FC Cincinnati got off to a strong start in Leagues Cup on Tuesday night, posting a 3-1 victory over CF Pachuca in their opening match of Phase One to take all three points and a multi-goal differential into the next two games. Evander, Pavel Buch and Kenji Mboma Dem all eventually added their name to the scoresheet. Still, if you had watched only the first ten minutes of the match against the Liga MX opponent, you may have been surprised at the final scoreline.
Through the first 10 minutes of the match, Pachuca dominated FC Cincinnati. They pinned The Orange and Blue into their own end and eventually broke through with the opening goal on a header in the 8’ from Adrian Alcaraz.
But from there, the match turned. FC Cincinnati bunkered down, found their footing, and went on to earn a vital victory.
“Very pleased. I think we follow up one of our strongest performances on the weekend with another good performance against a strong Pachuca team,” FC Cincinnati Head Coach Pat Noonan said of the performance on Tuesday night. “The response after a slow start to the game was excellent and a lot of good contributions from guys we've seen and from guys that had an opportunity tonight.”
“A little bit of our press, a little bit of conceding territory, and them being good at getting service into the box,” Noonan explained as to why those first 10 or so minutes were so challenging. “We were conceding a lot of set pieces, and the second phase of those wasn't controlled enough that we could get effective pressure to the ball and move them deeper and then get into our structure. So I think that was a big part of the early stretch there.”
After that early stretch, FC Cincinnati settled things down. Pat Noonan pointed to goalkeeper Evan Louro as a key source of calm for his entire group, and highlighted postgame how Louro’s communication skills and sure hands helped keep FCC level through the tough period until they retook control of the game.
“(Evan) had a good sense of calm,” Pat Noonan said in praise of the keeper. “I think his distribution was very good. He faced a decent amount of shots, a lot of shots from distance, but I thought he controlled those in a good way. You know, there weren't any rebounds where it led to a second chance opportunity.”
Louro faced eight shots on the night and made a career-high seven saves in the 3-1 victory, doing so in just his fourth appearance for the team this season. He also contributed a secondary assist on the night to help give FCC their third goal, playing a long pass up the wing to Ender Echenique, who then centered a pass to Kenji Mboma Dem for the finish.
But his passing acumen aside, the stability Louro provided between the pipes, even while facing a few very challenging long shots, was absolutely paramount to success.
“I had one view that was a perfect angle, a distance shot, but you could see how the ball moved, and he handled that well,” Noonan continued. “He just provided a nice sense of calm and engagement and communication, and so overall, a very strong performance.”
“I think obviously we knew that they were going to come out firing. It’s not the start that we wanted, but at the end of the day, we took the first punch, and I think it's all about how you react to that, and I think we did in a good way,” Louro said after the game. “I think we just kind of settled ourselves down and took it from there.”
Louro, a veteran presence in the locker room in his fifth year with the club, has been a dutiful backup for FC Cincinnati and has always been ready when called up. That said, longevity with the squad doesn’t take away any anxiety a player may feel when given the rare opportunity to start. The South River, New Jersey native said he called upon those jitters in that challenging first 10 minutes and embraced them. Which, he says, helped him provide the calm and support to the rest of the squad that Pat Noonan praised.
“For me, obviously, I haven't played a lot of MLS games or Leagues Cup games, and I'm not old, but I'm not young, so I like to think I have some experience,” Louro explained of how he responded to the first, and ultimately, only goal scored on FC Cincinnati Tuesday night. “I was just trying to read the moment and try to get everybody to calm down a little bit.”
“I know a couple guys got some good minutes that haven't been getting many minutes, and obviously they're going to be nervous, myself included. So I think I was just trying to settle things down,” Louro said. “It kind of helped me just to try to help them just to settle it down, slow things down a little bit, and think the group responded really well.”
Louro’s seven-save performance helped FC Cincinnati gain all three points and go top of the MLS table in Leagues Cup, giving FCC a strong position to continue their chase for the tournament. The next step The Orange and Blue will take is Friday night when Pumas UNAM come to TQL Stadium for game two of the tournament. For more information on that match, click here.
