When FC Cincinnati was initially set to take on D.C. United about a month and a half ago, David Douděra wasn’t available for that match. He was in attendance, visiting Cincinnati and TQL Stadium after the announcement of the transfer from Czech club Sparta Prague, but was still awaiting his work authorization and immigration paperwork to be confirmed, so he was relegated to spectator for that match.
Well, a potential spectator is more accurate now with the benefit of hindsight. That game was eventually postponed due to inclement weather, and rescheduled for an open Wednesday night, this Wednesday night. Where Douděra is now in the full swing of things with his new club and making his fifth appearance for FC Cincinnati and in the starting XI.
Which makes it extra unique that this new member of FC Cincinnati, a player who was unavailable for selection on the initial night in question, was the man to open the scoring for The Orange and Blue. A goal that would give FC Cincinnati an early lead, and would help lead them to a 2-1 victory at home, snapping a two game losing streak and vaulting FCC up the table with three crucial points.
To add to the uniqueness of the night, it continued to be a night of firsts as Teenage Hadebe scored his first goal for FC Cincinnati to retake the lead in the second half, and Nick Hagglund reached a milestone that no other player in the history of the club has ever reached.
But in the end, all that is just pretty dressing on the ultimate goal and mission of the night. FC Cincinnati got a win they were in desperate need of, and set themselves to go on the road and finish a sweep of D.C. United this weekend in a rare MLS double-header.
“Like we've talked about, we need three points and we got that tonight. So pleased with the group effort. We leaned on some experience tonight and I think guys were ready to fight the right way,” FC Cincinnati Head Coach Pat Noonan said in his opening remarks to the media postgame. “Our reality is our reality, and we need to use an opportunity after two poor results at home to secure three points and feel better about going into these final four games. So that we accomplished, and we know we have to go turn it around at their place in a couple days, and it's going to be equally as difficult.”
“But for the psyche, for what we needed, even though it's not the position that we want to be in, we were able to win a game that was important for us to get three points.”
FC Cincinnati scored early with David Douděra making it 1-0 on a volley in the 14’ minute, finishing off a play started on the other side of the box when Tom Barlow, Evander and Kévin Denkey combined for a shot, which was blocked, but rolled to Douděra on the other side waiting for a follow up.
D.C. United would score before halftime to level the score, but from there the defense held and limited the visitors to just the one goal. Setting up a memorable second half moment for a game winner from FCC.
In the 55’ Evander stepped up to a free kick from near the FC Cincinnati bench and floated in a ball to the far post with several FCC players chasing it down. The play was, we learned after the fact, something that the team had drilled in training the day before and had been successful on the training ground. In those sessions it was the same man who would score on Wednesday night. Teenage Hadebe.
Hadebe came flying in, sliding to get a boot to the served in ball and punching it home to give his side the lead. His first goal of the season, his first goal for FC Cincinnati, and his first goal since 2023. What followed was an exaltation of glee as he and his squad celebrated the goal and their teammate. A teammate who, while not always being first on the depth chart this year, and has struggled with that, has stepped up in a big way now that his opportunity has arrived.
“We got together after the final whistle and kind of looked at each other. At some points of this year we were banished to the bench, and when the team needed us most, we kept going,” Hagglund said of Hadebe postgame. “We kept grinding. We didn't give up. We didn't get sad for ourselves. We just showed up every day, kept going, and knew eventually our opportunity would arise, and knew we would do well.”
“It was an important goal,” Hadebe said postgame. “An important goal for the team, an important goal for me. It's my first goal for FCC. I'm grateful for that, and I'm happy that we managed to get three points and I scored the important goal. This year, of course, we've been struggling, but now we take one game at a time.”
Hadebe added after the game that because of the work on the training pitch, he was confident he would score a goal that night. Going as far as to tell his teammates in the locker room before kickoff that he would score the game winner. A claim that he says he teammates laughed with him about, but was, at this time, totally unverifiable. But for Teenage’s sake, and posterity, we will believe it as fact.
From there the defense locked in and shut the game down.
The marquee note of the opening of the game and starting lineups was Nick Hagglund. The Cincinnati kid, a Lakota West and Xavier alumni who has been there through every moment of FC Cincinnati’s Major League Soccer history, became the club's all-time leader in appearances on Wednesday night, making his 180th appearance for the club. As the only player in club’s history to be with the team since it joined Major League Soccer, Hagglund put his stamp on the club's history books in a way that only entrenched his name into history even further.
