Where’s Your Lucho Now?
Grayson
The FC has now experienced its most embarrassing loss of the Pat Noonan era. A lot of narratives emerged from that game, but one of the main questions people have been asking is also one that has persisted over the course of the last three seasons – why doesn’t the FC have a backup for Lucho Acosta?
In some ways, the question kind of answers itself: The FC doesn’t have a replacement for Lucho because there is no like-for-like replacement for Lucho, who put up an MVP-caliber season in MLS last year and pretty much singlehandedly willed his team to a tie in Chicago from multiple goals down in basically 10 minutes of action. Compounding the problem further is MLS’s peculiar salary structure, as Lucho holds one of three Designated Player spots (uncapped transfer fee and salary), and the other two spots are held by similarly indispensable players (Obinna Nwobodo and Brenner/whoever replaces Brenner). A player of similar quality to Lucho would by definition be a player in demand in the global soccer market, and that demand would quickly put him out of our price range. For that matter, even if we had an open DP spot, it would be absurd to use it on a backup player whose primary purpose is to play the half-dozen games a year necessary to give Lucho rest or account for injury.
This is not a problem unique to FC Cincinnati. MLS is a league where teams are often reliant on one major creative attacking player, so there are a lot of teams with Lucho-type players. Figuring out what a “Lucho backup” looks like, then, should start by considering how other teams have solved that problem. Then, we can evaluate what the options are for the FC. Finally, we can draw a conclusion as to what the best move is for the rest of the season.
How Other Teams Figure It Out
While acknowledging that each of these players is a little different (i.e., recognizing that a lot of these players don’t play the exact same position or utilize the same style), it would be fair to say that the following players function in a Lucho-like role (say, by level of influence on the offense) on their respective teams: Thiago Almada (Atlanta), Sebastian Driussi (Austin), Hany Mukhtar (Nashville), Emanuel Reynoso (Minnesota), Lucas Zelarayan (Columbus), and Carles Gil (New England). (Apologies in advance if your favorite player is missing, but I have to cut it off somewhere.) As far as I can tell, none of them has a clear backup:
When Almada missed Matchday 5 against Columbus, Atlanta moved from a 4-2-3-1 to a 4-3-3, with defensive midfielder Santiago Sosa replacing Almada in the lineup. Sosa, who was signed by Atlanta in 2021 with the U22 Initiative, has exactly one goal and no assists in his Atlanta career.
Driussi has played every minute for Austin this year. Last year, he started 32 out of 34 league games, and played full a full 90 in nearly every one of them. In the one game where he did not play meaningful minutes, Austin replaced him with the aging Felipe Martins (one goal for Austin last year across about 700 minutes) and Austin lost 3-0.
Mukhtar has played full 90s the last six games and, like Driussi, he started 32 games for Nashville last year and played the full 90 most of the time. At the beginning of this year, Nashville used Randall Leal (a winger) in Mukhtar’s place, as Mukhtar was not fully fit. Leal has not been in the squad since that game, and he mustered only two goals in more than 2,000 minutes last year for Nashville. Last year, Mukhtar missed only one game (against, naturally, the FC). Rather than try to replace Mukhtar and play the same style, Nashville came into the game in a bunker, stole a fluke goal early, and managed to eke out a 1-1 tie.
Reynoso is an interesting case, as Minnesota was entirely reliant on him last year (he started every game he was available and played 80+ minutes all but three of those times). When he was not available, they got dog-walked. For example, when Minnesota lost to Kansas City 4-1 on September 18 last year, they started Joseph Rosales in Reynoso’s role. Rosales has not scored professionally since 2019, when he was playing in Panama. This year, with Reynoso hanging out in Argentina for unclear reasons, Minnesota has played a few different formations. In some games, Minnesota has played a 4-4-2 with dual 6’s, eschewing an attacking midfielder entirely in favor of relying on its talented wingers and forwards. When Minnesota has used an attacking midfielder, it has employed Robin Lod – a central midfielder by trade – in that position. Lod was previously a DP, but now is on a TAM contract of close to $1 million a year – kind of Minnesota’s Yuya Kubo.
Zelarayan has started all but one of Columbus’s games this year, but that one missing game is a big outlier – it’s the above-mentioned game when Columbus beat Atlanta 6-1, while Almada was out for Atlanta. In that game, Columbus did not try to replace Zelarayan in the lineup. Instead, it played a 3-4-3 with attacking wingbacks and two central midfielders (for what it’s worth, very similar to the tactic Noonan tried against St. Louis). Columbus also played without a “10,” for example, last year against Inter Miami, instead employing a 4-3-3 fairly similar in principle to how Gregg Berhalter prefers to line up the United States Men’s National Team.
Gil has been unable to start three games for New England this year. In two of those games, New England moved DP forward Gustavo Bou into the attacking midfield spot. In one of those games, New England played a 4-4-2 with dual 6’s, starting with no attacking midfielder.
