DC United @ FC Cincinnati 3/10/24
DC United makes a Sunday visit to our old friend Lucho
Context
FC Cincinnati won the Supporter’s Shield last year, so they got the benefit of the doubt from the national media going into the season even though they lost several important players (although one of those, Álvaro Barreal, came after the preseason). Matt Doyle had them as one of three teams in his top tier and the MLS preseason power rankings had them at #2. They opened the season with home draw against Toronto that’s not looking so bad now given Toronto’s hot start, then beat Chicago on the road. They also took care of business against their first CONCACAF Champions Cup matchup, Jamaican club Cavalier FC, 6-0 on aggregate before dropping an ominous 1-0 first leg to strong Monterrey side earlier this week.
The story this week for DC was the injury status of their star striker Christian Benteke. They said he was questionable with a groin injury, but with a distinct lack of enthusiasm, so it was no surprise when he was held out of the matchday squad. Ted Ku-Dipietro was the surprise scratch. He apparently had a “knock” and though he was on the bench, he didn’t come into a game that really could have used him so I think it’s safe to say he was unavailable.
FC Cincinnati played Lucho Acosta but otherwise heavily rotated the rest of their squad from their midweek game. Their rotation and hangover from continental play, combined with DC missing its best two attackers, meant this game had 0-0 draw written all over it before kickoff. But since when has DC been able to grind out tough draws on the road against better teams?
Formation
With another forced rotation, fans probably wanted to see Kristian Fletcher, but Lesesne called on Jackson Hopkins instead. Cristian Dájome stayed up top, but one change that I’m pretty sure was made (hard to see given the terrible shadows on the telecast) is that instead of a second forward, Pirani and Stroud played high on the wings to press FC Cincinnati’s back three out of something a little more like a 4-3-3 with Hopkins lining up on the left side of midfield.
Unlike last game, there were fewer long balls that seemed to expect Benteke, so that was good. And for much of the first half, the press remained quite effective. The attack was as toothless as fans feared based on the starting lineup. Such joy as was had came up the right side since Herrera, Klich, and Stroud are a more dangerous trio collectively than Santos, Hopkins, and Pirani, but there really wasn’t much danger anywhere. Cincinnati had turned the tide by the end of the half, and then in the second half their advantage increased as they brought on their rotated starters. DC’s attack didn’t improve after their subs and the defense became a lot less convincing, although the injury-forced substitution of centerback Lucas Bartlett might be an extenuating circumstance there.
Scoreline
No goals in this one. Alex Bono should be very proud of his clean sheet (much more on that later), but really this was an extremely fortunate result. If Cincinnati rotated their starters, this probably would have been a loss, and it probably should have been anyway.
FBref has Cincinnati winning the xG battle 1.77 to 0.55 and compared to the eye test, that feels maybe a little charitable to DC United. Shots were about even, 15 to 14, but DC’s few close in shots were blocked. Cincinnati’s entire xG advantage came from two close range shots, Corey Baird in the 44th minute (0.78 xG) and Boupendza’s in the 84th minute (0.46 xG). On the first one, Bono made a great quick reaction save. On the second, full credit to Bono for diving and making himself as big as possible, but otherwise he couldn’t have known anything about the shot that the Cincinnati’s striker blasted off Bono’s knee.
Player Ratings
Alex Bono - 9 - Zero goals allowed on 2.68 xGOT faced in a game where DC’s attack was dysfunctional? Easy choice for man of the match. It seems like once a game he has a mistake handling the ball and he had another one this time, but he still hasn’t been punished. And since I was mean enough to say he was lucky on biggest save, it’s worth mentioning that Cincinnati also had two other efforts that were low in xG but which generated some strong post-shot xG with great shots: Alvis Powell in the 44th minute (0.20 PSxG) and Lucho in the 74th minute (0.53 PSxG). Bono made both of those saves look easy.
Lucas Bartlett - 7 - It’s hard to evaluate centerbacks on TV but the indirectly positive thing I can say is that the defense seemed worse after he had to sub off. Fotmob stats say he’s pretty good in the air, but neither he nor McVey seem dangerous on corners. He committed zero fouls this game, which is kind of remarkable.
Christopher McVey - 4 - He seemed fine while I was watching in real time, but going back over the crucial moments of the game, I think he’s to blame for both of FC Cincinnati’s close-range chances. He misjudges the flight of the ball on the corner kick in the 43rd minute, so instead of being headed away the ball ends up with an unmarked Corey Baird. Then in the 83rd minute he completely whiffs trying to head away a cross, leaving Boupendza free to settle the ball and strike it at close range (but stopped by a near miraculous save from Bono). Fans have been complaining about Steve Birnbaum for a year or two and hoping he stays on the bench when he returns from injury, but we’re all spoiled by the fact he is utterly dominant on balls in the air and never makes mistakes like this.