The occasion prompted an outpouring of admiration from his teammates and coaches.
“First off, congrats to Nick Hagglund on the appearance leader for our club,” Pat Noonan said in his postgame press conference. “That's an incredible accomplishment for him, and certainly an important piece of the club and its history. So I'm pleased for him for being able to enjoy that moment with the victory.
“The relationship with Nick, as far as the coaching side of things, you can't ask for a better teammate and extension of the coach's voice in the locker room. I trust Nick with my life, and he's been a pleasure to work with.”
“I will just say this, Nick has been a great brother to me,” Hadebe said. “Nick is a great leader. He's the one who always encourages us. Even if he's not playing, he's always pushing us too. ‘Don't give up. Don't give up.’ So we are blessed to have him in FCC…I'm grateful to have Nick as a brother to me..”
“Nick is the stuff of legend in this club,” Douděra, a newcomer to the squad, said. “He's a very good guy in the team, and I love that we have him.”
“It's awesome playing with him. It's awesome seeing him get that (achievement), and I'm very happy for him,” fellow Cincinnati native Kyle Smith added. “He's a great teammate, great person, great player, so I'm very honored to play with him on the same team, and he means a lot to this city. So I’m very glad that he got that accomplishment.”
In a full 90’ performance, Nick Hagglund led the backline to a winning result and a stout defensive showing, turning away 15 shots and blocking another five. Each member of the backline had a staring moment throughout the night, with Hagglund himself clearing a ball off the line with a header. Hadebe scored, as did Douděra, and Kyle Smith had 3 blocked shots including a few key ones from point blank range to keep D.C. United at bay.
“I think there's something about belief in inspiration,” Hagglund said of the performance. “We talk about inspiring each other with our play and I think you see one player that's going after it, making tackles and I think that inspires and makes you believe that you can do the same thing. And I think we saw a lot of those moments for everyone on the field.
It wasn’t a pretty performance, but it was a needed one. FC Cincinnati players knew that’s what it was going to take heading into this game and bared down to earn it. The obvious preference for every game is to play a beautiful, perfect brand of soccer, but in lieu of that, finding a way to win was paramount and the team did just that. They found a way.
“Not the prettiest game,” Noonan said of the performance. “After a bright start, we started to make some decisions and passes that put us into some tough moments and played to D.C.’s strengths in transition. But where we lacked at times with decision making, we made up for in effort and box defending. Where do we need to win the game: transition, set pieces, box defending, and I thought we got the set-piece goal on the second one, and defended the box well.”
“It's not a relief, it's okay, we're back to winning – I don't want to say winning ways – but we won a game. I don't think we performed better tonight than we did against Columbus, but the result feels better, and it was better,” Noonan elaborated. “You'd like it to be more in control, everybody would, but in the end, how do you navigate then when the game is in your favor? Isn't in your favor? How do you manage a different type of game to go and perform because we had to deal with a lot of direct play just like they did, and there were a lot of duels, there were a lot of knockdowns, there were transition moments for both teams. I think we lost or missed out on some opportunities to get the third goal when we were in the middle of that second half towards the end, and those are certainly things that we have to improve.
“But I think the guys, for the most part, managed a different type of game, and while it wasn't pretty and I don't think it was a better performance, we won, so that's the feeling that we need.”
FC Cincinnati now sit in eighth place in the Eastern Conference with 39 points, three points clear of the playoff cut line and with four games to play. What’s unique now is that FC Cincinnati play D.C. United again on Saturday night – a unique scheduling quirk due to the rescheduled match.
That repeat matchup, this time at D.C.’s Audi Field, offers the chance to play (and possibly win) against a team chasing them in the table, but also gives some unique challenges. Because after all, it’s hard to beat a team in back to back games.
“They're going to analyze it the same way we're analyzing it, and to use some of what we saw tonight to help get the decisions right on Saturday,” Noonan said of playing D.C. again in three days' time. “So we'll take a look at the game and see how we get through it physically and try to turn it around with a strong performance on the road with the idea of trying to get three more points.
It's the circumstances that we're in. It wasn't planned, but we're playing home and away, and that's our focus is to go try to have an even better performance on the road and try to get three points…but it's going to be a different game on the road, and we need to be prepared for that.”
FC Cincinnati kick off with D.C. United at 7:30p.m. on Saturday night in the nation's capital. With just four games left on the calendar, every match is now an elevated opportunity to build momentum and secure a place in the MLS Cup Playoffs.
