Still Standing: FC Cincinnati 2025 Season Preview
Damon Gumbert
“No one writes articles for the website” Chief chuckles while recording Thursday’s PostCast.
That’s fair. It has been a minute since I did write something on here. I’ve been waiting for all of the dominoes that have been lined up over the last month or two to finally fall. As of Wednesday, that had happened; more or less.
FC Cincinnati announced that Luciano Acosta, former MLS MVP and team captain, was being transferred to FC Dallas for five million dollars. Lucho had made it publicly known following The FC’s post-season loss to NYCFC in November that he had likely played his last game for Cincinnati. Lucho then skipped FC Cincinnati’s media availability and instead made an appearance on Argentinian ESPN talking about how much he wanted to play for Argentine side Boca Juniors.
But we all know this. We know that he showed up late to training and preseason. We know what he said about Chris Albright. It’s been talked about ad nauseam and honestly, the whole drama bores me. So we’re going to skip past all of that and talk about what’s next. The club has a former league record inbound transfer in Kevin Denkey, a fully signed Luca Orellano (whether he’s happy or not), and allegedly a league record trade deal with the Portland Timbers for Evander, though that deal has not been fully announced as of yet.
The club was also able to bring in Lukas Engel and Gilberto Flores to shore up their defense. They bid farewell to Ian Murphy and Chidozie Awaziem in a deal that was as necessary as it was shocking at the time. And most importantly, they agreed to bring back Cincinnati Legend Nick Hagglund. While Lucho was the best player and in some ways the face of the organization while he was here, Hagglund has been the heart since before Lucho arrived.
But I digress, this isn’t meant to be an article about what has been but instead what could be. With Lucho gone, Hagglund has an opportunity to step up and become the face and heart of the organization. He will likely not crack the starting lineup, at least until Miles Robinson inevitably gets called away for USMNT duty, so he won’t be the team captain on the field. That honor will likely go to Matt Miazga, who has been a focal point in much of The FC’s social media posts this offseason.
Kevin Denkey and Evander will likely take over much of Lucho’s scoring and passing duties. Luca Orellano also figures to be heavily involved in the offense, though whether that is at the striker or attacking midfielder position is up for debate.
Orellano is now entering his second year in MLS and under Pat Noonan and FC Cincinnati, the adjusting period that comes with a new team and coach in a new league is over. Orellano played in more games than anyone on FC Cincinnati not named Bucha and managed to net 11 goals and added five assists. That was while also playing different positions all over the pitch throughout the season.
Evander is joining the team a little late in preseason and will have to make up for that missed time, but he does have a successful recent past in MLS. Last season he was an MVP finalist and accumulated 34 goal contributions with 15 goals and 19 assists. That’s one more GC than Lucho had (34) and Evander played in four less games than Lucho. He is also four years younger than Lucho, and is just now entering his prime.
Denkey has a different road ahead of him. This will be his first year in Cincinnati and under Pat Noonan but also his first year in MLS. Luckily, he has been around since the beginning of training camp and has had time to acclimate to the team and get some chemistry rolling. The bad thing is that Orellano showed up late to training and has been sidlined with a knock and then illness and Evander has yet to be fully announced with the team and has likely not trained much. The team remains in Florida for a few days before going to Honduras for their CONCACAF Champions Cup game, so here’s hoping they get a good “Top Gun” montage game of volleyball going and become best friends before the season starts.
Now lets talk about the defense. My god, this defense looks incredible. A back three of Miazga, Robinson, and Teenage Hadebe is likely to be one of the best in the league. On top of that, DeAndre Yedlin is one of the best defensive wingbacks in the league and Lucas Engel is a EFL Championship side wingback. Engel may need a minute to acclimate to MLS play, but he has been training with the club for most, if not all, of the preseason. If goalkeeper Roman Celentano is back to his 2023 self, this team could give up the least amount of goals in MLS this season.
Depth has always been an issue with The FC. Chris Albright has seemingly wanted to fill most of the depth roster spots with youngsters the likes of the late Marco Angulo, Malik Pinto, London Aghedo, Quimi Ordonez, Stiven Jiminez, and Dado Valenzuela. Of those players, only Dado Valenzuela and Stiven Jimenez remain on the team in 2025. None of those players eclipsed 1000 minutes in either 2023 or 24. Combined. Marco Angulo played 24 games and hit 784 minutes in 2023 and was then loaned out to L.D.U. Quito before tragically passing away after a car crash in Ecuador. Malik Pinto managed 300+ minutes in 2023 but only managed 150 in all of 2024. Dado was added to a homegrown contract in 2023 and barely played for the first team before making a splash while Lucho was injured in the middle of the season. The only player who managed to surpass 1000 minutes in those two seasons while being under the age of 22 was Kevin Kelsy, who now plays for Portland.
My assumption has been that Pat Noonan prefers proven commodities over unproven players. He preferred to put in a 33-year-old Ray Gaddis over the likes of Brett Halsey, Malik Pinto, or Marco Angulo. Actually, Gaddis also played more minutes than Yuya Kubo and Alvas Powell. In 2024 he preferred to play Pavel Bucha every minute of every game over putting in Pinto or Jimenez. The club has now added Tah Brian Anunga to their midfield, a 28-year-old defensive midfielder. They also, inexplicably, still have Sergio Santos and Corey Baird on the roster. Baird played several different positions last season, notably subbing in at wingback in the latter half. Santos started off well in 2023 but fell off through the season, and in 2024 he was the go to backup striker for much of the season, mosty used as a “change of pace” due to his incredible speed. But the man couldn’t score. He took 25 shots in 2024 and only notched three goals. In 2023 he took 28 shots and only managed four goals.
Don’t think about the percentage of shots to goals because if you do you’ll ruin your opinion of Luca Orellano (93 shots and 10 goals, jesus christ).
Something that my friends on The PostCast brought up was that FCC ownership has spent a lot of money without selling any assets. That’s great, we’re building a winning team and need to spend money to make that happen. It’s not sustainable though. If Pat doesn’t want to play these younger players so they can become better and gain experience and then let them leave when their contracts are over (like Pinto and Aghedo and others) then we need to loan them somewhere where they can get play time and develop. So far, in my time following the club, they have used loans as a trial period for a team to sign a player. They loaned out Alvaro Barreal, Marco Angulo, and Quimi Ordonez in order to get them off the books, not in order to build their skills. The team has sat, and likely will continue to sit, on Stiven Jimenez and Stefan Chirila who could use more play time against good soccer players and teams.
A brief aside before I wrap up this article because it’s already too long for something no one will read, MLS Next Pro teams were put in the US Open Cup last year after MLS pulled first teams due to schedule congestion. Those MLS Next Pro teams did not do great playing against USL teams. Honestly, they were on-par with USL 2 teams. There were a couple standout MLS Next Pro teams, but for the most part they did not do well in the larger US cup fixture. It would make sense if more MLS teams loaned out their homegrown/young players to USL teams so they can get more playtime and develop. But I digress.
Let’s put the past behind us and move forward into a new era of FC Cincinnati.
Oh, I forgot to make a prediction. If this team gels the way I want them to, I think they are going to give Inter Miami a run for their money. A supporters shield run is not out of the question. If the players remain healthy, a deep run in the mls cup playoffs is on the table. Sky’s the limit.
