2022 MLS Season Previews: FC Cincinnati, New England Revolution, New York City FC
/We’ll be publishing three team previews every weekday until the MLS season opens on Saturday, February 26, 2022. You can find all of them here!
_________________________________________________
FC Cincinnati: Kannnnnnnnnnnnnnn
There was some hope in Cincinnati going into the 2021 season. Big signings Luciano Acosta and Brenner, in addition to a new stadium, were going to allow FC Cincinnati to rise from the doormat of MLS towards new heights, like perhaps maybe potentially fighting for a playoff spot. That did not happen. By the end of the season, the GM and coach were out, the club put up the lowest points per game since they joined MLS, and they ended up closing out the season with 12 consecutive losses.
Going into 2022, hope yet springs in Southwest Ohio. A new Union has formed on the banks of the Ohio River as Chris Albright and Pat Noonan joined as GM and manager, respectively. Surely the Wooden Spoon will be passed from Ohio’s Queen City to North Carolina’s. Right?
2021 in Review
There’s not to much to say about 2021 other than it was pretty bad for FC Cincinnati. Their -19.6 xG over the course of the season was indeed a bit better than their -27.7 in 2019, but was still the worst in MLS by a large margin. Brenner showed some flashes, but his 7.7 non-penalty xG was not the kind of output you hope to get from a $13m signing. Acosta put in a ton of work but there was only so much he could do when everything around him was misfiring. Cincinnati somehow managed to have a better road record than home, which is impressive in a league like MLS with such a huge home advantage, but decidedly less-so when you realize it was because they only won once at home.
Offseason Roster Changes
Despite their record and a new front office, Cincinnati is returning 80% of their minutes from last year. Of players with at least 1,000 minutes in 2021, only 2020 MLS MVP candidate Joe Gyau, Przemyslaw Tyton, Caleb Stanko, and Edgar Castillo departed. New signings have mostly been about depth, with Ray Gaddis coming out of retirement, and Dominique Badji and Alvas Powell signing as free agents. The one exception is Alec Kann signing as the presumptive starter in goal.
One Big Question: Can Alec Kann be the average goalkeeper FC Cincinnati needs?
Since FC Cincinnati joined MLS, their keepers have combined to allow a borderline-unbelievable 30.7 more goals than their post-shot xG. To put that in perspective, as good as Matt Turner has been over the last 3 years, Cincinnati’s goalkeepers have been twice as bad. Astoundingly, of the dozen-worst goals added performances by goalkeepers over the last 3 seasons, FC Cincinnati’s keepers somehow represent 4 of them. Thus, FC Cincinnati perhaps made the signing of the offseason in free agent Alec Kann. Among keepers with at least 400 minutes played since 2019, Kann has the highest goals added per 96’ above average in MLS at 0.48, even better than Matt Turner. Sure, you’ll say he’s only played less than 500’ and back in 2018 he only added 0.11 goals per game, and in 2016 he provided 0.10 fewer than average. But if he can be even an average goalkeeper for Cincinnati, he’ll make them 12 goals better than last year, the equivalent of adding the 2019 version of Carlos Vela to your team. Not a bad return for a free-agent signing on an assuredly cap-friendly contract.
2022 Prognosis
The ceiling for FC Cincinnati is being in the mix for one of the last playoff spots. A new coach with MLS pedigree, another year for the big money signings to put things together, and the potential signing of a legitimate defensive midfielder could make this possible. The floor is an unprecedented 4th consecutive Anthony Precourt Memorial Wooden Spoon. Given their history, another spoon seems more likely than the playoffs.
_________________________________________________
New England Revolution: Running it back with Bruce’s boys
By Simon Thwaits
2021 Recap
In 2021, the Revolution set the single-season MLS points record, then proceeded to get bounced out of the playoffs in penalties by eventual MLS Cup winners NYCFC. Obviously, that was not ideal for a club that’s still seeking its first MLS Cup trophy. In light of last season’s ending, it’s safe to say winning the MLS Cup will be the goal for 2022.
Barring any truly odd late changes, now that the major European transfer windows have closed, the Revs have only lost one key piece in Tajon Buchannan. The best goalkeeper in the world, Matt Turner, will be departing sometime mid-season to Arsenal.
Other than Buchannan (and eventually Turner), the Revs have managed to return every player with a positive g+ value from 2021, including their three DPs Adam Buksa, Carles Gil, and Gustavo Bou. So yeah, they’re going to run it back - and running back Buksa, Gil, and Bou is a pretty good proposition.
Having your three DP attackers in the 93rd+ percentile of xG+xA is ideal. That brings us to the rest of the roster…
Bruce’s boys
Bruce Arena remains at the helm and he’s brought in a trio that I dub ‘Bruce’s boys.’ That trio consists of Omar González, Sebastian Lletget, and Jozy Altidore. I was about to make a joke about A.J. DeLaGarza being next, but then I realized Bruce, in fact, already signed him last offseason and he’s still on the roster.
