Saturday night in Columbus, Ohio, had all the makings of a banner night for FC Cincinnati. They were coming off a significant victory three days earlier over a near top-of-the-table foe, and had the opportunity to do something they had only done once before should they defeat a dilapidated Columbus Crew side in the Hell is Real derby.
Instead, The Orange and Blue boarded their bus and began the trek back to Cincinnati after a 2-1 loss that FC Cincinnati Head Coach Pat Noonan described as the most disappointing loss in his five-year tenure with the club.
“(This was) Deserved. Columbus were better and I think just the last action kind of encompasses our lack of discipline. Super disappointing,” Noonan said in an opening statement to the press after the loss. “We just looked like individuals. There were plenty of moments, I think if you look at the first 30 minutes, there was a control. That was as disappointing of a defeat as we've had in the five years since I've been here. After that 30 minutes what we let it turn into is a total lack of discipline.”
FC Cincinnati fell 2-1 to the Columbus Crew at ScottsMiracle-Gro Field Saturday night, squandering an early lead by allowing their in-state rivals to score twice in the final eight minutes of the first half, with both goals coming from set pieces.
The prolific offense that FCC had boasted to this point in the season went silent at the worst possible moment as they were unable to claw back an equalizer. So while the defense kept things in check for the second 45, the offense spun its wheels, generating just 0.16 xG in the second half (per MLS).
“We were as poor on the ball with time and space and good options as you can be,” Noonan said. “We were defending well and had some really good transition opportunities, but couldn't get into any rhythm because of how we made decisions with the ball.”
Kévin Denkey opened the scoring early, banging home his 11th goal of the year on a silky assist from Evander. But in the end it will only go down as one of the many forgotten moments in Hell is Real history as a goal that ultimately did not contribute to a win.
After that, it was a series of mistimed moments and a range of decisions that ranged from “wrong but well-intentioned” to “downright head scratching.” Three shots were taken from closer to the center circle than the edge of the box, and countless chances were snuffed out due to over-dribbling into traffic while trying to play the hero.
“It's hard. You want to win. You want to do everything you can to win the game, and sometimes you're gonna take more risks, and it doesn’t work out. I think that happened tonight,” midfielder and captain Evander said after the game. “I think we risked everything we could to tie the game and then try to win the game. It was a tough one. Then of course, when you don't score, when it doesn’t work, you get a little more emotional.
“You try to do everything you can, and I think we created chances,” Evander continued. “Like, I was shooting the ball, but every time it was like the ball was against the sky. So maybe unlucky, but we were unlucky because we made bad decisions.”
The defensive side of the ball, while ultimately not good enough, did see some progress. Though that offered little solace in the defeat, and the way FCC conceded also soured any sort of positive takeaway.
Columbus scored their first of the night to equalize in the 42’ off a corner kick that Jamal Thiaré beat everyone to and nodded in. The second came nine minutes later on the scoresheet but was effectively won just five minutes later when Matt Miazga slid to try and clear a ball in the box, but also caught the legs of Max Arfsten and sent Columbus to the penalty spot. Daniel Gazdag then put it away for the final action of the half.
“You could take positives,” Noonan said while putting a subtle emphasis on ‘could.’
“And, okay, we were tougher to break down, but they had chances, and they scored two goals. So no, no positives.”
“We need more out of everybody,” Noonan continued. “I look at that game as a whole and that's where the disappointment is. How we managed it, and it's me too. So, I always try to protect them, but how we went about this is not at a level that's going to get us anywhere.”
Noonan said his halftime talk to the team emphasized the difference in their quality of play in the first 30 minutes of the match compared to the final 15 minutes of the half, and challenged the squad to ask themselves “what kind of team do they want to be.”
In the end, whether they consciously chose or not, they picked the final 15 minutes version: the Hell is Real match played to a nil-nil end, as neither side was able to break through on the scoresheet. But that didn’t stop the intensity or tempers from flaring up.
As the game wore on, the physicality in the match slowly turned up. The referee, who Pat Noonan praised postgame for his performance in the match, allowed some more combative but fair play to go on. But as that fatigue Evander referenced wore down and frustrations rose, so did the tempers.
On what would end up being the final play of the game in stoppage time, FC Cincinnati midfielder Gerardo ‘Dado’ Valenzuela came in far too recklessly on a challenge and swiped the leg of a Crew player with a kick. Valenzuela would receive a straight red card for the infraction, and a coming together of both sides occurred as Columbus expressed their feelings on the matter.
The coming together on the field died down as cooler heads prevailed, and Valenzuela was escorted out of the competition area. But just moments later, when the ref called for full time, Columbus players went chasing down the tunnel to continue the confrontation, and some FC Cincinnati players followed, with the angst quickly overflowing into the tunnels of the Columbus Crew home stadium.
So what unfolded was effectively two ends to the game. One on the field, normal and obvious to whatever was going on with players on both sides respectfully embracing, and another in the tunnel.
It’s unclear what happened in those moments, and everything eventually dispersed. Pat Noonan says he didn’t see what had happened, as when the whistle went he was preoccupied with shaking the hands of Crew Head Coach Laurent Courtois and the officiating crew. But he did express that he felt those exact antics, the undisciplined moments he saw in his players' behavior that add to the drama, were a perfect summation of what went wrong for his team, and how his team can’t improve until they get that under control.
“The last action kind of encompasses our lack of discipline,” Noonan reiterated. “We let it turn into a total lack of discipline.”
“I categorized the whole group – and you can look at a bunch of plays, and I think they're probably pretty obvious – I categorize the whole group as lacking discipline,” Noonan added. “Certain moments are easy to pick out because of how they affect the game, but it was one of many.”
FC Cincinnati now have a week to head back to Cincinnati and ask themselves the hard questions. There was a sense postgame from players who spoke that they misfired on Saturday night and are disappointed in how they played. It was 100% bad, which is likely more true than it feels at the moment.
“Luckily, now we're gonna have a full week to rebuild and you know get the mind in the right direction,” Evander said postgame. “Of course, we lost the derby, but we didn't lose the season. We're gonna recharge. We're gonna rebuild everything we can. We're gonna rework our small decisions, fix it and move on.”
Evander himself will not be with FC Cincinnati; he will be in Charlotte, North Carolina, representing Major League Soccer at the MLS All-Star Game as they take on the best of Liga MX. But his teammates back in Cincinnati will be preparing for their next battle in a week when the San Jose Earthquakes come to town.
Until then, Columbus got the upper hand in this edition of Hell Is Real. The Orange and Blue have three months for that to sit on the brain and serve as motivation before the next playing of the derby