Matchday 1 Preview: FC Cincinnati vs Houston Dynamo

Kevin Wallace

FC Cincinnati vs Houston Dynamo

Houston was really bad last year, lost one of their best players in Tim Parker, brought in nobody of note, and hired a coach with a, frankly, bad coaching record in MLS with Ben Olsen.

FC Cincinnati meanwhile held onto the best attacking trio in the league, brought in midfield reinforcements, and replaced Jeff Cameron with another premier league defender that’s a decade younger with Yerson Mosquera.

On paper, this should be a slaughter.

So here are the three questions I am looking to have answered in this game:

Where is Brenner… mentally?

The Brazilian peace’d out in the middle of the preseason. Depending on who you talk to he was furious he didn’t get a move to England, or had a family emergency, or both. Regardless, he didn’t score a goal last year until June and still finished the year 6th in the golden boot race. He’s leaving in the summer regardless, but getting him off to a hot start would mean smooth sailing for the orange and blue

Is the defense actually better?

Losing Geoff Cameron and Ronald Matarrita would be tough for any MLS side to overcome. But last year Barreal had a better offensive season than Mata has ever had in MLS, and Cameron really started to show his age. Nwobodo and Miazga radically changed how this defense played last year and if you add new loanee Yerson Mosquera to the mix, this backline might be better than last year. But Mosquera is also unproven, they’re still probably relying on Nick Hagglund to start most of the year, and Nwobodo might be a little banged up coming out of preseason. Albright has public ally challenged the team to give up fewer than 45 goals, will they look like it?

Does Roman take the next step?

Roman Celentano looks to have won the starting job again this year after a surprisingly competitive preseason competition with backup Alec Kann. Celentano earned a call-up to the United States Men’s National Team this winter after a strong performance last year. Nobody thought the 2022 Super Draft Pick would start very many games, let alone win out the starting job on merit last year. He wasn’t perfect by any means, but he certainly showed he could have a bright future. So this year, and in this match, I want to see signs of him taking the next step. The first big issue he needs to work on is his distribution. Let’s see how a full offseason with professional coaching and national team camp experience has impacted his game.

Expected Lineup

Yeah I feel comfortable here saying the entire first choice team is running out there. Nwobodo had an injury scare this week in training and Brenner spent some time away this preseason but both were back training with the team towards the end of the week this week. I could see the backline looking very different with Murphy potentially starting over Hagglund or Mosquera, Miasma being moved centrally, or some other development I’m not seeing. But this is how I would line em up.

Prediction

4-0 FC Cincinnati, no reason to think they won’t destroy Houston.

Update

Going forward, this will be a video series! Look for it next week!