COLUMBUS – At no point on Sunday night would FC Cincinnati describe their performance as “their best,” but after 30 minutes in enemy territory they were holding their own. Not flying, not bearing down on the Columbus Crew in Game 2 of the Best-of-3 series, but giving themselves a chance to win on the road.
That changed, and went down hill, very quickly.
A yellow card to Miles Robinson in the 30th minute seemed to act as the spark to the powder keg and three minutes later the Columbus Crew scored the opening goal on a misplayed ball along the back line. Five minutes after that Yuya Kubo, who was on a yellow as it was, put in a disastrous tackle that earned him a straight Red Card, bypassing the second yellow all together. On the ensuing free kick the Crew scored their second goal in eight minutes.
Down multiple goals and a man down, FC Cincinnati limped to halftime looking to reset things. They came out of the break with some personnel changes and, perhaps, a more clear tactical approach, but the outcomes did not change and the Columbus Crew continued to pour things on. By the night’s end, FC Cincinnati headed to their locker room handed a 4-0 loss.
It could have been worse, but it finished 4-0, and The Orange and Blue headed back to Cincinnati needing to find answers. But there is very little time for feeling sorry for yourself, and the focus, per Head Coach Pat Noonan, needs to be on finding solutions.
“That was a tough night and one to quickly forget about,” Noonan said to open his press conference Sunday night. “No time to put our heads down. We get to go again on Saturday, and our focus will be on us and having a good week and being ready to step on the field and have a much better performance on Saturday.”
Sunday’s match, while lopsided on the score sheet, is a hard one to try and dissect. That first 30 minutes, while not ideal, was hardly a one sided affair and FC Cincinnati was clearly competitive in the match. Prior to the Red Card handed out in the 38 minute the “expected goals” chart only had Columbus registering 0.74 xG, meaning nearly all of Columbus’s 3.8 expected goals came after FC Cincinnati went down a man.
That’s not to say everything was excellent prior to or after that, but it certainly paints a picture of how the game tilted before and after that moment.
It makes it particularly hard to analyze after the fact in terms of how the team played considering 1.) the score line in this match does not impact the series past this match 2.) FCC will play with 11 men the next time they take the field so only the first 30 minutes are useful when doing a postmortem and 3.) because of point 1, changes were made in this game to ensure they don’t leak over into Game 3. For example, Miles Robinson was removed after the 65th minute to ensure he did not receive a second yellow card and join Yuya Kubo in being suspended for Saturday's deciding game. Not three minutes after Robinson left the game, Columbus scored their third goal. Four minutes after that they scored their fourth. Evander and Kévin Denkey were both pulled earlier than normal for similar reasons.
That said, while a 2-0 loss and a 4-0 loss is technically the same for the sake of the MLS Cup Playoffs, there is an intangible element to address that FCC players felt it was important to not dismiss.
“We can't just pretend like we didn't just lose 4-nil,” FC Cincinnati defender and Captain Miles Robinson said in the mixed zone Sunday night. “We have to recognize that and understand where we can grow from that and what we can learn from.
“I think everyone still understands we have everything to play for,” Robinson continued. “It's humble pie, but we're willing to eat it. We weren't sharp enough and that cost us, but obviously there's another game, so there's everything to play for.”
With so much of the game being played down to a man, it is not unfair to feel like FC Cincinnati was outmatched or overwhelmed. That is, after all, the very nature of playing a 11v11 game 10v11, it is a disadvantage and a team with as much quality as Columbus doesn’t need much of an edge to make you pay. But the playoffs are not a time for moral victories or spirit wins, its a time for getting the job done. The job tonight was getting a win even still after the man advantage was given and they didn’t get the job done.
But in how FC Cincinnati move forward, Pat Noonan pointed towards his philosophy on how to best handle this moment when saying they’re moving on from this game. In the same way that the scoreline doesn’t follow them to Game 3, it makes no sense now to rattle or shake the confidence of the group before a decisive rubber match.
Now is a time for getting results, even if on this night you didn’t get them.
“We'll be moving on. Of course, there's always lessons but we won't analyze much of the game where we're down (a man) for 60 plus minutes. The first 30 minutes there was some good stuff to at least talk about,” Noonan said.
“There's no guarantees. We just talked about it there,” Noonan continued, referring to the locker room he had just emerged from where he gave his postgame team talk. “It was a bad night, and fortunately for us, we get to go do it again on Saturday, so this isn't the end of the season. It's a bump in the road, and hopefully we will get a good response.
“There's no reason for them to lose confidence of going and performing like we did in Game One. So it's just lessons of why the game looked like it did. And really it's, you got to play with 11 men, and you got to start in a better way.”
FC Cincinnati battled all season to earn the right to play at home if a Game 3 was needed to settle Round One of the MLS Cup Playoffs. So in a sense, this Saturday’s match is the culmination of an entire season's work coming together and giving you the home field advantage. It is an opportunity to have your home supporters behind you and set the tone in an environment that is anxiously waiting for you to lead them to victory.
It is, in short, an opportunity.
An opportunity to right the wrongs of the past. An opportunity to purge the doubt. An opportunity to redeem yourself. An opportunity to do all of that in the warm embrace of those who wear your colors and sing your name. It is the opportunity that was battled for over 11 hard months of frigid snow, blistering heat and everything else in between.
But most importantly, it is an opportunity that was earned. So why let it go to waste?
“We'll be playing in front of our fans, and the energy they have. They are the 12th man and they will help us. Every time we play at home they push us, and now it’s the playoffs (and) the intensity is different,” Hadebe said, making the point that the FCC faithful raise their level in the playoffs. “It's a lesson to us, this game, so now the main focus is on Game Three and playing in front of our fans. We believe that home advantage works for us because we have our fans and they'll be pushing us….So, we must go home and make our fans happy.”
“We have to recognize that every moment is massive,” Robinson said. “It’s a playoff game, it's a playoff atmosphere, playoff intensity. So, we must recognize that we're at our best when every single player is moving together as a team and recognizing that, like I said, every moment's as massive as anything in this season. So, it's on us to come back and regain our focus and go again.”
As Noonan said, the attention needs to turn quickly as The Orange and Blue will have less than a week to prepare with the Game Three showdown coming Saturday, November 8 at TQL Stadium. From here on out, every match FC Cincinnati play is a do-or-die showdown. Win or go home. If this team wants to realize its dreams and lift MLS Cup four games from now, they must rise to the moment. This is the first chance.
