It’s in the title, folks. Every week during the MLS season, Backheeled is here to dive into the biggest Winners and Losers from around the league. Let’s get right to it!
Winner: FC Cincinnati finding themselves again
In a lot of ways, it’s been a rough year for FC Cincinnati. Last season, they finished second in the East. This season, they’ve been floating around the playoff line despite sporting a very similar squad. However, on Saturday, they defeated the Philadelphia Union 1-0 to secure their fifth-straight playoff appearance, landing seventh in their conference.
To talk about this season, we have to talk about what’s made Cincinnati successful in the past, which is their defense. We’ve talked plenty this year about their defensive failings, but it’s worth emphasizing that this club’s rise from laughing stock to Supporters’ Shield winners has been directly tied to their ability to defend. It’s why they invested so much money in the backline, and it’s why this season's fall-off has felt so dramatic. Up until a few games ago, they were on-pace to join Orlando City and Sporting Kansas City in breaking MLS’s single-season goals conceded record. Recently, though, the defense has been much more solid.
In the past four matches, Cincinnati have conceded only three times, and posted clean sheets in two of those games. That brings them to only four clean sheets all season. For context, they posted 12 clean sheets last season.
What’s led to this recent turnaround? Well, there’s a handful of things that seem to have arrested their defensive woes. The first is that goalkeeper Roman Celentano has seemingly broken out of his funk. One of the better shot-stoppers in MLS since becoming the Cincinnati starter, Celentano hasn’t been great this season. However, he’s starting to look like his old self again as evidenced by an impressive six save performance against Philadelphia.
Andrew Clausen
Second is consistency. Injuries have robbed Cincinnati of any real stretch of consistent starters across the backline this season, but Teenage Hadebe and Nick Haaglund have started the last four matches and Kyle Smith has started three out of four. That doesn’t sound like much, but consistency is so important to a back three. Those three are all also veterans who know their jobs. None of them are spectacular, but you know exactly what you’re going to get from them.
