports Illustrated Stadium.
The most notable, and maybe obvious, takeaway from the match beyond the scoreline was the way FC Cincinnati lined up. While the announced graphic showed the well-known 5-2-1-2 formation FCC had deployed for 4 years, immediately it was clear there was some level of misdirect occurring because Noonan’s team immediately took the shape of more of a 4-3-3 formation. A significant change.
"It was a combination of personnel, performances and how we thought we could attack New York tonight,” Noonan said of the new formation. “With the ball, it was a lot of good things despite only scoring two goals, probably our best attacking performance of the year in regular season play.”
“Defensively, we’re obviously leaking too many goals, and that's happening in a variety of ways,” Noonan continued. “I think their speed along the front line caused us problems with our personnel tonight, which we knew would be a challenge if the game was opened up…they didn't put too much pressure on Evan [Louro] and our back line with how we conceded some of those transition moments.”
Red Bulls scored first early to take the lead, but FCC responded quickly to level things into halftime at 1-1. Even though only one goal apiece registered, it was essentially a 45-minute exhibition in haymaker throwing as the two familiar foes traded blows back and forth in a wide-open game.
The difference came in the details though. FC Cincinnati Head Coach Pat Noonan diagnosed the passing as the problem, and that FCC lacked the final actions, but the opportunity for a win was there for both sides…and Red Bull New York just made more of their opportunities.
“[It was] The pass. You could pick out a lot of plays where the last pass, closer to goal, further from goal, where we're in, we break pressure and we're in behind and we just fouled up a lot of those moments,” Noonan explained. “And it wasn't one or two players, it was a variety of guys in different moments and that was the difference, because then we had to defend in space, in transition, and they were throwing numbers forward, we were throwing numbers forward, and so, when the game got open they did a better job in the open space than we did.”
After going down again early in the second half on a controversial set piece goal, FC Cincinnati proceeded to dominate the tempo of the game and dictate the attack. The problem then was that lack of finish as they failed to convert. An own goal on a tricky hop then gave the Red Bulls a 3-1 lead. But FC Cincinnati’s resilience continued to shine. Kyle Smith, making a start on the defensive back line before the team shifted formation, scored his first goal for the club on an opportunistic moment where he finished off a set piece to bring the deficit back to one.
From there, for the final 20+ minutes of action, it was a full-on blitz of the Red Bulls’ goal. Evander had an opportunity saved, Ender Echenique missed a great opportunity, Nick Hagglund had set piece headers saved. But the chips just wouldn’t fall their way. The hosts got a fourth on a late counter in stoppage time and the full-time whistle ended things.
Once again FC Cincinnati was left on the wrong side of the scoreline, and there was clear disappointment. But there was something different there. The formation change to a back-four clearly unlocked something in the offense, similarly, the way the goals they conceded occurred weren’t \exactly\ conventional. So, there’s something there to really build on, and given how the season has started – no matter what the expectations were – that’s a positive to glean and feel excited about.
“Tonight, I thought how we were able to play through pressure at times was some of the best actions that we've seen thus far, in all of our games,” Noonan said of the positives. “They're an aggressive team and they step up the press at times, and I thought we found some really good solutions to breaking that pressure and attacking with space. And like I said, then we got that moment wrong where I think the chance creation, the outcome, could have been different in all those moments that we missed out on. I think set pieces have been strong for us. So, there's a couple positives that I take away from tonight in those areas.”
“Luck wasn't on our side today,” Nick Hagglund said postgame. “You can go look at the expected goals, and it's like 1.8 and we're giving up four somehow. So I feel like there's a part of it that is unlucky, but I also feel like you create your own luck. So there's stuff that we're doing, like silly turnovers or someone gets beat on the dribble, and now we're in trouble.”
“I think there were some good things to take away from it. But for me, we’re going to take a good look in the mirror and look at what's going on. We can't ship this many goals right now, and we have to figure out, you know, the right balance of what we're doing.”
“We had a lot of opportunities, and then I think we can learn from the goals that we got scored on, and we just have to move on to the next game,” the goalscoring Smith said of the result. “It's something to build on.”
What comes next? That’s hard to say. As Noonan mentioned, perhaps the change of formation was truly only about the opponent they faced this week and when FC Cincinnati take the pitch next Saturday afternoon in Toronto they’ll return to the more familiar shape. But if that’s not the case, and this change of formation is actually a more large-scale shift to the way the team is going to play? Well then time is needed to iron out some of the kinks in the path to achieving their best selves. Hagglund and Smith both said the group figured out and familiarized themselves with the defensive elements of the back-four more and more as the match went on…and that was just one half.
Improvement is never linear. That’s not realistic. There are peaks and valleys on the path to success and if this change is the temporary setback for a major comeback…that’s worth the challenges it may present in the short term.
