FC Cincinnati Beat: Orange and Blue Finish April with perfect record, winning streak now at five games

CINCINNATI — Even with the momentum FC Cincinnati had with four straight wins coming into Saturday afternoon’s match against Sporting Kansas City, it was important for the Orange and Blue to net three points and finish April strong.

Not only that, but Cincinnati had never beaten Kansas City in regulation coming into Saturday afternoon. Cincinnati beat Kansas City in the 2023 League’s Cup in a penalty shootout, but they were 0-1-2 in MLS Regular Season competition against Kansas City entering Saturday’s match.

Fortunes against Kansas City for Cincinnati changed with forward Kevin Denkey scoring both goals for the Orange and Blue in a 2-1 win, Denkey’s first career brace. The win, in front of a sold-out crowd of 25,513 fans, gives Cincinnati a perfect month of April at 4-0-0. It’s Cincinnati’s third perfect month in club history- second at the MLS level- and first since May of 2019.

“It was pretty impressive (atmosphere) for a 2:30 kickoff,” FC Cincinnati head caoch Pat Noonan said. “The fans were into it. That made for an exciting game.

“We’re having a lot of Fridays right now,” Noonan said. “We gotta keep that going.”

Saturday’s win is also the fifth straight overall for Cincinnati, with all of them coming by one goal. Since the start of the 2023 season, Cincinnati has 34 wins by one goal. Entering Saturday, no other MLS team had more than 20 such wins in that time span.

Cincinnati played on every Saturday in the month of April, meaning every day of the week was a lead-up to each of their four matches this month. That’s what Noonan means when he says this club is having a lot of Fridays right now. In fact, Cincinnati has only played on Saturdays through 10 matches this season. That will change in May, when the Orange and Blue play seven matches, meaning there will be weeks with multiple matches.

“Every week that goes by and you’re coming off a win, it’s always good for the group. The energy is good in the moment,” Noonan said.

The energy is especailly good for Denkey right now, who now has four goals in his last five games. He’s now tied for second in the Golden Boot race, an award given to MLS’s outright goals leader, with teammate Evander at six on the season.

“The most important thing is that we’re doing that to help the team win. Last game (at the Chicago Fire), he (Evander) scored two goals and because he scored the two goals, we had three points,” Denkey said. “We are helping the team. It’s really nice if we keep doing this and the team is still winning.”

Denkey was in the right place at the right time on both of his goals on Saturday. In the 43rd minute, he rebounded a deflection from Kansas City goalkeeper John Pulskamp and lined a right-footed shot in the lower right zone of the goal to put Cincinnati on the board and draw first blood. Then in the 78th minute, he caught a corner kick from Cincinnati midfielder Luca Orellano and then unleashed a flawless bicycle kick to double the Orange and Blue’s lead to 2-0.

“There’s not many words to describe what he (Denkey) did,” Noonan said. “It was one of the best goals I’ve seen in person. It’s gonna be tough to top that.”

With the win, Cincinnati goalkeeper Roman Celentano, making his 100th career start Saturday, is now tied for the highest winning percentage (.665) by a goalkeeper in his 100 regular-season starts.

Kansas City entered Saturday with nine goals in their last three games, with two of them resulting in wins. But Celentano and Cincinnati’s defense held Kansas City without a goal for the first 88 minutes on Saturday.

“(Goalkeeping coach) Paul Rogers and that whole goalkeeping group puts in the time to improve, to understand their opponent, to understand how we approach each game,” Noonan said. “The work they put in behind the scenes comes out in the games.”

Cincinnati will look to extend its winning streak to six games next Saturday when they travel to take on New York City FC at Citi Field, home of the MLB’s New York Mets. The Orange and Blue are back in action at TQL Stadium on Saturday, May 10th against Austin FC.