Based on these examples, there seem to be three primary ways teams have successfully adapted to losing their star “10”: (1) changing the formation entirely, (2) playing a DP forward as the attacking midfielder, and (3) relying on another expensive option (a TAM-level player) to fill in. Otherwise, teams have been stuck playing complete non-threats (Martins for Austin, Rosales for Minnesota). None of these teams have successfully and reliably pulled a like-for-like option out of their bench depth.
What Are the FC’s Options?
Well, to start, the FC has all three of the most successful options for replacing a player like Lucho already available to it. Obviously, it can try to change formation (which it did against St. Louis with no success). The FC also has an attacking TAM player who used to be a DP – Yuya Kubo – except that player was injured against St. Louis and has not been available yet this season. Injuries happen, and – except in extreme cases where, say, a team repeatedly re-signs a DP who is never available – they do not really reveal problems with the roster construction. Finally, the FC could (and has, with some success) move its DP striker into the midfield, except for the fact that Brenner refused to play last weekend because (I guess) he has to emotionally recover from the fact that he’s going to be moving to Italy almost three months from now.
So let’s stipulate that the FC should already be able to adapt to a one-off or two-off Lucho absence, except in the unique confluence of circumstances where its TAM midfielder is injured and its Young Designated Player doesn’t want to travel.
What else can be done?
Well, the FC can try to sign another player to a TAM-type deal, but (excluding former DPs taking a pay cut near the end of their careers, like Sebastian Blanco and Nicolas Lodeiro) there’s not a great track record for TAM-level 10s in MLS. Daniel Gazdag is a pretty significant counterexample, but he has since been signed to a DP-level contract, and we’ve seen many more TAM-level Europeans come to MLS and flat out flop. Houston seems to have found a gem in Amine Bassi, who has five goals in six appearances, but he has been employed by Houston as a center forward or winger, not as an attacking midfielder. Further, the FC already has a lot of allocation money tied up in other players (Matt Miazga, for example), so it’s not obvious that the money is even there. However, a TAM-level player might be an option if both the money is available and we think that the FC is able to find a quality player that is not going to require a significant transfer fee and that nobody else is going to drive up the price on.
Alternatively, the FC can try to find a bargain, who is willing to join the team on a below-TAM deal. But we’ve already seen Adrien Regattin.
A third option is to use a remaining U22 Initiative spot on a promising young player, most likely from South America. This option allows the FC to pay whatever is needed in the form of a transfer fee without it counting against the cap, as long as the player is willing to play for less than (approximately) $650,000 in salary a season. Looking around the league, however, reveals that the U22 Initiative has yielded a mixed bag. Many of the players teams have signed have been defenders, and attacking players are typically center forwards or wingers. Alexandru Matan, for the Crew, has played some attacking midfielder, but only next to Zelarayan. When Zelarayan was missing, Matan played in a more forward position. And we have seen that players signed through the U22 Initiative (Vallecilla, Atanga, and Angulo) have faced significant growing pains adjusting to the league, or simply have not panned out. Our one U22 success story has been Alvaro Barreal, who was originally signed as a winger and currently plays left back. Nevertheless, if there is an opportunity to sign a “true” backup to Lucho, and the team isn’t saving that spot for Yerson Mosquera, it feels like the U22 Initiative is the best bet.
Finally, some teams have had the luxury of relying on cheap, homegrown talent to provide attacking depth. Dallas and Philadelphia, in particular, have both enjoyed good production from those players and then sold them off to Europe at a significant profit. The FC’s only regularly contributing homegrown, however, has been Quimi Ordonez, and he’s simply not where we need him to be right now.
What Should the FC Do?
This is a tough question, as the answer depends on the game-by-game circumstances. If Kubo had been available last weekend, then I would have said start Kubo at the 10 and play our usual formation. If Brenner had been available last weekend, then I would have said move Brenner to the 10 and play our usual formation.
When Lucho missed time last year, Noonan favored moving Barreal into that position and starting John Nelson at left back. But the FC currently doesn’t have a backup left back, at least not one that I would feel very comfortable starting the game.
If Kubo and Brenner are both out, like last weekend, then a formation change is probably necessary. But the 3-4-3 did not work. It would probably be worth trying a 5-3-2 bunker, like Nashville used in Cincinnati last year, or a 4-4-2 similar to that used by St. Louis last weekend or used successfully by Minnesota.
With the talent on the roster, those options should be good enough to survive Lucho’s occasional absence for now. In the meantime, if the FC really wants a straight up backup for Lucho, then it had better already be scouting U22 players, so that it can be in the best position to pull the trigger as soon as the window opens this coming July. (Technically, the window is still open through April 24, but there have not even been any whispers that the FC is close to a significant deal.)
If the above does not fill you with confidence that the team can deal with Lucho’s absence long-term and still contend for trophies, then I hope you will join me in saying: Lucho, get well soon.