Does another milestone await FC Cincinnati?
After winning the 2023 Supporters' Shield, the Orange & Blue have their sights set on ending the Audi 2024 MLS Cup Playoffs with their first-ever MLS Cup title. They've come a long way under head coach Pat Noonan, going from three straight Wooden Spoons (2019-21) upon entering the league to consistent contenders.
That journey continues Monday night against New York City FC, who Cincy welcome to TQL Stadium for a Round One Best-of-3 Series opener between the Eastern Conference's No. 3 and No. 6 seeds (6:45 pm ET | MLS Season Pass; FS1, FS2; TSN, RDS).
"I would say the attention to detail, and at times you see maybe tactics take a back seat in certain moments to avoiding mistakes, competing the right way," Noonan said about playoff pressure. "So many little things become so much more important at this stage that you have to get right.
" … It feels different and it should. You realize that you have to be very connected in every aspect of the game. You have to get the set pieces right, all of these things. If you have one slip-up, that's the difference at this stage."
Although Cincinnati are among the MLS Cup favorites and the higher seed, NYCFC are no pushover.
The sides split their regular-season series, with Cincy winning 1-0 in late March and NYCFC winning 3-2 when they met in early October.
"They're a good team and they cause us problems when we're poor with our pressure, or when we lose individual duels, because I've said it before, against teams with technically good players, with creative players, you can get the ideas and how you want to pressure, but you could still lose individual battles and 1-v-1 duels that open up the game and cause you problems," Noonan said.
"So, we saw a little bit of that in our last matchup. We were poor with a couple of details when we had to defend closer to our goal, where they caused us problems and moved the ball well, pinned us in when we turned the ball over in poor ways, and they caused us a lot of trouble. So, you just have to be cleaner with the ball."
This stage is nothing new for Luciano Acosta, and the 2023 Landon Donovan MLS MVP will be a key factor in how deep Cincy go this year.
The midfielder tied for the league lead with 19 assists, while also scoring a team-best 14 goals, a season Noonan believes "warrants him being in the MVP discussion because if you look at our team without him, and where we potentially could be, he's been certainly pretty valuable to us."
Crucially, Acosta is fit and dialed in after dealing with injuries throughout the campaign.
"He gets stepped on somehow or kicked somehow every day it seems," said Noonan of his star No. 10. "But he's a tough kid, so this is as healthy as I think he's been for months, really.
"He's been really engaged, really engaged in trainings, meetings. The games, even when he's not producing the spectacular, he's been up for it," Noonan added. "I think he understands the moment, and so hopefully we see even more of that and the best version of Lucho that we've seen for quite some time in this game on Monday."
