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What MLS Expansion Teams Should Learn From FC Cincinnati’s Year 1 Misery

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It may seem hard to believe, but there was a time not all that long ago when a pro soccer team from The Queen City provided a feel-good, lead story on SportsCenter. Yes, it was late June, a slow time in the North American sports calendar: The Stanley Cup and NBA Finals had just concluded; pennant-race baseball and meaningful football were still two months away.

Even so, FC Cincinnati — then of the lower-division USL — had provided an incredible soccer spectacle on ESPN’s airwaves and before a packed house at Nippert Stadium. Following a thrilling scoreless draw, Cincy outdueled the MLS’s Chicago Fire on penalties in the fifth round of the U.S. Open Cup. And on a Wednesday night in America’s rust belt, more than 30,000 celebrated with a passion equal to any fans in the world.

Perhaps as soon as that night, Cincinnati was added to the short list of cities that MLS executives believed could become the next success story in the model of Toronto, Seattle or Atlanta. By the end of the year, the city had officially earned an expansion team, and a quick ascenscion up the MLS hierarchy was almost assumed.

That context makes it hard to understand the misery of Cincinnati’s first year in MLS, which hopefully had its final chapter earlier last Monday when coach Ron Jans resigned following allegations he had used a racial slur around his players. Before that, FC Cincinnati finished their first season in last-place with the worst goal differential (minus-44) in leage history. Before that, the club fired Alan Koch, its first head coach, two months into the campaign. Before that, Fanendo Adi, the first signing in the club’s MLS history, was charged with operating a vechicle under the influence of alcohol. (Adi was waived this offseason.)

No one will be more motivated to learn from these early mistakes than those inside FC Cincinnati’s organization. But with six more teams joining MLS in the next three years, here's what those other soon-to-be league members might learn from FCC's early failings:

Don’t Be Seduced By USL Success

Not long after FC Cincinnati were officially welcomed into MLS, team president Jeff Berding confidently declared they would be coming for the rest of the league.

“I tell people, ‘If you want to be mediocre, go somewhere else’,” he told MLSsoccer.com. “We don't want to be average. You don't get excellence with modest effort, you get it with enormous effort and enormous sacrifice. And I believe that's the culture of our club … We'll show up tomorrow; we have a plan. We'll execute the plan.”

In hindsight, that confidence may have been inaccurately inflated by USL success. On the field, FCC were the last lower division team standing in the U.S. Open Cup in 2017 when they reached the semifinals, and won the USL’s Eastern Conference in 2018. Off the field, their 2018 average attendance of more than 25,000 remains a USL record.

If the ease of those successes left Cincy ill-prepared for the competitive parity and smaller margins for error in MLS, they wound’t be alone. The ownership groups of the Seattle Sounders, Portland Timbers and Orlando City SC all had their roots in the lower-level league. Seattle needed four years to achieve its first playoff series victory. Portland required three years to reach its first postseason. Orlando is still searching for its maiden playoff appearance. By contrast, the relatively immediate excellence of Atlanta United and LAFC came under ownership without a USL past.

Have MLS Experience In High Places

It’s not necessary — or desirable — that all your decision makers have deep roots in MLS. But the clubs who have the shortest learning curves generally at least have one head coach or executive who does.

Atlanta United have excelled with two foreign managers and a considerable number of talented imported players. But in sporting director Carlos Bocanegra, they have a voice in the room with more than 100 MLS appearances that sandwiched a lengthy European career, not to mention more than 100 U.S. national team caps.

LAFC have the most well-traveled American manager in history in former U.S. national team boss Bob Bradley, and an authenitc MLS journeyman in sporting director John Thorrington.

Compare that to Cincinnati’s original braintrust of technical director Luke Sassano and Koch. Sassano made 48 appearances across five MLS seasons, three of which were heavily marred by injury. Koch had never coached or played in MLS. Current sporting director Gerard Nijkamp and departed manager Ron Jans also had no experience in the league between them.

Jans’ brief tenure is ultimately the worst-case scenario and inexcuseable no matter who else was on the technical staff. But it’s hard to think a front office with more awareness of MLS culture would’ve allowed Jans’ indiscretions this long.

You (Usually) Get What You Pay For

It’s not impossible to have on-field success while being one of the league’s more modestly spending clubs, but it’s increasingly unlikely for new teams.

Seattle’s signing of Freddie Ljungberg as its first Designated Player in 2009 was one of the splashier moves in league history at the time, and it’s loan for 21-year-old Colombian Fredy Montero one of the most shrewd. While that team didn’t have immediate playoff success, it finished a respectable third in the West and also won the 2009 U.S. Open Cup.

Atlanta spent big from Day 1 by bringing in Miguel Almiron and Josef Martinez, and LAFC went even bigger when they announced Mexico national team star Carlos Vela as their club’s first signing.

Cincinnati spent more modestly in their first year. That would be no problem if the public expectations hadn’t been set so high. Instead, Berding and company talked a big game without necessarily backing it up with financial muscle. That’s often a recipe for trouble, expansion team or not.

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