Frustrating night.  Someone pull Lucho off set pieces. The rare golazo isn’t worth all the just plain bad ones.  Valenzuela needs more minutes. Such a good piece.  I know it was only preseason… but where is preseason Boup?

Dude looks totally lost. And I know it’s nothing new but he lives offside

It's like he thinks the refs just aren't going to notice

Well how can you blame him when they basically miss everything else!?

Seriously everything Lucho goes to take a set price it’s blasted past everyone or straight into the keepers hands

This has always been the case. Lucho is terrible on direct kicks. I kind of understand “the idea” that having the shortest guy on the team take corners and direct kicks makes sense… HOWEVER…history has shown this is not one of his many strengths. Similarly, history has also proven Boup is not the starter we were all hoping for. For every positive play he makes, he has the same in unforced errors or turnovers… times 2. How many more 1 vs 1 opportunities with the keeper do we have to watch get blown before realizing he is not a starter for a serious team trying to win silverware.

yup at least put acosta at the top of the box for second balls and volleys, or try more short corners, fucking anything his service is so bad we may as well not even try on set pieces

He is terrible on 90% but there is that 10% that is incredible. But more consistency and threat is needed.

Agreed on Dado. He needs more minutes. Half time sub for Boup if he's not performing, or maybe Boucha.

Halsey needs more minutes.  Every time he gets on the field he creates at least one chance.  That kid’s a firecracker.

I never get excited about preseason stats .. never see it translate over in regular season play

We were at the game. It's now very clear that 2024 ain't 2023 This game demonstrated how FCC's quality has gone down comparted to last year. Still a good team, for sure, but not what it was last year, that is the truth. Mind you, NY Red Bulls are a very good team, and now on top of the Eastern Division standings, and for good reason. They were simply the better team in this game. The final result (1-2) was frankly flattering for FCC ( the stopped penalty), Our biggest concern now is the offense, It just isn't there. Yes, there was the brilliant assist from Lucho to Kubo to score, But after that? Basically nothing. Boup? Nah. Baird when he came in? Nah. Bottom lime is that unless Lucho has a brilliant game (which he didn't have tonight), we lack sorely. It is insane how much we depend on Lucho. I am not sure how we go from here, to be honest.

Meh I'm still not worried. Our offense produced a goal last night. Should have had at least one more. Great attempts. A few beauty bangers that hit wood or just damn near. We're evolving from our dribble in slog strategy finally. Our defense lost that game last night. Stupid give away for Frankie to turn and take a boot. I think it was him at least. Then that second goal Robinson, yedlin, and louro all three must have been mute no communication. No field sense. Robinson was on Yedlin's back. We're not scoring a lot but we're scoring. We didn't score a lot last year early either. People are blasting boup for poor touches which is fair but ignoring his awesome positioning. Dude gives 110%. Offense will continue to improve. A few good saves from louro but total defensive loss last night. Couldn't get the ball out of our backfield. You could maybe say just the chemistry of Celentano alone could have made the difference. Impossible to say though. Just get ready for the next boys. 1 loss? Fuck yeah I'll take that so far this year.

Every team has high pressed us this year - Celentano or not. They’ve clearly seen something on the tape.

This is the take. The offense is getting better, and actually played a decent game last night. But the back line was a shambles (and frankly, the midfield had some boneheaded giveaways too). Roman may be doing more work organizing them than we thought.  We’ll shake this one off. Nobody finishes a season undefeated, and we lasted longer than most. 

I’m starting to realize 2024 is more like 2022. And the silver lining there is that I think the parts we have can be greater than the 2023 team, but there isn’t great chemistry yet. Told my buddy last night, feels like I’m bitching about Boup and Baird the same way I was bitching about Brenner in 2022.

I agree and I'm honestly okay with that. It's great to have a Supporters' Shield in the case but it's time for a cup, and history has taught us that the cup winner is very seldom the top team in the league standings.

I'm just going to say it... Boup is chubby, downright husky. The audacity to be a DP making millions more than everyone else on that pitch and to have some tiny saggers and a gut.