When it comes to g+, Lletget (likely the replacement for Buchannan), isn’t great. In fact, he’s never had a season with a positive g+ rating. González is more of a mixed bag, with a fairly poor 2020 (-1.61 g+) and better 2021 (0.50 g+). Altidore is even harder to pin down, as he’s only played more than 1000 minutes once in the last four years. Regardless, it’s safe to say the Revolution haven’t brought in any g+ monsters this offseason, but have brought in role players that Bruce Arena trusts. His boys, one might say.
Where do the Revs go from here?
The Revolution’s plan for 2022 should be pretty apparent by now: run it back, but with a bit more veteran savvy. The low amount of roster turnover should mean that the Revolution are well set to approach CCL and (eventually) the MLS Cup Playoffs and make good on the promise of last season’s Shield-winning team.
The problem with this plan is that last season’s Revolution were very lucky. They may have set the single-season points record, but they were only the 8th-best team in MLS by xPoints. Additionally, they over performed their xGD by 11.76. This is a warning sign for the regular season, but may not mean much for the Revolution’s ability to win the big trophy that eluded them in 2021.
Maybe they can run it back, but if I was a Revs fan I’d be worried that this year’s team isn’t actually any better and perhaps will be flat-out worse by the end of the summer transfer window when Turner (and possibly Buksa) is gone.
Will Bruce’s boys be enough of a replacement for the already and soon-to-be lost talent? That’s the major question facing the Revolution. The answer to it will determine whether they add an MLS Cup or CCL championship to their 2021 Supporters’ Shield.
_________________________________________________
New York City FC: Sands and the City
By Kevin Nelson
It’s safe to say 2021 was a successful year for the New York City Football Club since it ended with their first-ever MLS Cup title. Getting to, and winning, the championship via penalty-kick wizardry is fitting, given the trauma the fanbase endured the previous season when they bowed out of the playoffs at the hands of fullback-turned-keeper Rodrigo Schlegel. But NYCFC’s dependence on shootouts in no way diminishes their worthiness as a champion given their league-leading non-penalty expected goal differential.
Smart money is on that quality continuing as a solid core returns for year three of head coach Ronny Deila and year one of the post-championship grace period. Deila’s tactics, while not groundbreaking, are certainly functional and the possessive and high pressing tenants exhibited during his first two years in MLS fit the team well. A preference for a double pivot in midfield with inverted wingers flanked by advanced fullbacks has predominantly manifested in a 4-2-3-1. Deila used that formation 71% of last season and has the luxury of populating it with a roster dense in established veterans and up-and-coming talents alike.
The roster is not without question marks, as a pair of departures, one official and the other expected, looms over the team’s immediate future. The first domino to fall has been the departure of James Sands, the team’s first-ever homegrown player and last person to sound cool saying “Bing Bong.” Sands’ positional flexibility has been at the core of their recent success, giving Deila the critical luxuries of lineup plasticity and on-the-go shifting between a three and four at the back as Sands excelled drifting along the spectrum of defensive midfielder and center back. His departure disproportionately cuts into roster depth due to the see-sawing need for his high-level play in both central defense and the defensive midfield. In the past two seasons, Sands is one of only two players (Ilie Sanchez being the other) to have produced more than 1.0 goals added as both center back and midfielder.
Thus, addressing his departure means confronting needs at two positions. Technical director David Lee recently tackled the center back portion of that need, allocating one of the two remaining designated player spots to 26-year-old Thiago Martins. The Brazilian central defender has played for fellow City Football Group club Yokohama Marinos for the past four seasons and Lee assuredly has a firm grasp on the player, given the in-house nature of the transfer. Nevertheless, using these valuable roster slots on central defenders is a rarity, and Martins joins Houston’s Teenage Hadebe and Toronto’s Carlos Salcedo as the only three center back among the 58 DPs in the league. Granted, depth behind the incumbent partnership of Maxime Chanot and Alexander Callens sans Sands was somewhere between bleak to nonexistent prior to this move. It also adds a successor to Chanot well before it’s needed, as the Luxembourg international approaches the twilight of his career. Altogether, it’s not difficult to convince oneself that the opportunity cost for Martins was worth it.
The midfield side of the Sands-replacement equation hasn’t demanded as explicit a response given the infrastructure that remains. The double pivot still boasts one of the best in the league in Keaton Parks, who has led all current MLS midfielders in g+ since 2019. The perpetually underrated American is working back to full fitness from blood clot surgery but will immediately return to Deila’s default starting-11 once healthy. Whether this is finally the year that Gregg Berhalter acknowledges his existence, however, remains to be seen. Parks’ role in that midfield two differed from that of Sands in that he often pushed upfield as the attack entered the opponent half, leaving his counterpart as a solo destroyer in transition phases. Alfredo Morales, preemptively added in 2021 in preparation for this exact departure, now has a firm grasp on that deep-lying component of the partnership after a solid first season with NYCFC. He offers the most stylistic likeness to Sands and could even facilitate the same 4ATB-to-3ATB shift by dropping into the backline, given a drop in standards for the center-back side of that transition.
