The Orange and Blue started Wednesday with momentum and mojo. They were coming off a victory in Atlanta over the weekend, and after over a month away, they were back at home in front of their faithful supporters at TQL Stadium. They then stacked their positive vibes with a 12’ goal to keep the energy flowing to take a 1-0 lead over a New England side that sits in the top four of the Eastern Conference this season.
It has been a roller coaster of a 2026 season, with far more downs than ups in the whirlwind of a year. But one thing has been clear this season: with every climb up the track comes a fast, unwelcome, stomach-churning descent. Wednesday night was no exception and added to the long-running frustration.
After Tom Barlow took a 1-0 lead, New England scored twice before the halftime break on crosses into the box. The Revs then scored again to make it 3-1 in the 51’ and all that momentum, all those positive vibes and the confidence FCC were looking to build on was gone. The Orange and Blue were once again in the all-too-familiar place they’ve been this season: fighting back, down multiple goals and looking to salvage anything they could from the game.
A final push came, and FC Cincinnati came close – Kévin Denkey put in a 67’ goal to make it 3-2, and the team pushed hard to the end with chances to score, but an equalizer never arrived – and with six games left in the season and playoff position on the line, close just isn’t good enough. The stakes mean there are no more moral or philosophical victories to look to glean from losses like these.
“Disappointing follow-up to what was a strong road win, and just can't carry momentum in back-to-back games, and certainly in front of our home crowd,” FC Cincinnati Head Coach Pat Noonan said to open his postgame remarks Wednesday evening. “That part's a letdown…so yea…certainly overall not a good performance from our group.”
“It hurts losing. Forget having to push late to try to find a win. Yeah, you can appreciate the effort, but we need to find ways to not have to push so much towards the end and take as much risk by conceding less goals,” Noonan added. “At this stage, we need to defend in a better way and not rely on late dramatics to carry us.”
We were close to taking a goal today, but again we conceded too many goals to win,” forward Kévin Denkey said postgame. “We need to stay strong, try to not concede, and the goals will always come with the way we play. But it's tough because with these goals we conceded, again, we lost today.”
Two weeks ago, Noonan described the defense as FC Cincinnati’s “Achilles heel,” and that was the case again this Wednesday night. FCC allowed three goals to New England, bringing their season total in MLS action to 68, the third most allowed in the league to date, with one fewer game played than everyone else.
The Achilles heel of this team goes far beyond two weeks, though. In many ways, this loss is a microcosm of the FC Cincinnati season at this point. There are peaks and valleys, moments and causes for optimism, but ultimately the defense creates a hole too big to surmount and a late push, while valiant, just doesn't seem ever to be enough.
This time, though, the added weight on the sinking ship was the timing of the goals given up.
With the lead taken early and the TQL Stadium crowd rocking in support of this team, FC Cincinnati immediately allowed New England to put their foot down in the game and equalized eight minutes later. Sapping the energy from a crowd that was looking for a reason to cheer.
Then, in the 43’, six minutes before halftime and a break that if FC Cincinnati stayed level they’d be able to reset and come out battling again in the second half, they allowed a set piece goal on a free-running header at the near post to surrender the lead to the Revs.
Six minutes out of halftime, New England struck again to make it 3-1, again striking at the heart, confidence and resolve of both the crowd and a team who were looking to come out of the break strong.
It felt like gut punch after gut punch. So by the time FCC scored to bring the difference back to one, it was like running on fumes just to get a draw, rather than the three points they started the night looking for.
A concession in its own way.
“It’s, I think, emotional control after you take a lead, or understanding how to be a little bit more defensively compact, and how do you see out the end of the half to either be on the front foot more, or just be defensively sound so you're not conceding corners, not conceding chances coming out after the break knowing you got plenty of time to find opportunities,” Noonan said of the mentality of the team. “So we just need to be better defensively and have a better feel of the game, and [know] what it's going to take to be tougher to play against and that comes in each phase in different ways, but it’s still something that's missing with the group.”
“So, just game management of important blocks of play to end the half in a better way and start it in a better way,” Noonan continued. “The push was more game state, which we're pushing, and they're sitting a little deeper, taking less risk. Then we started to find some openings and some good actions, but it just wasn't enough.”
FC Cincinnati ended the game on the attack, and it really felt as though, given enough time, they were going to find an equalizer. Kévin Denkey pinged two balls off the post and had a third saved point blank on a header that seemed destined for goal. Evander, returning from injury as a second-half substitute, had a shot spin just wide after beating a diving keeper. Ayoub Jabbari chunked a ball in front that found him through traffic, and Teenage Hadebe headed a set-piece ball that popped just over the bar.
The opportunities were there, but it was just a little too deep of a hole to climb out of late.
“We have enough quality, and even today I think we should win these types of games because, like I said, we have enough quality. We came short today,” Tyrell Malacia, who assisted both goals scored for FC Cincinnati in his second start since signing for the club. “This club, in the previous years, has always been top, so I think everybody's expecting that, and I think we should be on that level as well.”
At the end of the day, winning was all that mattered. It was all that was on everyone’s mind postgame, and there were no excuses made. With a rivalry game on the horizon, the focus remained on that: winning. Hell is Real against the Columbus Crew is always a game to circle on the calendar, but if FC Cincinnati were searching for extra motivation, they don’t need a derby match to find it this week.
“We need to take points, we need to win. It's against Columbus, it's against whatever, we need to win,” Denkey said of the upcoming match. “I'm not even looking at it as a derby. We just need to win games and not lose games and take points to go to the playoffs.”
“There is urgency,” Denkey added. “These games need to look like playoff games from us.”
FC Cincinnati kick off with the Columbus Crew this Sunday, October 18, at 5 p.m. at TQL Stadium. With playoff hopes and dreams on the line, another chapter in this rivalry's storied history is poised to be written. Can FC Cincinnati find their fire once again? Or will they be left searching for answers again?
