FC Cincinnati drew 2-2 to New England Revolution, current No. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference of the MLS, wasn’t the worst-case scenario to come from Saturday night’s game. Highlighted by a Dominique Badji brace (hat trick if you count his own goal, he joked after the game), FC Cincinnati created offensive chance after chance that resulted in 22 shots for the home side. FC Cincinnati won the aerial battle and held more possession, but fell short of the win due to two defensive mistakes.
Despite the game being the first non-win at home in 2023, Cincinnati still remains undefeated on its own soil with a record of 10-0-1. Players, coaches, and fans may be disappointed with the result, but playing some of the top teams in Major League Soccer and leaving with a point has its positives.
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Here are some of those positives from Saturday’s draw at TQL Stadium.
Dominique Badge
Capped off by a brace of impressive and crucial goals, Badji shone in what head coach Pat Noonan called “one of his best performances.”
Badji was electric and influential on every blade of grass he touched throughout his 85-minute shift, excelling in the crevices of space in front of, in between, and behind New England’s back line. Badji’s dynamism up front resulted in not only his two goals, but two of FCC’s best chances throughout the rest of the game in his two breakaway one-on-one opportunities.
“Like any game I need to hold the ball up when it’s necessary, and I need to threaten the back line when it’s necessary,” Badji said. “I was able to showcase a lot of the little things I can do to help the team win today.”
Off ball, Badji showed prowess in his defensive effort, despite the humidity taking a toll on the players. Noonan praised his defensive effort, among many other things.
“He’s a strong character that isn’t going to back down from opportunities like tonight and conditions that might be challenging,” Noonan said. “He got himself into really good positions, I like the way he ran along the back line to get behind on a couple of those occasions. His hold up play was strong, anytime we went direct he’s also going to be someone that competes in the right way to help us there.”
Winning the aerial battle
“I have the confidence to win every ball (in the air). I don’t care about the players taller than me, I just put in my head ‘I’m going to win the ball.’ If I don’t win, the next ball I’ll win,” Cincinnati center back Yerson Mosquera said after the game.
That mentality sums up all three of Mosquera, fellow center back Nick Hagglund, and Badji’s presence in the aerial duels Saturday. In what felt like an off night of successful aerial-battle duels last weekend against DC United, flick-ons and successful traps proved dangerous to the Cincinnati backline and heavily contributed to the loss. Against New England, Mosquera and Hagglund won defensive goal kicks and clearances at a constant rate.
Mosquera and Hagglund’s success in the air helped Cincinnati keep the ball in the offensive half, helped slow the game down in favor of the home side in the heat, and helped spark (and keep the spark of) offensive stints in New England’s final third.
“It’s a strength of the back line, Nick and Yerson. I thought there were very few (times) that we weren’t able to put back up the field which is important,” Noonan said. “They were excellent in the aerial duels tonight.”
On the offensive side of aerial duels, Badji, who starred in every other aspect of Saturday’s game, did not forget to shine in the air. Badji, according to Noonan, has a great sense of timing his jumps and attacks of the ball in the air, as well as the use of his body against his opponent on such duels.
Multiple occasions saw Badji win offensive goal kicks and clearances. If Badji wasn’t winning the header, he was preventing the opposing player from doing so. Badji fouled or forced a stalemate on multiple aerial occasions, resulting in offensive stretches for Cincinnati.
In the attacking 18-yard box a Mosquera header also smacked the crossbar off a corner in the second half, shooting the home crowd to its collective feet.
The home crowd
In a weekend full of two home Reds games and two Taylor Swift concerts at Paycor Stadium, FC Cincinnati pulled a sellout crowd of over twenty-five thousand passionate blue and orange fans.
The second half of the humidity-infested punch-for-punch contest was running low on energy by the 80-minute mark, until FC Cincinnati’s crowd stood on its feet. When the TQL Stadium crowd rose in volume, last-minute moments such as Mosquera running up the pitch in the offensive transition, Álvaro Barreal taking the fast and momentous touch towards the attacking third, and Luciano Acosta willing his engine through another isolation dribble were made possible.
“It was an exciting game, there were lots of chances and there were lots of back-and-forth, it was kind of a wide-open game,” Hagglund said. “Our fans care, they know what they want, and they know what they expect, so in TQL the atmosphere is awesome.”
Notebook details
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Badji along with Yuya Kubo has made for a more-than serviceable front line in the absence of Brandon Vazquez and awaiting the arrival of forward Aaron Boupendza. While the clinical finishing may not be there (two goals from 22 shots from Cincinnati Saturday), the chance creation is not in question.
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Midfielders Marco Angulo and Obinna Nwobodo served as the engines that kept FC Cincinnati running. The ability to provide such a wide range of defensive coverage is invaluable to the balance between offense and defense. Thanks to their athleticism and effort, Angulo and Nwobodo were able to make tackles and interceptions in the defensive half and instantly spark a transition counter by finding wingers or attackers in voided space. The defensive effort of Angulo was rewarded on FC Cincinnati’s first goal, as his steal at the top of the defensive box and through the ball to Acosta on the wing directly translated into Badji’s goal after two passes.
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FC Cincinnati continues, barring DC United, to play dominant and intriguing soccer without the inclusion of some of its star players. Seeing bits of success with a make-shift lineup missing Vazquez, center back Matt Miazga, and midfielder Junior Moreno during an integral stretch of games is crucial to the development of the rest of the team.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: FC Cincinnati draw with New England has plenty of positive takeaways