But Morales could see competition for those minutes from the almost-23-year-old Nicolas “Cacha” Acevedo in 2022. The Uruguayan has been slowly brought along as he enters his third year in MLS, but has exhibited a tantalizing passing range despite lacking Sands’ defensive aptitude. Acevedo set the pace for NYCFC midfielders in progressive passes and passes into the final third last year, even though his instructions from Deila seemingly included “don’t do anything too risky out there.” An idealized version of Acevedo has the potential to raise their ceiling and offer the Pigeons a deep-lying playmaker they haven’t had since Andrea Pirlo. It’s also a skillset that would conveniently pair beautifully with the relentless work rate of striker Taty Castellanos, who is somehow still on this roster.
The looming departure of the 2021 Golden Boot winner has been, is, and will continue to be expected. Castellanos signing a contract extension last season did nothing to dissuade opinion that both player and team are committed to finding him a move. With the European window now closed, the only immediate possibility lies in South America where interest is ample but the willingness/ability to meet NYCFC’s demands is not. It now seems more likely than not that Castellanos’ exit from MLS will take place in the summer when NYCFC should be able to find a bid closer to their expected price. It also leaves Castellanos on the roster for half of the regular season and the entirety of CONCACAF Champions League, a competition the team has a more legitimate chance of winning with their star striker remaining in the fold. Yet what happens after Castellanos finds greener pastures is a question even more unanswered than with James Sands.
Castellanos was considered by some as the best striker in the league, even before he led the MLS in goals, due to his contributions on both sides of the ball. Not only did he finish 1st and 2nd, respectively, in receiving and shooting goals added above average in 2021, but he also operated as the tip of one of the best pressing units in MLS, and finished with the second highest amount of pressures per 100 opponent passes in the attacking third among all forwards. Just as importantly, Castellanos’ durability has made it so Deila hasn’t had to ponder a team without him. He started 32 of 34 regular season games last season, giving us a limited sample for how NYCFC would look with post-knee-injury Heber or Talles Magno up top in his stead.
Heber proved he can facilitate an elite MLS offense from his time as Castellanos’ predecessor from 2019 to 2020, but the jury is still out on whether he’s regained all his powers after a cruciate tear limited him to 100 minutes late last season. Alternatively, Magno has unquestionable talent and is likely the future of the striker position in New York, but his first season was pockmarked by the typical inconsistencies one might expect for a teenager. Even if Magno and Heber’s seasons finish on the optimistic end of the range of outcomes, the downgrade when Castellanos leaves will be inevitable and significant.
Aside from the possibility that Lee uses the remaining DP slot on a Taty-level striker, anticipate a drop off at the nine in the second half that will weaken NYCFC, though probably not to the point that the offense will not still be well above average. NYCFC and Ronny Deila have proven capable of maintaining an above-average attack as players’ form and availability have fluctuated, including prior to Castellano’s breakout.
In the midst of a 2020 season when talisman Maxi Moralez struggled to stay on the field, Deila had the wherewithal to realize that Anton Tinnerholm is good at soccer and along with Ronald Matarrita, he had one of, if not the, best fullback pairing in the league. To maximize that advantage, Deila made every attempt to funnel as much progression through those two as possible and created one of the most fullback-centric attacks in recent memory as a result. Since NYCFC’s inception in 2015, there has only been a single team (2021 DC United) that has had a higher proportion of possession chains that ended in a shot to feature a fullback.
NYCFC’s attack then improved slightly (1.55 → 1.61 NPxG/game) the following season, yet there was a noticeable de-emphasis on the fullbacks. It became clear that Tinnerholm was feeling the effects of being run into the ground the season prior, and the departed Matarrita was replaced by the less-capable Gudi Thorarinsson. Deila diverted the buildup density more through the midfield to compensate, a shift made possible by the reinvigorated Maxi Moralez, improvements from Sands as a progressor, and the continued ascent of Keaton Parks.
Deila may continue trending away from the fullbacks as Tinnerholm is expected to miss a large chunk of the season recovering from an Achilles tear while Thorarinsson’s return to Europe leaves the starting left-back spot to the more talented but less reliable Malte Amundsen. Regardless of the preferred offensive channels of 2022, NYCFC’s track record suggests the offense will continue to generate chances near the top of the league. They have been one of the best teams in the league over the past five seasons across three coaches and multiple roster iterations, earning them the “bet on them being good until proven otherwise” label. The ill effects of losing your two (arguably) best players will be felt but won’t disable the reigning MLS Cup champions. Few in the league can match the Pigeons’ combination of roster and coaching quality, both shaped within the front office’s vision, alongside a deep scouting network and the willingness to spend. This team has it all. Well, except a soccer-specific stadium of course.