Aaron Herrera - 7 - Just as DC favored his side going forward, Cincinnati favored his side when attacking since for most of the game Luca Orellano was the only player who seemed able to meaningfully combine with Acosta. As usual, Herrera ran hard and battled harder. I don’t think he was to blame for any of our issues in attack.
Pedro Santos - 4 - Like Herrera, I think he was his usual self but the DC midfield and attackers let him down. Unlike Herrera, when Santos doesn’t contribute much to the attack, that just leaves him being a traffic cone on defense. Luckily, Cincinnati was playing fullbacks on their right side (Alvas Powell and then later DeAndre Yedlin) and they couldn’t do much to exploit Santos.
Matti Peltola - 7 - Another game where Peltola looked like a worldbeater early in the game and seemed to fall off in a big way. Since DC’s press is a full-team effort, that might not be his fault, and certainly the press overall suffered after about thirty minutes. My concern with him is that, like Durkin before him, when the game gets stretched I don’t know that he’s fast enough to cover the ground you need to cover as a lone defensive midfielder.
Mateusz Klich - 7 - Like Peltola, looked very strong in the first phase of the game and then dropped off. Probably our most dangerous attacker, but that’s not saying much.
Jackson Hopkins - 5 - Like Klich and Peltola, I’m worried about his ability to cover ground in midfield. Unlike them, he didn’t start particularly strong and then drop off, though of course he did contribute (as did Pirani and Stroud) to the initially-effective press.
Jared Stroud - 5 - Not a great game, but luckily for him, Pirani will take the heat from fans even though Stroud had a very similar game (Pirani is getting paid a lot more, to be fair). He was more defensively involved than Pirani, probably because he was trying to help with Orellano, but he also gave up a needless off-the-ball foul at the top of the box that gave Acosta a great free kick opportunity. The best thing that can be said here is I thought we looked worse when he came off early in the second half.
Gabriel Pirani - 5 - Another quiet game. The best part of his game this season is his short passes, but with Dajomie and Hopkins to play with instead of Benteke and Ku-Dipietro, that wasn’t really on. The color commentator called out the fact he was very aggressive with carries last year and hasn’t been this year; I wonder if that is coaching instructions. Jared Stroud was carrying aggressively in the first game too but now he’s stopped. Lots more on this below.
Christian Dájome - 5 - There was one nice moment where he ran onto a through ball and got a shot off. That’s about it. If he’s going to be playing significant minutes as a #9, the midfield needs to send him in behind like that more often. Klich, at least, is capable of it. But mostly we work the ball forward through our fullbacks, leaving Dájome to be marked out of existence by the centerbacks. And in fairness, he was being smothered by two very strong centerbacks in Miles Robinson and Matt Miazga (and, uh, young journeyman Kipp Keller).
Substitutes
Kristian Fletcher - 6 - Fans wanted him to start. He didn’t start, but he got more time in this game. Unfortunately, I don’t think he made a good case for starting. I’ll cover that in more detail later.
Matai Akinmboni - 5 - Surprisingly uninvolved considering Cincinnati was pouring on the offense after he came in. He had six touches in twenty-two minutes, which if nothing else goes to show how little possession we had at that point. In his defense, he was playing on the left and a lot of the danger was on the right.
Conner Antley - 5 - He had a bad giveaway to launch a dangerous Cincinnati attack. I thought he and Herrera looked a little confused about their defensive assignments; see the manager section for more about that.
Jacob Murrell - 6 - After hearing for weeks that he’s the big #9 we need to backup Benteke, he gets subbed in for his debut…in the midfield. I’m not sure what the thinking was there. He sure showed a striker’s mentality, though. He played only 13 minutes, but he tied for the team lead in shots with three. Klich had three and Dájome had two in ninety minutes. Fotmob says he won two of five aerial duels, so that’s something. Like all our midfielders at that point, he didn’t make much of an impact on defense.
Notable Non-Substitutes
Martin Rodriguez - Martin! Martin! Can you hear me? Are you alive? If you can hear this, do you know where Jeahze is? Try looking even deeper in the doghouse than you are!
