It was a tepid locker room on Saturday night in Cincinnati according to those inside it, and a frustrating night for their Head Coach as The Orange and Blue earned a point in their match against Charlotte FC at TQL Stadium.
They earned a point, yea, but they left two more on the table in the process and had to fight tooth and nail just to get to that possibility. So while FC Cincinnati put a lot of good on display, and were clearly the stronger team for the vast majority of the match, the final scoreline read 3-3, and FCC were settled with a draw.
Kévin Denkey’s stoppage time equalizer ensured they got a point, but it was a mixed bag of feelings for some, and no one was feeling awesome about the result when all was said and done.
“It’s a shame we dropped points tonight. It’s hard with how the game was played. You saw a lot of good things, but for us to concede in the ways we did with what I thought was a pretty strong performance, to only get one point out of it and to have to scramble for that one is a shame,” FC Cincinnati Head Coach Pat Noonan said to open his postgame remarks on Saturday night. “It’s hard to feel great when you give up three goals at home the way we did.”
“It's a mix of feelings. There is one side, because we are competitive, that I'm disappointed with this game because we wanted to win. And on the other side, when we see games that we played recently, the confidence is not really there…but we managed to take a point today anyways,” Denkey added postgame.
“I’m not satisfied. Actually, I’m quite disappointed about the result,” Pavel Bucha said. “After those last few results we had, it was much needed for us to finally win, and we were unable to do that – even though we had a good game in my opinion. But yeah, three goals conceded is just too much. You cannot concede three goals and think about winning the game.”
FC Cincinnati took the lead early on Saturday night against Charlotte FC, scoring in the 2’ thanks to an excellently choreographed routine that looked straight off the training ground that Pavel Bucha put away for his eighth goal of the season.
But what was frustrating about the performance came five minutes later, when FCC conceded off an avoidable mistake and Charlotte leveled the game. Ten minutes after that Charlotte earned a PK and scored to take the lead, and later in the game, after Kévin Denkey got his first of two goals to equalize at 2-2, Charlotte took advantage of a lapse from FCC to take a 3-2 lead in the 55’.
What was frustrating was that those three moments, across an hour of game action, were part of a very limited number of ‘great’ chances Charlotte had all game. Outside of those three lapses, The Orange and Blue limited the opportunities their visitors had nearly entirely, and controlled the tempo and offensive pace of the game.
What was frustrating was that FC Cincinnati had played well enough to win, and, in the words of Head Coach Pat Noonan, couldn’t get out of their own way enough to do so.
“We conceded on a clip ball over the top, on a penalty and you lose rhythm and momentum. You’re down 2-1 after playing a strong first half. And then even in the second half, how we concede that goal right after getting back into it is…this is who we are right now,” Noonan explained. “We can’t get out of our own way right now because there were so many good things.”
“For (the team) not to be feeling in a better way is a shame because so many things are overshadowed by our inability to defend and to stay switched on and manage moments,” Noonan continued. “When you look at the goals, you don’t have to look very hard to see where the action needs to be better and where a player needs to do better. That’s the hard part. Sometimes you don’t have an answer for some of the moments we don’t get right. But guys worked hard and battled back. We got a point out of it so it feels better than losing at home, but it’s dropped points. Too many moments. Like I said, it’s very frustrating for it to be so easy to have teams score against us.”
The next part of the frustrating trend went beyond the defense and into the offense where, at the very least, FCC were able to assert themselves and keep momentum long enough to find an equalizer. But what really nagged everyone on Saturday night was not that they scored three times.
It’s that they could have scored far more, and earned a win defensive woes aside.
“We don’t have the right feel for how to finish plays off. We scored three goals, but a couple are off the set pieces. So, the run of play, the actions to goal, the decisiveness, that’s as unhappy as I’ve been as far as our final product because we got into some great spots,” Noonan said of the offense. “But the recognition of how to run to goal, to influence the final action. Too many guys watching the ball, too many guys not running and doing the things they are asked to do positionally and in training. That came out in the wrong way tonight because we could have scored more goals.
The FC Cincinnati offense registered 29 shots, 18 from inside the box, and out earned their opponents xG. FCC completed 400 more passes in open play than Charlotte, had 66 percent possession and had four times as many corner kicks. It was a comprehensive performance in that sense, but lacked the finishing edge.
“I just think our feel for how to finish the attack right now is something we need to improve,” Noonan continued. “We just don’t have that killer instinct right now.”
“Everything we’ve done wrong in these moments we are getting punished for,” Noonan continued. “That’s why my tone is hard, because you watch that game and think ‘wow, that was a pretty good performance from this group. There were some key players missing and you scored three goals.’ You had a lot of good actions to attack and get a few more.”
“That’s the hard part. Sometimes you don’t have an answer for some of the moments we don’t get right. But guys worked hard and battled back. We got a point out of it so it feels better than losing at home, but it’s dropped points.”
There were three points out there for the taking. If the defense doesn’t lose focus, it’s there. If the offense is more efficient and converts on their opportunities, it’s there. So it’s easy to understand why FC Cincinnati had a hard time celebrating the late point earned.
But perhaps in the days to come it will be easier to appreciate the positives from Saturday night.
Coming off of two road losses by wide margins, FCC needed to steady the ship. They did that.
They did it with two key starters in Evander and Obinna Nwobodo on the bench, and they did it despite themselves. Kévin Denkey, who hadn’t scored in weeks, earned a brace and, ideally, shook off that scoring slump for the future, and they got in the process of it all.
It could have been way worse. It could have been all of that, and no points. So a draw is obviously not ideal, especially now given A.) where FCC are in the table and B.) recent outcomes. But it’s better than nothing.
So this Charlotte game could be a building block. It could be a place to grow from and continue to get better from. That is the goal here and the top priority for FCC moving forward.
“I think the way we went about it was good,” defender Nick Hagglund said postgame. “I think the guys were confident. I think it's a night where you could say, ‘oh, you're without your best player,’ and I think everyone showed up with the right mentality.
“I think there was confidence built in what we were doing tonight, and getting the third goal, I think allows us to feel a bit better about what we did and move forward in the right direction.”
FC Cincinnati have another opportunity to get things right next weekend when they visit the surging Houston Dynamo on the road. Until then, it’s back to the training pitch to make sure they learn from the draw.
