FC Cincinnati Beat: Orange and Blue shutout Lionel Messi, Inter Miami as Evander breaks club record

CINCINNATI — Not this match. Not Wednesday night.

This time, FC Cincinnati preserved their two-goal lead, and even added to it, in a 3-0 dominant shutout against Inter Miami CF Wednesday night at TQL Stadium. Their All-Star midfielder, Evander, netted a brace with both goals coming in the second half. His first goal, in the 50th minute, gave him the club record for most consecutive matches with a goal at five. Evander is now at 15 goals in MLS regular-season competition, one off the MLS lead.

Cincinnati snapped Miami’s winning streak at five matches and handed its first loss in MLS regular-season competition since May 18th.

“We were a better team tonight than we showed on the weekend, and I’m happy for the guys that they were rewarded for it,” FC Cincinnati head coach Pat Noonan said. “We played the game in a better way with the lead. lead. And, you know, was it perfect? No, there were
tough moments when we had to defend, and we had to defend good movement, good one-v-one ability
on the ball, and I thought our guys were up for it.

“It’s not easy to beat a team of that quality with the form that they’re in and to score three and get a shutout. I’m very pleased about that.”

Facing a Miami team led by international superstar Lionel Messi, who had braces in five straight matches coming into Weendesday night, Cincinnati held him and his supporting cast in check all night. This is the first time Miami has been held scoreless in an MLS regular-season match since May 18th and first time held scoreless on the road since April 19th.

Led by goalkeeper Roman Celentano, who delivered his seventh clean sheet of the season with some incredible diving saves, Cincinnati’s backline held Messi to just two on-target scoring attempts. The backline came up huge for Cincinnati, who held on despite Miami winning the possession battle and out-passing Cincinnati 591-462.

In total, Miami had just Messi’s two shots on goal and 10 shots total.

“We communicated the right things, because you could see the movements, the spacing to try to limit their attack was strong,” Noonan said. “Again, it wasn’t perfect, there were moments where they put us under
pressure, and then in those moments, we defended the box the right way. So I think the energy was
there, and you could see the guys wanted to respond in a good way and they did.”

Big pitcture, this is a crucial win for FC Cincinnati. Coming off a loss to the Columbus Crew in the “Hell is Real Derby,” where they led 2-0 after the first five minutes, FC Cincinnati needed to respond against one of the hottest teams in Major League Soccer. Not only had Miami not lost an MLS regular-season match since May 18th, it hadn’t lost on the road since May 10th.

In addition, FC Cincinnati let a 2-0 lead against Inter Miami slip away in the Semifinals of the U.S. Open cup in August of 2023. That match was at home at TQL Stadium.

This time, though, Cincinnati finished the job against the reigning Supporters’ Shield winners. Cincinnati looked like it wanted it more than Miami did. It spent a lot of the first half in the box, pressuring Miami goalkeeper Oscar Ustari throughout the first 45 minutes and six minutes of extra time.

Cincinnati finally broke through when midfielder Gerardo Valenzuela found the bottom right corner of the net in the 16th minute for a 1-0 lead.

Then in the second half, Evander widened the margin for FC Cincinnati to esnure Miami wouldn’t be mounting a comeback in front of a soldout crowd of 25,513 fans.

Cincinnati (14-6-3, 45 points) is still well within striking distance of Philadelphia for first place in the Eastern Conference and the Supporters’ Shield race. It ended its three-game home-stand the right way by being the better team, the more aggressive team against a star-studded Miami team.

“You always look at the week, you know, especially when you have a midweek game, how do you
manage it? How do you stay fresh?” Noonan said. “It’s tough, it’s not easy to run in these conditions. And I don’t want to make excuses, at least we’re sitting here off of a win, but physically, it takes its toll on these guys.

“We have to understand that across the league, some of these environments that you’re playing in, some of the venues, the markets, it’s tough, and so you have to manage the game. We’ll see how we recover, it’s going to be a difficult turnaround. We’ve got to figure it out, but we’ll see how guys come out of it, and we’ll see what adjustments we need to make, if any, and then try to go and have the right energy to go and perform.”

At worst, FC Cincinnati is guaranteed a split with Inter Miami this regular-season. The two teams will meet again in Miami on July 26th.

Cincinnati’s next match is at Real Salt Lake on Saturday night, with kickoff at 9:30 E.T. on Apple TV+.