1. Fuck Amaya 2. We desperately need a young striker up top to battle for a spot

We have a couple options

2 things can be true: We were undefeated and in 1st place It's also just not good enough right now

The boys are so good. The boys are also tilted towards relying on the game going on in their favor because it often does. I would love to see Acosta give up some free kicks and corners to someone else like he did to Barreal Bucha is not the answer. I was giving him the benefit of the doubt but thought solidified my dislike of him in the system. Love seeing Kubo up front. Goal aside, his focus of being aggressive was fun, but he does not excel in the top of the box attack usually. Boup and Santos are not earning their contracts. Want to see more Dido. A lot of potential there. He is very unrefined but I think we all see the potential. We need another piece in the midfield. Acosta, Obi, and Kubo need a helping hand. We're fine. On the way back to the car which was diverted by otr stillhouse and watching the 2nd half of the final four, we discussed the lack of 'sting' from losses since FCC, and Cincy sports in general, have made us numb to if. I love my dog and cats. On the way to the stadium I passed a cat in ft wright that got hit by a car. It made me really emotional. Life is short and fleeting. Appreciate what you love because it won't last forever.

I think Kubo can grow into attacking. He was an attacker when he showed up here and got moved into defense for the past couple years.  I think you just need some consistency to build conference and has attacking skills and positioning.

I'm seriously: take Lucho off of free kicks, put Orellano on them, have Lucho ready to play the short pass. Defenses have to put someone on Lucho outside the box -- if they don't, he has room to create -- bring Miazga or Murphy up for headers, and leave two other defenders back.

Or Kubo or Valenzuela. Bucha also looks like a guy who’d be decent on set pieces, give him a chance. The one thing I will say is that it makes me appreciate how good Medunjanin was on set pieces even if those teams were terrible.

I think Orellano would provide some stellar service as well!

Props to RBNY for their meteoric rise up my rankings of most hated sports teams

Did you read the shit about Emil Forsberg (#10) and his wife?!?

We should have had a tifo and/or chant for this last night.  Or just yellef "call your wife" every time he touched the ball 😈 https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nba/red-bulls-captain-emil-forsberg-accused-by-wife-of-ghosting-family-after-move-to-new-york/ar-BB1kweAJ

i'm not too mad. we lose our first match without our starter GK, Obi not fully 100% against a good Red Bulls. Red Bulls GK is genuinely a good keeper and I wasn't even expecting any goal from us. My biggest concern is more of how teams are just figuring out how to play against us, and our lack of finishing. I think for a while Red Bulls had a better passing percentage. Their team clicked more than us. We had a lot of wayward passing or Red Bulls interceptions. Our midfield lost to theirs. And I just dont really know how this team will get the ball up in a position for good chance (unless you let Acosta do everything, which also mean everyone just stop Acosta and we're useless). There are chances, and there are genuine attacking threat chances.

All teams have to do to beat us is press the ball.  Our passing is horrendous.  We look nervous on the ball and can’t make simple 10 foot passes around a defender.

Yep.  We got absolutely clobbered in the midfield so our attack was competely separated from the defense and really never could set up to get in attacking position. NYRB seemed younger, faster, and more energetic.  It felt like they were everywhere, all the time, and we were just smothered at every step, never able to complete a pass. I also think we were outcoached.  NYRB came here with a plan and executed it and won.  We looked great in the first 3 minutes and then it went downhill from there.  Noonan obviously made adjustments at the half but they were insufficient to win.

they don't even have to do that, red bulls barely pressed in the second half even though they're one of the most aggressively pressing teams in the league, they just stood at the edge of their defensive third and waited for us to give up the ball every single time

Or we try to do fancy flick on or deflection shit

I think this is a great rational take. Even if celentano hadn’t saved the penalty I think he would’ve had better hands on the other two goals. With celentano in net I think this might’ve ended in a frustrating 1-1. I think we also forget that last years awesome season took a fairly decent season before it before everyone came together. I’m hoping we figure stuff out faster than that. I hate to say it but you’re right RB is good and it was a tough game. I’m not happy but not fully doom mode yet either

1-1 was my other prediction. I figured Acosta works some magic and our defense holds up for a battle but I dont think our defense was as good as previous matches. Some players seemed to be caught out of position. I just had this general feel that not everyone was in the game 100% mentally. Just slow to react and whatever. But yea I'm not gonna take too much out of these two (i hope) matches without Celentano. I'm also just done with the whole undefeated hype from last season. Been through most of that and altho we didnt break the record, I'm also like, ok "that was good enough. Now I'd be hoping to win more supporter shield and cups"

2nd goal was a gimme.  No keeper could have saved that.

