FC Cincinnati is coming off the best season in club history in 2022 after posting a 12-9-13 record and advancing to the Eastern Conference semifinal round of the MLS Cup playoffs. Now, the expectations locally and nationally are of FC Cincinnati to contend again. A playoff berth in 2023 is all but required, but that's no small task. As part of The Enquirer's season-preview content, we'll look at each positional area of the team and take stock of the goalkeepers, defenders, midfielders and forwards based on the latest developments out of the ongoing preseason.
***
FC Cincinnati’s 2022 season saw its play at the goalkeeper position rise to heights previously unseen at the club.
Alec Kann was a match-winning, game-changing presence until he sustained an injury that allowed rookie Roman Celentano to take over. Celentano’s grip on the starting position lasted through the end of the season – no small feat for a first-year player – and he carved out a place for himself in the club’s future.
Now, those two goalkeepers, as well as others below them in the pecking order, will have to at least sustain the success of 2022.
Personnel overview
First-team goalkeepers rostered (alphabetical): Roman Celentano, Alec Kann, Evan Louro, Hunter Morse (unsigned via MLS SuperDraft selection), Kenneth Vermeer, Paul Walters. Departed players: Nico Campuzano (FC Cincinnati 2), Beckham Sunderland. Position coach: Paul Rogers (head of goalkeeping); second year at FC Cincinnati.
More:Brandon Vazquez, Roman Celentano to represent FC Cincinnati with USMNT
More:Here's who FC Cincinnati will face in the Leagues Cup this summer
2023 outlook for FCC's goalkeepers
FC Cincinnati is as close to set and satisfied with its goalkeeper situation as anyone in the organization could reasonably hope or expect. The club is cultivating a deep pool of talent at the position, too.
FC Cincinnati heads to Clearwater, Florida, for the second phase of its preseason with six goalkeepers rostered. Some are developmental prospects and others are slated to join coach Tyrone Marshall's FC Cincinnati 2 side, but the bulk of the first-team conversation is going to center around veteran Alec Kann and rising, second-year star Roman Celentano.
The latter two names are pitted against one another in what head coach Pat Noonan says is a kind of open competition for the right to start in 2023, although its impossible to ignore that Celentano started the last 29 matches of last season (including postseason) after Kann’s injury. It's hard to think he doesn't have an edge in the competition at the outset.
Cincinnati can be confident with having either player in net, though, and that's important because FCC will surely need both at different points during the season. Certainly, that was the case last year.
Kann is the seasoned veteran presence in this group and will continue to help Celentano progress – and Celentano has already established himself as a viable MLS starter despite being in the league for just over a calendar year.
Evan Louro, the 2021 USL Goalkeeper of the Year, signed on with FCC late in 2022 and was later retained for 2023. He’s no pushover and he adds meaningful depth and competitiveness in the first-team setup.
Those three players offer the club a good chance at year-over-year improvement in the goalkeeping department, and that's no small achievement considering Kann's experience and Celentano already being in a USMNT camp.
Rare are the seasons when FC Cincinnati − or any club in any league in the world, really − doesn't reach to the bench for help in the event of injuries, slumps and a congested schedule. It's possible FC Cincinnati finds itself competing on three separate fronts this summer when you factor for the MLS regular season, the U.S. Open Cup and the first edition of the Leagues Cup.
That's where quality backups, and players like Louro, will allow FC Cincinnati to be competitive on all three fronts.
Long-term, the future of the club’s goalkeeper position is in Celentano’s hands, provided he continues to develop and perform. You can be confident of that because general manager Chris Albright speaks of the so-called "spine" of the team (the most important players up the middle of the team’s preferred formation - its core) and includes Celentano’s name in that conversation.
Paul Rogers, head of goalkeeping for FCC, might not have the public persona of past goalkeeper coaches at FC Cincinnati, but he is the real deal and has his group primed for success in 2023. In addition to working with the goalkeepers and preparing FC Cincinnati on set pieces, Rogers has a camp system in place that allows him to survey the top goalkeeping talent from the youth ranks in Greater Cincinnati to budding professionals from around the country. He’s got his finger on the pulse of seemingly everything going on around MLS, and he goes about his work without want of fanfare. FC Cincinnati and its fans are in excellent hands with Rogers in charge of the club’s goalkeepers.
Player to watch: Alec Kann
The plan for Kann when he came to FC Cincinnati was to take the reins as the starter, and be a bridge to the future at the position, whatever that future was. The future arrived earlier than expected in Celentano, though. Don't forget that Kann lived up to his billing for the first seven matches of 2022. He was then dislodged from his starting position via the combination of his injury and the emergence of Celentano. Kann is a prideful player and he still has plenty to offer. If the competition to be the club’s No. 1 ‘keeper is a truly open competition and not one in which Celentano gets a jumpstart based on his 2022 form, Kann is going to put up a serious fight to reclaim the starting job.
Source link