Mohanad Jeahze - Another week and Lesesne still refuses to say anything about him. But he made the injury list! So he was out injured? Steven Goff claimed he saw him at practice with Benteke in the sad “partly injured” part of practice. So he’s in the country, at least. Last week I committed to offering increasingly outlandish theories as to what’s going on. So here goes: while DC United was in Saudi Arabia, he switched places with Cristiano Ronaldo. Think “The Prince and the Pauper”. So he’s actually over there trying to play forward for Al Nassr. Meanwhile, CR7 is trying to play fullback for us, but his defense in practice left a lot to be desired, and he didn’t take the coaching staff’s constructive criticism very well, so now he’s effectively suspended for insubordination.
Manager
Lucky this week, but Lesesne continues to do a lot with a little. Increasingly little, in fact. While we wait for the roster’s only two dangerous attacking players to return, Lesesne needs to figure out how to get better midfield stability in second halves. Pressing teams often run out of gas in games, and it’s only going to get worse when the summer comes and the heat is bearing down on players. I think there was an intentional pulling back of the line of confrontation in the second half of this game to try to save legs, but it didn’t seem to work too well.
In the post-game press conference, though, Lesesne took the blame for the defensive breakdowns in the second half and said it was because he “changed the shape” when Bartlett had to come off to something the players weren’t familiar enough with. When Antley subbed on, I was expecting him to replace Santos at left back and for Santos to push up higher, but actually it looks like they went to a 3-5-2 with Antley playing as the right centerback, Fletcher pairing with Dajomie as a forward, and theoretically Herrera and Santos were now wingbacks instead of fullbacks. In practice it ended up more like a line of five in the back and with a three man midfield of Hopkins/Murrell, Klich, and Peltola who Cincinnati easily played through again and again.
I like the idea of having a more defensive shape that has more coverage for Santos but Lesesne has a lot more work to do if he wants to make it effective.
Referees
Another game with some questionable calls, particularly about goal kicks and corners. Cincinnati players got mad about a possible shove from Bartlett in the box, but the Apple broadcast demonstrated its anti-labor bona fides by never giving a good replay. Most pushes aren’t called, though.
DC United’s Best Shot-Stopping Performances
Since Alex Bono was clearly the man of the match for DC, that made me wonder how his performance compares. The advanced stat of choice here, I think, is PSxG-gA. That’s a mouthful, but it means “post-shot expected goals minus goals against”. In other words, you take the goals that the advanced stats models expect to be scored based on the flight of the ball after it’s shot and then compare that to how many goals you let in. Positive scores are good. It’s the best measure of “shot-stopping”, which isn’t the only thing a goalkeeper is supposed to do, but it’s by far the most important thing.
By this measure, Alex Bono was a +2.5 in this game. In theory, this means that an average MLS goalkeeper (or a goalkeeper putting in an average MLS performance) lets in 2-3 goals based on the shots Bono faced. He let in zero. That’s obviously quite good, but how good is it?
DC United has had many great goalkeepers over the years, but unfortunately we only have advanced MLS stats going back to 2018. That means we’re missing what I think was probably Bill Hamid’s very best seasons, but he was still quite good for the first few years of this period. After Hamid, we’ve had a string of goalkeepers who, uh, well they wore goalkeeper jerseys and used their hands. They were definitely goalkeepers. Sometimes they had some good games, I guess. Maybe.
So what do the stats say?
First of all, Alex Bono’s +2.5 PSxG is–by this stat at least–the best game a goalkeeper has had for DC United since 2018. It’s not even close. The second place performance is Bill Hamid with +1.9 during a 4-1 loss at NYCFC in 2020. Yes, the stats say Hamid kept us from losing 6-1 that day. Boy, 2020. Yeah. Third place is…Alex Bono. From two weeks ago. He had a +1.7 game against New England. I was going to say that’s despite Carlos Gil scoring a wondergoal, but actually that shows how the stat accounts for these things. The expected goals from Gil’s shot–how likely a player is to score shooting from several yards outside the box–was only 0.04, but the post-shot expected goals was 0.76 because he’s Carlos Gil and he put it into the top corner. So PSxG-Ga only penalizes Bono 0.24 for letting that one in.
But let’s get back to Bono’s latest performance and how great +2.5 PSxG is. +1.2 is good enough to get in the top 11 of DC United goalkeeping performances since 2018. 5 of those games are Bill Hamid games, unsurprisingly. David Ochoa has two games in the list despite playing only nine games total. Bono has the top and third spot. And then Tyler Miller and Steve Clark each have one. Miller’s was a +1.5 game in a 3-0 win at home against LA Galaxy last year. You have to be a good goalkeeper to do well on this stat, but Ochoa having two spots shows, I think, it also helps a little bit to be on a bad team that’s giving up a lot of good shots.