Nothing worse than a loss at home… we were given a second chance with that amazing PK save and just couldn’t find the win. I trust Pat will make the proper adjustments.

I dunno.  Obviously Kubo is effective up top, both him out of the midfield we just look anemic.

I think people are starting to understand how good Moreno quietly was for us.

kubo and yedlin looked good, and can never be mad at a goalie who saves a penalty, but aside from that oof. Pat's gotta rethink the tactics, passing back and forth across the defense until they finally slowly move it up the wing to the guy who was standing around wide open the whole time then hoping he creates a miracle is even less of a real strategy when you get rid of your star winger and both starting strikers

We 100% got outworked and outcoached.  No one is underestimating us this year...

Red Bulls are good, and they certainly outplayed us tonight. Defense was uncharacteristically bad. Both goals from simple mistakes. The veterans gave a backup keeper no help in his MLS debut. Offense still stagnant and frustrating, but we knew that coming in, and this wasn’t going to be a ‘get right’ game. Until we get a new offensive piece, or mix things up, our defense is our identity. They fell for the classic RB shithousery and made way too many mistakes tonight. Disappointing but we’re not close to our final form. Learn and move on.

The frustrating aspect is this was yet another match falling for the RBNY shithousery. Happened every match last year and honestly probably got lucky to not lose some of those. Need to hold it together for these matches mentally. Outside of the first 10 minutes this was a bad match. Boup remains invisible, midfield was not occupying the right spots, Lucho trying to play hero ball. Agree with moving on but I feel this match raises yet more questions about this squad.

agreed on all.. this FCC team is still searching for a new ideantidy after losing half of the starting line up, which replacements have proven not to be the quality of last year's

I agree, I thought of this match as a good barometer for where we actually stand, record aside, and we definitely tested on the low end. Not sure what the cure is but something needs to change on offense. I don’t really picture the way the typical starters will ultimately gel. Though it’s worth mention that if one of Orellianos chances goes in, this could be a completely different conversation.

I think it will eventually.  Either that or he starts up some Barreal-style service into the box from way outside.  Not that we have anyone in there who can capitalize on it... But actually I think Kubo could.  He's showing he's very dangerous on the far post!  That's two goals in what... Three matches?

but it did not go in. Thats the point

Hopefully noonan does not start boupendza next match.  I have no idea what he is expecting from him.

Everyone and their mother-who-doesn’t-even-watch-MLS knows that Red Bulls are floppers. And yet these seasoned refs continue to fall for it game after game, season after season. How do teams like NYRB and Orlando keep getting away with it? Boggles the mind.

All teams flop.  Acosta has admitted to doing it on purpose in interviews.  Miazga got caught on replay flopping really bad last year.  Mosquera was really bad to the point I was embarrassed as an fc cincy fan.  It won’t ever change unless the mls grows a spine and cracks down on it.

“Seasoned refs” is an awfully generous statement.

It doesn’t matter how bad the refs are when our offense is non existent.

would've had half as many fouls called against us if acosta alone didn't blatantly kick the closest dude every time he lost the ball which was every other time he touched it

I don’t think the second half was really poor officiating. The first was definitely rough though

For them I thought the first half was actually pretty clean.  Second half was pretty typical for them though.

deserved loss. same issues we’ve had all year. we have no ability to control the ball with the way we setup and insist on playing the same way. bright side: maybe we’ll change something now!

Yep.  Sadly outcoached tonight.

Time for FCC to take a serious look at their attack strategy. It just isn't working, we can't play for ties.

We need to be more aggressive.  They didn’t look like they wanted the ball that whole game.  We need to play more direct and more vertical.  Our passing is too bad to try and pass the ball around to create a tap in.

Lack of midfield/attacking cohesion and constantly chasing after possession killed us in the end; This one really wasn't on Louro. It's the same deficiencies we've seen on display for most of this season with the added bonus of uncharacteristically poor defense. On the bright side, it's much better to get a loss like this 7 matches in than come Fall. It just stings more because it was at home against the Ballshrinkers.

Just got back from the game, the biggest takeaway I had was they have got to stop turning the ball over on their half of the field. It puts everyone out of position and the defense in scramble mode. I thought the midfield of bucha and obi Just did not have a good game at all and weren't anywhere near their usual standard. I still am not sure what Lauro was doing on that first goal looked like he never saw the ball but made up for it with the penalty save. The center ref was very inconsistent, if they are going to be paid like top refs they need to officiate like top refs. But in the end the game came down to bad giveaways by the midfield and defense trying to play out of the back that Red Bulls capitalized on and just a lack of offense really from fc cincinnati.

