FC Cincinnati is leading MLS but can it win trophies? Here's what FCC's success means

You have to look up to find FC Cincinnati these days.

Yes, look straight up, to the top of Major League Soccer's standings and there you'll find FC Cincinnati, which is leading the league through 12 regular-season matches and is positioning itself for strong pushes for multiple trophies this season.

If FC Cincinnati tore up the club record book with its successful 2022 campaign, it's lighting the record book on fire in 2023. The club already has more home wins at TQL Stadium than it did all of last season and is on pace to perhaps be the best regular-season team MLS has ever seen.

FCC's beaten almost all comers so far this season but the biggest opponent it might face this year is the long, grueling slog that is the regular season, along with the adjacent and separate competitions Cincinnati will also try to win.

Why FC Cincinnati's 2023 season is different

FCC in 2022 had an undeniably successful year. The club tore its own record book apart as one of the highest-scoring clubs in the league. It also won 12 matches −the most since the club entered MLS for the 2019 season − and qualified for the MLS Cup playoffs. There, it won its first-ever playoff game and was then only narrowly eliminated in the Eastern Conference semifinal round by eventual conference champion, Philadelphia Union.

Through just 12 MLS matches in 2023, FC Cincinnati already has more home wins (seven versus six in 2022) and is leading the race for the MLS Supporters Shield, which is awarded at season's end to the top team in the regular season.

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Winning the Shield also grants its recipient a berth into the CONCACAF Champions League, a continental club championship that feeds into the FIFA Club World Cup where, in theory, FC Cincinnati could run up against some of the most famous teams in the world.

But we're a long way off from that at the moment. Forget the Club World Cup for now. And FCC does have the Champions League set as a goal for itself but that's a long way off, too.

Only eight teams have finished as the Shield winner and gone on to win MLS Cup, which is the ultimate prize each team strives for. In what MLS refers to as its modern era, just six clubs have pulled off the Shield-MLS Cup "double," and you could argue as few as two clubs have accomplished this in the truly modern MLS as we know the league today − a geographically vast, 29-team competition.

What FC Cincy's up against

FC Cincinnati is engaged in two separate competitions at the moment. One is the 34-match MLS regular season, which they're doing well in at 8-1-3 overall and leading the league-wide standings, but they're also only about a third of the way through the season. So, there's a lot of travel and a lot more games still to come.

Additionally, FC Cincinnati is progressing in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, which is named for a 20th-centurty American soccer pioneer and runs parallel to the MLS regular season. The Open Cup is the national championship for the monied MLS clubs as well as the lower-league (minor league), semi-professional and amateur outfits in the U.S.

The Open Cup winner is also granted a berth to the CONCACAF Champions League, and it's considered a major honor for any domestic club to win. FC Cincinnati plays a Round of 16 Open Cup match Tuesday against the New York Red Bulls at Red Bull Arena in Harrison, New Jersey, and would host the quarterfinal-round game if it wins.

A third competition - the Leagues Cup - will appear mid-July through mid-August as MLS teams and Mexican top-flight clubs go head-to-head in a World Cup-style tournament. For this event, MLS will at least pause its regular season. FC Cincinnati could conceivably get some time off if it crashed out of the tournament early on, but they don't appear eager to letdown on any front this year.

A new record for FC Cincy?

All these competitions and games and trophy pursuits will add up and take their toll on FC Cincinnati and other MLS clubs this year. The team that navigates these challenges more effectively is the one that will fill its trophy case later this year and gain a coveted spot in next year's CONCACAF Champions League.

FC Cincinnati's 34-match regular season, plus the three Open Cup matches it will have played by Tuesday night, plus the two previously-scheduled League Cup group stage matches means FCC will play at least 39 matches in 2023. That will be the most games in club history for a single year, and the number will only grow if it continues to succeed in the Open Cup, Leagues Cup and the MLS postseason. It's conceivable FCC will play upward of 50 matches by year's end.

That, and not necessarily any one opponent, is what stands between FC Cincinnati and glory.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: FC Cincinnati is leading MLS but can it win trophies? Here's what FCC's success means