What about MLS as a whole in that time? Bono’s game this past weekend currently slots in at #10 on the list. Dayne St. Clair is the leader, he somehow had a +3.9 for Minnesota in a 1-0 win at Red Bulls in 2022. Most of the rest of the list is a who’s-who of top MLS goalkeepers: Joe Willis is second with a +3.6. Brad Stuver, Đorđe Petrović, Jesse Gonzalez, Tim Melia, and Luis Robles are also on there. Stefan Frei is the only player with two games in the top 10, but Alex Bono has both #10 and #11, the latter being a +2.5 game for Toronto in a 2-1 win at Chicago in 2021. Matt Turner, the poster boy for shot stopping stats, never had a single game better than +2.2.
If you look at entire seasons and divide by 90 minutes, Alex Bono is at +1.3 so far in 2024. That’s a tiny sample so it’s the goalkeeping equivalent of taking Benteke’s current 3 goals per game scoring pace and extending it to the whole season. But hey, if it did, how would it stack up? It would be absurdly good. The top season since 2018 is Đorđe Petrović’s 2022 season for the New England Revolution: +0.6. As a side note, there’s been lots of hype about the Revolution’s goalkeeping over the past few years, and this is why: the top 5 season list goes Đorđe Petrović, Stefan Frei, Matt Turner, Matt Turner, and Đorđe Petrović. They have four of the five top seasons, and obviously Petrović and Turner are both in the Premier League now on the strength of those seasons.
What about Bill Hamid? When you rank MLS goalkeeper seasons by this measure, Bill Hamid’s 2018, 2019, and 2020 seasons are #34, #35, and #36, all with +0.1. If that’s disappointing to us as Hamid fans, keep in mind there’s 156 goalkeeper seasons in there (I cynically used a minimum of 14 games worth of minutes since that was how many Hamid played in 2018), so those were good but not worldbeating performances.
I prefer to dwell on positives but while we’re here, what about the worst goalkeeping performances? Who was the goalkeeper who had the worst outing for DC United since 2018? Now I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking that of course it must be Rafael Romo, but it’s important to actually look at the stats, because it turns out that actually it’s…no, I’m just kidding, it’s totally Rafael Romo. He had a -2.4 game in a 6-0 home loss to Philadelphia. But he actually only barely scraped out the worst game; David Ochoa had a -2.3 in a 5-2 home loss to FC Cincinnati. Both of those were in 2022. Man, 2022.
For comparison, the worst MLS goalkeeping performance in this period was David Bingham of the LA Galaxy, with -.3.3 in a 6-2 loss at Real Salt Lake. Romo’s worst game only comes in at #26 on the league-wide worst list. But lest we get too overconfident, I need to admit that the guy with the second-worst game on the league list is…Alex Bono, also with -3.3. This was when he was playing for Toronto FC in 2021. Can anyone think of a terrible game Toronto had around that time? Hint: Chris Armas got fired afterwards.
That’s right, it was the high point of the Losada era. DC United crushed Toronto 7-1 at Audi Field. The stats claim that an average goalkeeping performance would have ended 3-1 or 4-1. I think the main takeaway from that is these stats don’t capture everything. When the ten players in front of you quit a few minutes into the game, you’re going to have a harder time as a goalkeeper because you’re going to be out of position more as you try to compensate. I went back to the highlights just now and, yeah…certainly not all his fault but it wasn’t a great game from Bono. The first and last goals, especially. Good thing he won’t be playing against Kevin Paredes and Griffin Yow this year!
Midfield: Starters vs. Substitutes
A lot of fans have been clamoring for Kristian Fletcher to start over Gabriel Pirani, but so far Lesesne has stuck with Pirani. When Fletcher came on relatively early in the second half of this game, he even came on for Stroud and Pirani stayed out for an extra ten minutes. I talked about this when discussing the previous two games, but the short version of my take on this is that Pirani, Stroud, and Ku-Dipietro start because–so far–they are defending better than Hopkins and Fletcher. Now that Hopkins and Fletcher both have about ninety minutes played, I thought it was time to quickly look over the statistics.
A few caveats, though. This is still a very small sample size so it’s for entertainment purposes only. Also, there’s a lot of stats available and I cherry-picked the stats that show the biggest differences. So I’m passing over stats like passes completed per ninety or passes into the penalty area, stats where players like Fletcher and Pirani might have a small advantage over each other, but it doesn’t seem decisive.