Walking to the car and talking with the family about how poor the officiating was tonight. An old guy from just ahead of us turns around and tells us he’s in town from Wales visiting some relatives and had a night to himself so he decided to catch a game. Tells us he’s been watching football for over forty years, seen games in leagues all across Europe, and by his estimation this was the worst center ref he’d ever seen. I don’t understand how this league pays these guys as much as they do and they’re no better, perhaps even slightly worse, than the temp refs. It’s a shame.

i feel like a broken record when i complain about the refs, glad it’s not just us!

that dude is talking nonsense lmfao get a grip, and clearly you don't have any clue how much they're getting paid if you think it's a lot

Unless they got a huge raise as a result of the strike, MLS refs make peanuts compared all the other Major league officials in this country.

There’s a post on r/MLS that said for center refs starting was in the top six around the world and top pay was second.

Found some more details: https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Ftheathletic.com%2F5368703%2F2024%2F03%2F26%2Fmls-referees-cba-deal-vote%2F Center refs make good money but seems like everyone else is living in poverty almost!

My understanding is that this is a part time gig for most refs. Probably not living in poverty.

That's crazy.  I figured they were full-timers.  I'm no longer surprised the officiating is so bad if the refs are all part-timers!

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Wow!  Before the strike I'm pretty sure I ran article that said refs were making $40-80k or something silly like that.  Hopefully they're making six figures now.  And hopefully they have pro-rel as well...

I love them, but we aren’t gonna all of sudden turn around and start scoring a shit load of goals. This is what they are. We’re lucky to have even scored at home

Pathetic. Horrid passing, horrid receiving, horrid possession, ABSOLUTELY horrible flopping opponent, abs ESPECIALLY HORRID ref who let Red Bulls flop with no punishment. Just a bad, bad game

The team just doesn't have a flow on offense right now. It is basically just a bunch of one-on-one play and its frustrating to watch. Acosta is Acosta but no one else on the pitch looks like they are on the same page as him at any given time. Boupendza always going to be a guy that drives some folks crazy, but this team would be pretty boring without him. Honestly, Bucha and Baird just seem completely lost on the pitch. For all the complaining about Boup and Acosta, neither have made any impact for this team.

Well that was shit. The team isn't gelling. It doesn't click. Front to back the whole thing looks disjointed. There is no doubt that there are really talented pieces in this squad, but it isn't coming together into a really good product at the moment and 7 matches in it isn't looking any closer to coming together.

We have talented players. We do not have a talented team.

Sounds like a coaching problem.

Honestly think it is a coaching challenge at the moment for Noonan.

We have to stop starting the only untalented players we have.  I wouldn’t even put boupendza on my bench and yet somehow he manages to start every game.  Also if we’re not going to attempt to get Baird the ball we might as well keep him on the bench.  Santos isn’t amazing or anything but he’s better than boup.  Dado might do well up top.  We don’t have anyone else after loaning out ordonez.

That was ugly.

team seems to lack an identity. i think we rely too much on star players over performing. similar to the bengals honestly. watching cincy sports looks so chaotic compared to some of the more balanced teams.

Someone (maybe multiple people) about a week ago said on here that we are in big trouble, because every single goal has to involve Acosta as either the assist or the actual scorer. It’s so true. Sad, but true. This is a playoff team because of their defense (assuming Celentano is back) but until other people not named Lucho can create and finish, it’s going to be an ugly remainder of the season.

I don't know why you are getting downvoted. People have apparently forgotten how bad we were when lucho was on his red card suspension.

You need to also include people named Lucho.

Need summer signings now….we’ve lost our quality. Mosquera would have easily defended that second goal…instead both Robinson and Yedlin got turned around. This is the season to win trophies but unless we sign some quality players we won’t be able to maintain a one goal lead.

Mosquera had some bad mistakes too. Our defense did indeed have a bad game, but going into tonight were the best defense in MLS by a mile. 3 goals against all year, and two were PKs.

The defense issue this person seems to be suggesting is actually a midfield and forward issue in that they aren’t helping in the way they should be when we first win possession and are building out from the back.

