FC Cincinnati didn’t lose to Atlanta United FC as much as they lost to Josef Martínez.
Yes, Atlanta is the reigning MLS Cup champion and Cincinnati is the worst team in MLS, but that didn’t matter much Wednesday night at Nippert Stadium. What mattered is one team had Martínez and the other team did not.
In the end, that meant a 2-0 Orange and Blue loss, and these takeaways…
Seriously, Martínez scored two of the better goals ever witnessed at Nippert Stadium.
His first was a thunderous strike to finish off Atlanta’s thunderous counter attack. At the time, Cincinnati had controlled momentum in the opening 15 minutes of the second half and were winning corner after corner.
A breakthrough felt imminent. Then Atlanta scored imminently.
After an FCC corner couldn’t generate anything attacking-wise, the visitors countered and Pity Martínez threaded a through ball to Josef to break the deadlock in the 59th minute.
Six minutes later, the Venezuelan forward controlled a pass with a back-heeled flick, feinted, faked and finished the ball far post past an outstretched Przemysław Tytoń to dig the Cincinnati deficit.
The crowd sat silent – both in disbelief and in astonishment.
The players and coached had similar reactions.
FCC Head Coach Ron Jans:
“I do not know the stats, but maybe we had more and better chances than Atlanta did, but they have this guy called Josef Martínez. I think you can only applaud the second goal. It was quality.”
FCC left back Andrew Gutman:
“One of them, you just have to give them credit. It was a fantastic goal.”
Atlanta Head Coach Frank de Boer:
“It’s always nice to have a player like Josef who can make a difference.”
Sometimes the difference in a win and loss is as simple as that.
FC Cincinnati didn’t score but they should’ve. That – and Martínez – were the difference from earning a result and not.
Just like Jans said about, the Orange and Blue created chances.
In the 26th minute, Joseph-Claude Gyau got behind the Atlanta backline and created a one-on-one with Brad Guzan. Gyau’s shot – a right-footed chip – came off the side of his foot and harmlessly drifted wide of the net.
Later in the half, Maikel van der Werff nearly scored off a thumping header from a corner, but his effort was parried by Guzan and pushed off the post.
Just before the 90th minute, Caleb Stanko sent a great cross to Rashawn Dally, but the Jamaican forward’s point-blank shot wasn’t on target.
Moments like these can bury a team, especially one that’s struggled to score goals this season.
“It’s about confidence and when you score the first goal, it’s easy to score the second,” Jans said. “But when you miss the first chance, I think Gyau, the second chance, he hesitated so much he was afraid to score a goal. That’s also efficiency, you can only change it by finishing it and doing it a lot of times. That’s what we want to see.”
Would Cincinnati’s ability to finish define the game? Probably not, but it would’ve given the club a result that was as good as their resilient performance was – other than the combined 20 seconds of Josef’s goals.
“They have the better team, they play better football,” Jans said of the visitors. “But we played with so much passion and we did the game plan almost perfect in the second half, except for one thing…finishing.”
Tonight, was historic, and not in a good way.
By allowing Martínez to score his second goal, FC Cincinnati have conceded 74 goals this season, which ties the league record for the most goals allowed by a team in a season. FCC are tied with Orlando City SC, who conceded 74 last season.
Given FCC still have three matches remaining in the regular season, it would take a Herculean three-straight clean sheets not to finish the inaugural MLS campaign in sole possession of that dubious record.
“We can play as defensively as we maybe did in the last two games, but we want to change that in the future,” Jans said. “But for playing good football, you need confidence and you need points … I think we need time and we have to show every year we’re going to do better. This year, you want to beat records, but not this one.”
What comes next …
… doesn’t include downtime. Following the loss to Atlanta, FC Cincinnati have two days to prep before hosting the Chicago Fire on Saturday night. For players, that means one regeneration session and one training session before another opportunity to earn a season sweep of an opponent. The Orange and Blue have already beaten the Fire previously, claiming a 2-1 victory when the clubs met on July 13.