The best stat I could find for defensive contributions is “tackles + interceptions” which is pretty much what it sounds like. As you’d expect, Peltola leads the team with 8.0 per ninety minutes, followed by Herrera (6.67) and Santos (5.19). Then, leaving out defenders, you have Ted Ku-Dipietro (3.33), Jared Stroud (3.04), Klich (2.67), and Pirani (2.17). Dájome is lower still (1.36) but has been playing as a #9 (Benteke is even lower with 1.0). But that still leaves Fletcher (1.25) and Hopkins (uh, zero). The raw numbers here aren’t very large. Pirani only has 5 so far this season. But I think they match the eye test of overall defensive contribution. For every “tackle + interception” there are a lot more pressures, cutting off of passing lanes, etc.
What about offensive contributions? Fletcher got a goal in the Portland game, obviously, so that’s great. But what about overall contributions to the attack? The best stat I know for that is “shot creating actions” that measures the previous two things players did before a shot, including passes but also shots, tackles, etc. This was the stat that the national media thought was embarrassingly low for Pirani last year. In nine games he averaged 2.49 per ninety minutes. By comparison, Lucho Acosta had 7.1 last year, second in the league behind Minnesota’s Reynoso (8.4).
What about this year? Klich, who is the closest thing we have to a #10 even though he doesn’t wear that number, leads the team with 6.0 (he led the team last year also). Santos (5.1) and Benteke (4.0) are next. Then you have Stroud (3.86), Herrera (3.67), and Pirani (3.41), who as you can see is up from last year but still not excelling. Lower still are Ku-DiPietro (2.76) and Hopkins (2.62). Unfortunately Fletcher is at 1.3. I’ll re-emphasize this is still super-early.
Why, then, are fans convinced Fletcher is better? He finds the ball. He has the highest touches per ninety of any of our attackers by a huge margin: 66.3, fourth on the team behind Santos, Klich, and Herrera, the three players explicitly tasked with moving the ball forward in possession. By comparison, Stroud is at 54.3 and lower still are Pirani, Hopkins, Ku-Dipietro, and Benteke, all down in the forties.
Fletcher also leads the team in take-ons per ninety minutes with 8.75, well ahead of second-place Jared Stroud who has 3.91. Pirani (1.74), Ku-Dipietro (1.11), and Hopkins (0.91) are all even lower. Unfortunately Fletcher’s success rate on these take-ons is low, but as fans we like players who are out there trying things. He also leads the team in carries per ninety, with a similar pattern among the other players.
One final thought: last season, Pirani played a lot more like Fletcher. He was near the team lead for take-ons but had a low success rate, for example. I have a thoroughly unproven theory that Lesesne has explicitly instructed Pirani and the other midfielders to play more one-touch passes. If that’s true, he might be waiting for Fletcher to make the same changes to his game. But Pirani is young and might just have changed his own playstyle. Last season all those take-ons weren’t working for him, after all. One thing that unfortunately has been consistent in his game is the low number of touches per ninety, so that’s an ongoing issue.
But the season is still young, and all the players in the mix here (except Stroud) are young enough we can still hope for leaps forward in their play.
Standings
DC United dropped to #6 in the Eastern Conference, tied with FC Cincinnati but ahead on goal difference. They’re also a respectable #9 in the Supporter’s Shield standings.
Christian Benteke, believe it or not, remains tied for the lead in the Golden Boot race since I continue to consider the tiebreaker to be minutes played. He’s tied with four other players, so hopefully he can get back on the field soon and get busy. Aaron Herrera is now tied with five other players for second in assists (2) behind Luis Suárez (3).
Coming Up
It’s the big one. Inter Miami is coming to what surely will be a sold-out Audi Field. The question is: will the stars play? DC’s Benteke needs to get over his injury, and as for Miami, they’re an old team struggling with fixture congestion. Messi sat out this weekend’s home game against CF Montreal with a “knock” from their midweek CCC game against Nashville. Sergio Busquets and Luis Suárez were rested and came off the bench. Inter Miami traded away most of its defenders and its games tend to be shootouts (Montreal won 3-2 this past weekend) so if Benteke and Ku-Dipietro aren’t back and Miami rests its stars again, the world will get the privilege of watching DC’s stoppable force against Miami’s highly movable object. A battle for the ages.
After that, DC plays St. Louis on the road in what certainly will be a tough game, then host CF Montreal. Both are unheralded teams that have had a pretty good start so far (5 points and 7 points in three games respectively).