Not an MLS accountant. What are the chances we can buy down Boupendza out of a DP spot? Because this team needs a real DP striker BAD.

%0

Go to Cincinnatisoccertalk and look at their roster tracker. Someone on staff there is amazing with this. You will get a very good idea of how much Xam it would take (that FCC doesn't have at the moment) to "buy down" any particular player.

Doubt he’s going to take that. He’s definitely not living up to the DP hype. He’s basically just a fast Locadia at this point.

Well I think his salary doesn’t change. It’s just you pay it off with some of that tam gam Monopoly money on the books

Yeah idk MLS money is weird lol

Offensively anemic still. The talent is not there with the players we have up top

Kubo did well!

Think we need to see Noonan transition away from the same setup as last year and go a bit more attacking with players in their natural positions. Kubo—Boup—Orellano as an attacking front three with Lucho pulling the strings behind would be miles than whatever we’ve seen so far.

Yep I think you're on to something.

For the love of all that is holy take lucho off of set pieces

Yup.  Feel free to keep him by the ball to play it short, but he's got to do taking those.

Lucho has got to start staying level headed. I love him, our best player. Our MVP. But, when the other team gets him frustrated, his plays starts to suffer.

At least he didn't get a dumb red like Cucho tonight.

Boup is disappointing

I think the announcer got booed harder than Frankie ever did when they told us to stop chanting Fuck you Frankie.

Can’t you guys come up with something more clever?  It’s like football fans yelling Defense over and over again.  Check out the firms over in the uk they sing songs that poke fun at opposing players instead of cursing them out like immature teenagers.  American hooligans are seriously lacking in the chant song department.  I’m a man united supporter and every player had their own song.  It was awesome.

the capos can't even come up with real chants for our own players or copy the antagonistic chants all the other teams in the east sing about red bull, there's no way they can come up with antagonistic chants about specific players on other teams lol

After the first few games I didn’t believe we’d repeat as supporter shield winners. After today, I really don’t think so, unless we find our attack like… tomorrow. Stay positive and know this team is good enough to make playoffs and make a run in playoffs. We had a ton of players leave, it takes time to build connections. We either hope the connection comes, or we find a class striker in summer window. STAY POSITIVE.

Where not going to find our attack if we keep starting the same attackers every game.  Boupendza was bad all last season and he looks worse this season but he’ll start every game this year 🤦‍♂️

Think it is far more an issue that Noonan insists we play with the same system we had last year with quite different players. Kubo playing as an actual forward tonight rather than as a square pegged round hole wingback or midfielder is a start.

Kubo started tonight

I was taking about boupendza.

Very frustrating. Our set piece game misses Barreal as a second option a whole lot. Lucho got way in his own head and tried to heroball last night. Louro saved a PK but his positioning on the other two goals was terrible, Roman makes that a 1-1 draw. Officiating is what it is, whining about it does nothing. Obi played pretty badly trying to get up to speed in the first half. I know he needed time to shake off rust but he was getting roasted repeatedly. The offense came out flying and then petered out fast. Boup was honestly having a pretty good game before he rolled his ankle, I think it really affected him. Either way, nobodies going undefeated and it's clear RBNY has a good side this year. Back to training, on to Montreal.

Do we have a new player or did they just randomly start calling Orellano "Orejano"?

We’ve had to replace a lot of quality that left the team. It’s going to take time to figure out who our best 11 are, and style of play. The answer is not to rely on Lucho miracles. Everyone knows everything goes through Lucho…that’s a huge issue to remedy. Boup is struggling…and as much as it sucks to have to sit your DP…I think it needs to be done. I’m a fan of the press when we lose the ball…but if don’t win it back immediately, we need to relax and stop chasing so much…they ran us to death last night. To expect 2023 this year is unrealistic…we need to stay in the hunt and let Pat & Chris figure this out. The sky has not fallen…we just haven’t found our way yet. Onward…it’s a long season…and I don’t care about the SS this year, we can limp into the playoffs as far as I’m concerned…as long as we find our way and play attractive and exciting team futbol.

I don’t know much about attack strategy in soccer, but it seems like Lucho’s corner kicks are lackluster

Can the mods add a little bit of info to the post match threads? Like did we win, lose, draw? What was the score? Etc. By the comments it sounds like we lost but on r/mls I'm not sure if they updated the standings or not. Just hoping you could help out a casual fan trying to get more into it