FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida -- It is rare you play a team twice in 10 days.
It’s even more rare to play that team twice in league play with a schedule that is so meticulously crafted.
It's almost entirely unique to have two teams, both at the top of the table, face off twice in 10 days and put table stakes on the line like they did on Saturday night in Fort Lauderdale.
But that’s what happened. FC Cincinnati, in a rare scheduling quirk, travelled to south Florida to take on Inter Miami CF at Chase Stadium just 10 days after beating them at TQL Stadium. Pitting two teams in the top four of the Eastern Conference table against each other to open and close their bi-annual meetings in less time than it takes to mail a package from Cincinnati and Fort Lauderdale.
Last week, FC Cincinnati earned a dominant 3-0 victory. This time, one of those scorelines stayed the same but The Orange and Blue couldn’t find a winning goal. Or at least a winning goal that would count, as FC Cincinnati took a 0-0 draw from Inter Miami CF on Saturday night: their third clean sheet in a row and seventh of their last eight games to earn a point.
A point on the road against a top team, a team like Miami who is not only the defending Supporters’ Shield champion but also the top goal scoring team in MLS, could generally be considered a good result. There’s an adage in Major League Soccer that suggests the key to winning trophies in the league is winning at home and drawing on the road. FC Cincinnati, over the last 10 days did exactly that. MLS is also a league where when framed against the rest of the soccer world it is particularly hard to win on the road.
The point being: that for just about every team in MLS going on the road and taking a point could be considered a success. For FC Cincinnati that has been true at times. But on this night, given these circumstances and the context the match provided, one point felt like settling. One point, felt like two points were missing.
“We came for three points,” defender Lukas Engel said postgame. “I think we did not play our best football today, but I still think we had chances, and I think we could have, maybe did, finish it off. It’s tough, it’s tough.”
“The clean sheet is nice to have and we can look back on it and okay, it's a good point on the road against a good team. But obviously it's a bittersweet feeling, because I think we, we obviously have that goal (of winning the match) as well,” defender and captain Matt Miazga said. “We had some really good chances…I think we did a good job, and I think we could have got a little bit more out of the game today.”
“Hard fought point. Certainly both teams had their chances to find a goal or two tonight,” Pat Noonan said to open his postgame press conference. “We had some good moments to find some goals… so I thought it was a relatively even match. But credit to Miami, they were very strong tonight. I thought defensively, for the most part, the guys did a good job.”
FC Cincinnati’s defense stood its ground, bending at times but never breaking, but the offense just couldn’t get them the lift they needed.
There were plenty of chances, which could be the silver lining in the touch of grey, but they couldn’t finish in the final third. Gerardo “Dado” Valenzuela and Kei Kamara each had multiple glorious opportunities, working so hard to get themselves into a dangerous space and succeeding in getting there, but each time their shots were either miss hit, sent wide, or sent directly at the keeper. Evander had an opportunity that given his track record of doing the amazing made a potentially impossible situation seem possible but even he couldn’t capture the moment.
So, in the end FC Cincinnati was left regretting their missed opportunities -- because given how solid the defense was, they only needed one to get the job done.
“We've been creating more for a while. This isn't new, I think we've had a good stretch of how we create chances, and really it's decision making in those moments,” Noonan explained on the nuisance of the offense creating chances, but not executing on them. “I thought our front three was really poor tonight with how we attacked space, how we made decisions in and around goal. I mean, there were some good moments where maybe the idea was right, the execution was poor, but then there were plenty of moments where the idea was wrong and the decision was wrong, and so, you know, I think that part let us down tonight."
But even then, in what could have been the final play of the game, The Orange and Blue flailed out for a lifeline and nearly got it. They so nearly got it that they did get it. Miles Robinson, all 6’2” of him, navigated the inside of the Inter Miami box to meet a sky high lofted free kick cross from Evander, got his newly braided head to the ball and popped it past the keeper to give FC Cincinnati the lead with more than two minutes of the announced three minutes of stoppage time already passed.
Robinson, jubilant, ran to the sidelines to celebrate. But that euphoric energy was gone nearly as spontaneously as it arrived. Robinson learned from the sideline official that center ref Tori Penson had called the play off for a foul, and the goal wouldn’t stand.
A magic moment, to create a magic night. Gone, in an instant.
Over the next several minutes Penso would delay the restart, assumedly so that the Video Assistant Referee could review the alleged infraction and decide if there actually was a good goal to award. But after about six minutes of review, Penso resumed play, never going to the on-field monitor to review the call herself and FC Cincinnati’s hopes were dashed.
FCC saw the game out to secure the draw and left the pitch feeling, largely, not like one point had been earned, but that two more points were snatched out of their hands. Even though they hadn’t played their best (per what several members of the team had said in the locker room) given the chances they missed and that final retracted goal, they still had three points to take.
“I mean, overall the performance wasn't the best, but in those moments where it got physical, where we had to recover, where we had to do whatever it took to keep the clean sheet or to make the game look like we wanted it to, it was good. We had the control we needed,” Engel explained from the locker room. “We gave ourselves the chance on defense, which is why our goal is to keep clean sheets. If we do, we're going to win most games because I believe we're going to score most games. So, yeah, I'm happy with how the group really is working
Perhaps there is solace that can be taken at some point in the next couple of days, or weeks, that the conventional wisdom suggests that yes, in this league, historically, one point on the road to a team like Inter Miami, is fine. Maybe it’s more than fine, it's ok. Or maybe even good. And that willingness to see through the veil and not be a prisoner of the moment peaked through in spirits post-game Saturday. Everyone who spoke with the media on the record acknowledged the talent their opponent brought to the table tonight, and how getting a point in the table tonight was good.
So, you couldn’t call the locker room “vibe” somber. Or distressed. But sour, or unsatisfied, or wanting, could maybe better describe things.
By the end of the evening, FC Cincinnati had lost their spot atop the Supporters Shield table. In a back-and-forth race to the top, Philadelphia Union reclaimed the lead with a late winner over Colorado.
It is going to be a battle to the finish for the Supporters’ Shield this season. It is as tight of a race as it’s been in years and with nine games to go FC Cincinnati play six home matches – including Philadelphia and Nashville SC (who are third in the table). It could be, as golf commentators would refer to when talking about a particularly challenging course, “absolute carnage.”
You could argue Saturday in Fort Lauderdale was absolute carnage given the number of fouls, bookings and physical play. But what FC Cincinnati Head Coach Pat Noonan wanted to make sure his team knew after everything was done Saturday night is that if FC Cincinnati want to win another Supporters’ Shield, and win a Leagues Cup and/or MLS Cup Final is that every night is going to look like this.
Every night, from here on out, is going to be a battle. And they need to be prepared for it.
“This is what we're going to need down the stretch. Every game's going to feel like tonight,” Noonan said without a hint of exaggeration in his voice. “Defensively, we're going to need to be solid. That feeling of not conceding a goal, the longer you go, the more belief you have that teams aren't going to be able to find that goal…it's good to have a stretch now where you're figuring out defensively how to be strong.”
FC Cincinnati now return home and take a brief pause from MLS play, but hardly a pause in action. The Orange and Blue will pause to host Leagues Cup 2025 this week, opening their third iteration of the tournament with a match Thursday against Liga MX giants CF Monterrey. FCC will return to MLS action in two weeks, hosting Charlotte FC at TQL Stadium.
