It’s rare that we get the Hell Is Real Derby outside of Rivalry Week, but in a week where not many matchups popped off the page, this met and exceeded all the expectations.  FC Cincinnati couldn’t have dreamed of a better start.  Goals from Pavel Bucha and Evander thrust the home team into the driver’s seat before some fans got the chance to finish their Skyline Chili in the parking lot.  Surely the party would continue long into the night in the Queen City…

Everyone knows what they say about a 2-0 lead in soccer, right?  The last five minutes of the first half were Columbus’ own version of how FCC started the game, equalizing before the halftime whistle through Diego Rossi and Max Arfsten.  The visitors had the better of the play throughout the first half after the early barrage, but weren’t able to break through until the 42nd minute, then again in first half stoppage time.  Columbus would come out of the break the stronger side, and took the lead when Miles Robinson redirected a cross into his own net.  The substitute Taha Habroune sealed the win for the Crew in stoppage time, icing the cake for the traveling supporters.

To the victor go the spoils:

FC Cincinnati dropped to second place after Philadelphia’s win against Red Bull, while Columbus closed the gap on their in-state rivals to one point.  It’s getting tight at the top of the East, where the top four are only separated by two points.

The Columbus Crew have been a top team in MLS for a long time now, but since Wilfried Nancy has taken over, the club has become extremely non-reliant on individuals and completely system-centric.  Crew fans were up in arms when the club decided to move on from Lucas Zelarayan and a riot almost broke out when Cucho Hernandez was sold, yet they’re still a top contender in the East and results like Saturday’s Hell Is Real trip to Cincinnati prove there’s no end in sight.  Forget the first five minutes— that’s going to happen sometimes.  They’re a Valenzuela solo run and an Evander moment of brilliance away from being level after the start instead of in the hole.  After those five minutes, there was never a doubt they’d have their chance to come away with points.  It begins with their confidence along the back line.  Patrick Schulte is the most comfortable goalkeeper in the league possessing the ball out of the back, and it almost seems like they’re in a training exercise where the coach has restricted their ability to play longer balls forward.  It’s a rope-a-dope of sorts, and they’re willing to live with the consequences.  No amount of lost possession in bad areas will deter them from it, and they bring so many numbers towards the ball, they always have a way to break the pressure.  The toughest part about their style is that every once in a while they will go more direct (sorry Wilfried Nancy, I feel like the term “direct” would keep him up at night… let’s go with purposeful passes over distance).   When they do, so much space has been vacated by their midfielders coming back for the ball that Jacen Russel-Rowe and Diego Rossi are able to retain safe possession behind that line of pressure, and the rest of the Crew are now able to move upfield into the next phase.  It’s impressive, to say the least, and we’ve never seen a team that possesses the ball quite like they do (not since I’ve been around at least).

Let’s not forget about Darlington Nagbe, who’s (for my money) one of the best players MLS has ever seen.  He’s a big part of why the system can work.  His game heat map is everywhere, and he will fill in at any position on the field.  Most of his best work is played between the lines.  Constantly, he’s linking the play from the center backs to the outside backs or the outside backs to the attackers, and then sometimes he just does this (Also, watch the rotation between the center backs and midfielders that allows Nagbe to come back all the way into his own box to get the ball… it’s almost kamikaze, in a sense, but that’s the system that is the Columbus Crew):

The Good

I mean, what a start.  Big rivalry, raucous crowd, and a two goal lead before people have even sat down in their seats.  Unfortunately that about sums up the good.  Evander is the Steph Curry of MLS.  He will pull up to shoot from just about anywhere, anytime, regardless of who’s in front of him or how much pressure he has on his back.  His finish today originally looks a bit awkward for the Columbus defense, but the close up shows how clean he hit this ball and that the intention matched the action.  It’s a scary sight for defenses when you see so many of those deep shots ripple the net.  They also found early success in negating Columbus’s build from goal kicks before the half.  Pat Noonan had his team sit off of Schulte instead of pressing him, while retaining the high line of confrontation.  Eventually Schulte, with a lack of options, would try to fit a ball into the second or third line.  FCC was able to pick up seconds and counter with attackers in dangerous areas and create some pretty solid scoring chances. Which leads me to:

The Bad

FC Cincinnati will rue the amount of half chances they failed to turn into real scoring opportunities.  Too often they found themselves in transition moments they led to long distance shots gone over the bar or poorly placed passes that crumbled the attack.  The killer instinct of the first five minutes went away after a few squandered chances and by the time they knew what hit them, Columbus already had a firm hold on the game.

The Ugly

I’m not sure any one of the goals they conceded Pat Noonan would look at and tip his cap to the opponent.  The Nagbe run from his own 18 yard box (although a clean finish from Diego Rossi) should have been avoided.  Add Arfsten’s deflected finish and the Miles Robinson own goal and you’ve found yourself in a 3-2 hole with 30 minutes to play.  But we’ve seen this before! Teams draw back level in these games seemingly all the time in MLS.  This, over all the others is inexcusable.

On their day, FC Cincinnati can play with anyone in the league, and beat them.  Based on what they’ve shown this year, I’ll mark this one down as a blip on the radar— just sucks that Big Brother came to dinner and embarrassed you in front of your whole family… again.