Jeff Berding stood on the stairs inside Pyramid Alehouse, raised the beer in his left hand and led a toast:
“To everyone from Cincinnati who made this trek out to Seattle and to everyone who’s home watching, you built this club. This is from you, for you.”
Fans erupted. Hours later, their voices echoed inside a hushed CenturyLink Field after Leo Bertone scored the club’s season-opening goal 13 minutes into the match.
After the game, which FC Cincinnati lost 4-1 to Seattle Sounders FC, Head Coach Alan Koch said, “I don’t think we’d be in MLS if it wasn’t for our fans.”
From a playing standpoint, the Orange and Blue couldn’t have had a worst result. After an early goal, they conceded four unanswered and snapped Seattle’s home-opener losing streak that dated back to 2015.
But in truth, Saturday night wasn’t about the match. The night was about FC Cincinnati getting to this point.
During his “State of the Club” speech Tuesday, Berding, the club’s President and General Manager, said he started the team at his kitchen table. He wrote the club’s values on a legal pad. That was 2015.
In 2019, Cincinnati became the 24th MLS expansion franchise to play a game.
The growth from kitchen table daydreams to debuting in front of America’s second-largest crowd on average is a massive one — and monumental.
In 2016, third-tier FCC hosted Crystal Palace of the English Premier League in front of the then-largest soccer crowd in Ohio history. In the next year, Cincinnati defied odds and advanced to the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup semifinals. By 2018, FC Cincinnati’s attendance numbers already dwarfed some teams already in MLS. That May, the club earned its expansion bid.
The timeline between the bid day to 2019 season opener was 277 days — the shortest timeline of any expansion club in modern history. Thus, it’s fair to say that short runway certainly didn’t help the Orange and Blue ahead of Saturday night’s match.
But what followed was something that will never happen again in club history: a sense of pride and celebration after such a lopsided defeat.
FC Cincinnati supporters always dreamed of MLS. They got it. Once the match started, there were no more hypotheticals or what-ifs about the team playing in the country’s first division. That’s their new home.
And over the next few weeks and months, they’ll have to withstand another big test: proving Cincinnati belongs.
Results like Saturday night can’t happen often and won’t. Defensively, the club was susceptible on counter attacks and had limited chances in the final third.
After scoring, FC Cincinnati played well in spurts, but those spurts were short and followed by longer spells chasing the game.
The loss was the first time in 2019 the club used a 4-2-3-1 formation. Center back Nick Hagglund said they’ve been using it for a week.
Obviously, that leaves room for growth and improvement, and in a 34-game season, that should occur over time.
But what won’t need growth — what’s been there all along — is the pride and passion from supporters.
During the match, the TV broadcast said 1,000 fans made the trek to Seattle. In the buildup to Saturday, pictures scattered across social media showing fans on flights in blue and orange. Chants for FCC reverberated through previously-unvisited streets before kickoff.
“It was incredible,” Hagglund said of the away support. “To look up there, they were so loud when we walked out onto the pitch. They started chanting ‘F-C-C.’
“Those are my people, the people that I grew up with. So, it was cool to look up there and that they all made the trip.”
FC Cincinnati’s next trip is next weekend at Atlanta United FC. If anything, it’s a tougher opponent in front of a crowd almost double the size of Seattle’s 39,011. Atlanta won the 2018 MLS Cup and just advanced in Concacaf Champions League.
Things certainly aren’t getting easier.
But they are becoming more realistic, at least off the field. There’s no more waiting for MLS. It’s here.
Before the loss, Koch met with media and said he hoped fans appreciated all that FC Cincinnati have accomplished so quickly. Here was his full comment:
“It’s a really, really special day. The closer we’re getting to it, I can start to appreciate it more. How hard have people in this city worked to get to this day? Our ownership group, Jeff, upper management, everybody who’s worked in this club. There were questionable moments over the last couple of years if we’d actually get here. We’re here. Let’s enjoy it.
“For me personally, it’s been tough to enjoy it because I’m so focused on the job, but I really hope everybody who’s there, who’s watching from Cincinnati, can actually savor that moment and have a little moment with themselves or with their family or with their friends and appreciate how far FC Cincinnati and the city of Cincinnati have come in such a short amount of time. It truly is a historic moment and something we can all savor."
Bertone’s world-class goal was something to savor. Seeing FCC fans over 2,300 miles away from Nippert Stadium was, too. Those are moments that can’t be taken away — just like the milestones that got Cincinnati into MLS.
Koch is right. This is a historical moment. Only this time, what comes next is all about how can FC Cincinnati pave their path now that they finally arrived in MLS. They’ve always belonged off the field. Can they prove the same on it?
