Cincinnati Didn't Outplay Pachuca. They Just Made Their Chances Count
Pachuca had the cleaner spells of possession and the better early chances. For eight minutes at TQL Stadium, they also had the goal to show for it, Adrián Alcaraz heading home a cross from Oussama Idrissi to put the Liga MX side ahead. None of that mattered by full time.
FC Cincinnati won 3-1, and per FC Cincinnati's official match recap, the story of the night was not who had more of the ball. It was who did more with less of it.
The Evander Factor
Cincinnati leveled in the 18th minute through Evander, who curled a strike from outside the box into the top corner, his 12th goal in his last 12 matches across all competitions, according to FC Cincinnati's club report. Pavel Bucha put the hosts ahead just before halftime, finishing a Bryan Ramirez cutback in the 39th minute. Substitute Kenji Mboma Dem sealed it in the 70th, finishing a counterattack that started at goalkeeper Evan Louro's feet, as detailed in LeaguesCup.com's.
That is three goals from three different phases of the game: a set-piece response, a cutback finish, and a broken-field sprint. Pachuca, for all their control, never solved the actual problem in front of them, which was a Cincinnati back line and goalkeeper willing to absorb pressure and strike on the transition.
Head coach Pat Noonan put it plainly afterward. "I'm pleased about the result, and I'm pleased about winning by two goals against a good team," he said, via FCCincinnati.com. Noonan had called chasing a big scoreline against a team like Pachuca "arrogant" before kickoff. His side didn't chase one. They just took what the game gave them, twice.
Possession numbers make for a tidy postmortem, but they rarely explain results like this one. Pachuca will look at the shape of the match and wonder how they lost it. The answer is in the boxes at either end, not the middle third.
