Solid. Fit. Organized.
Those words, FC Cincinnati General Manager Chris Albright said, should personify the club's on-field product during the 2022 Major League Soccer season.
Albright's well aware those descriptors aren't necessarily sexy, but the club this season is banking on modest alterations leading to noticeable improvement after three consecutive last-place finishes.
"None of those words excite fans – ‘solid, fitter, organized’ – but, frankly, that’s how you win games in MLS," Albright told The Enquirer.
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The new regime heading FC Cincinnati, including Albright and first-year head coach Pat Noonan, has been noticeably measured on the subject of expectation-setting ahead of the 2022 campaign.
"There are no promises," Noonan said in December, adding there wasn't a timeline for developing the on-field product.
As the preseason progressed, avoiding outsized forecasts and visions of grandeur for 2022 looked wise due to the disjointed nature of FCC's preseason.
Brenner Souza da Silva, the club's leading scorer in 2021 and a player who will bear a significant scoring burden in 2022, only arrived in Cincinnati on Friday due to immigration issues. The club is also bolstering its roster on the fly, as evidenced by the addition this week of a much-needed defensive midfielder in Junior Moreno.
More personnel acquisitions are likely in the coming months as the club looks to course-correct toward building a complete team after the previous regime seemed to specialize in identifying talented individuals who ended up not piecing together well.
Perhaps, though, there is a reason for more optimism than the new regime is willing to concede.
FC Cincinnati's coming off a run of undefeated play in five preseason matches, including a 1-0-2 record against Philadelphia Union, Nashville SC and Orlando City SC – three of the Eastern Conference's most consistent clubs in recent years.
Those results won't count for much Saturday night when the regular season kicks off against Austin FC but earning hard-fought results is a good habit to get into regardless of preseason versus regular season.
And while some supporters have knocked FC Cincinnati for returning close to 20 players from the 2021 team that finished last, there's increasingly an acknowledgment from the front office that the skeletal structure for a respectable MLS season might be in place on the roster.
"We have high-end talent. The idea of getting them to understand how to play cohesively and play as a team – you know, we had a couple good exercises against Nashville and Philadelphia, specifically," Albright said. "They’re really good teams. It counts for nothing in the win column, but it counts for something when you’re evaluating in my position or the head coach position in the progress we’re making.
"The clear communication of ideas, the communication back to us about how the environment is different, that’s important as well. That’s noticeable from staff. That’s noticeable from players."
FC Cincinnati supporters have been routinely let down during moments of optimism in recent years, but maybe some semblance of a reward for their patience is forming on the training pitches at the Mercy Health Training Center.
2022 regular-season prediction
Noticeably absent from FC Cincinnati's now-concluded preseason was the kind of late-winter drubbing that had become customary in past seasons, and usually served as a harbinger of the struggles to come.
While much of the preseason was conducted in the absence of media members, there appeared to be few alarm bells and red flags during this year's five preseason matches. That speaks to early progress toward resetting FC Cincinnati's culture and on-field expectations – both stated aims and areas where the club now feels comfortable.
Not much of the roster has been turned over, as critics both local and national like to point out. But holding that against the team presupposes players like Brenner, Brandon Vazquez and others won't take a step (or multiple steps) forward, and that the group as a whole can't build on the 12 one-goal defeats that it suffered en route to a 4-22-8 record in 2021.
And in one important area where some roster turnover was achieved, goalkeeper Alec Kann should solidify an area where FC Cincinnati's lacked throughout its MLS existence.
It's easy to get swept away by the "what if's" and possibilities of every club holding a 0-0-0 record. For all we know, FCC's preseason results could be completely flattering and misleading. But taken together, there are enough factors that point to improvement – albeit modest – and some respectability as FC Cincinnati should finish 10th out of 14 Eastern Conference clubs.
Cincinnati.com's projected/best starting XI
Alec Kann (GK), Ray Gaddis, Gustavo Vallecilla, Geoff Cameron, Ronald Matarrita, Junior Moreno, Yuya Kubo, Luciano Acosta, Allan Cruz, Brandon Vazquez, Brenner Souza da Silva.
As mentioned above, it's well-documented that a significant number of players are returning from 2021's last-place finish. But Albright managed to trim some of the proverbial fat during this offseason (think Kamohelo Mokotjo) and brought in serviceable veterans and role players, like Ray Gaddis, Alvas Powell and Kann.
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In line with the idea that FC Cincinnati needs to put points on the board early from a run of matches the includesAustin, D.C. United (March 5), Inter Miami (March 19) and expansion side Charlotte FC (March 26), the club must quickly get the high-priced Brenner caught up after he essentially missed the preseason.
The onus of picking up Brenner's slack could fall to Vazquez in the interim, but Brenner must deliver eventually. His eight goals in 2021 constituted a single-season club record in MLS. That's a nice achievement considerably MLS is a league that can be difficult for international players to transition into. But the transfer fee Brenner commanded in his move to FCC dictates that Year Two should see him become a no-doubt matchwinner that can take games over.
The biggest knock on FC Cincinnati's roster ahead of the season-opener had been the lack of a defensive midfielder. The club scraped together a last-minute answer to that problem by trading with D.C. United for Moreno's MLS right and signing him.
Even a marginal upgrade at that position should be noticeably impactful for FCC, although Albright has repeatedly cautioned that FC Cincinnati won't be a finished product at season's outset. That's certainly still the case even with Moreno rostered.
The club still has needs in the midfield and, ultimately, players like Vazquez, striker Dominique Badji and others have a lot to prove. FC Cincinnati is already looking to upcoming windows for personnel movement in-season in order to continue to improve its squad. The club's best 11 players by the end of the year could look very different from the starting lineup on Saturday in Austin.
That likelihood might hold the true meaning of 2022: Setting the table for FC Cincinnati's strongest push yet to be a true contender in 2023.
Preseason overview
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