FC Cincinnati's Chris Albright: The club's biggest challenges are still to come

The phrase “long-term” never had a chance to exist in Chris Albright’s world after he was hired to be FC Cincinnati’s general manager in October 2021. He was surviving day-to-day and week-to-week as he and a small group attempted to excavate FCC from three straight last place finishes in Major League Soccer.

“I don’t know if I had expectations beyond the contract I signed and, you know, you’re kind of in it. You’re in it every day, especially where we were coming from,” Albright said. “You’re kind of battling from Day One, and I remember it was just me, Kyle (McCarthy) and Hunter (Freeman). There were no other humans around to help us. That’s what I felt like.

"The last thing you’re thinking is ‘man, I wonder if I’ll be’ – it’s ‘I wonder how we’ll get a center back’ and ‘how do we get Obi?’ and how do we get a goalkeeper.’ You’re just immersed in it.”

That immersion process paid dividends relatively quickly. It eventually gave rise to a resurgent FC Cincinnati in 2022 as the club clinched its first-ever MLS Cup playoff berth.

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Then, maybe, long-term prospects became a greater consideration. Last offseason, Albright and FC Cincinnati started contract extension talks for the general manager – after just one full MLS calendar year on the job and another guaranteed, full year on his contract still to come.

The extension talks were tabled and then resumed in early summer, Albright said, and he and the club agreed to terms recently. On Friday, FC Cincinnati announced the “long-term” extension for Albright, a deserved reward for his role in the successful worst-to-first turnaround.

Albright begins the next phase of his FC Cincinnati employment with the club holding the Supporters Shield and having a chance this coming weekend to eclipse the 70-point threshold in the standings, something only two other clubs have achieved in the league’s history.

The club is surpassing all expectations, including its own, by wide margins. During a preseason interview with The Enquirer in Clearwater Beach, Florida, Albright said the club aimed to just return to the MLS Cup playoffs. He surmised “10 or so” fewer goals in 2023 could make FC Cincinnati a championship contender after it conceded 56 goals in 2022.

Top-seeded FCC will enter the final regular-season game having conceded 19 fewer goals than it did last year, and as the unquestioned favorite to win MLS Cup with one trophy already in-hand.

Somehow, FC Cincinnati has to get better. It will try to, at least. The weight of those expectations will be the next great challenge for Albright, and the club at-large.

“You start to think about what the next three years look like and how do we evolve from this, and how do we hopefully make a run and go win MLS Cup and then how do you sort of evolve and change, and what salary cap implications are tied to that,” Albright told The Enquirer during a Friday interview. “What sacrifices are you going to have to make personnel-wise. There’s all those considerations because you’re always thinking at least a season ahead. I’m not gonna sit here and say I’m thinking three years down the road. A lot of guys will tell you that and I think they’re full of it.

“You’re thinking about how we can be competitive next year and how we can continue to augment and add and continue to be sustainable.”

The 2024 season will unquestionably usher in a new era for FC Cincinnati. As tough as it was to dig out from the pit of three straight last-place finishes in MLS, Albright is expecting the next period to be even more difficult.

FC Cincinnati will be hunted by every club in MLS. It will be defending at least one trophy next year and, if the MLS Cup playoffs go to plan, it will be defending a second prize. Soon, FCC will be hunted by every qualifying club on the continent via the 2024 CONCACAF Champions Cup, which could add a healthy chunk of additional matches and grueling away days as far away as Central America or the Caribbean.

Like Los Angeles FC and Philadelphia Union of 2023 after they met in the MLS Cup final last year, FC Cincinnati will likely have to make distinct choices about which of the five trophies available to it will be emphasized. That could mean lagging results early on, which both LAFC and Philadelphia had to contend with during the overlap of regular-season and Champions Cup (formerly known as the CONCACAF Champions League).

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Distilled, this is the gist of Albright's assertion that the toughest challenges are still to come: Attaining a measure of success when no one is looking or expecting it is one thing but sustaining success and reaching new heights with the North American soccer community watching is a different proposition.

“Yeah, it will be (more challenging), for sure,” Albright said. “Champions Cup tests you. Leagues Cup is another thing they threw at us that tested everyone in the league. All the data’s there on (MLS) Champions League teams on how they start and how they try pick up the pieces (later) and catch up. I think we’re positioned pretty well depth-wise to try to take on something like that.

"We certainly have an eye on increasing that depth, figuring out how to be competitive in every tournament we’re entered in. Players that haven’t been through it and coaches that haven’t been through it, it’ll be a really good experience because those games, those environments, how you juggle the schedule and balance it out is difficult, so I think we’ll all learn a lot.”

"Long-term" doesn't only mean new frontiers for FC Cincinnati. It also offers security for Albright and his family, who are still relatively new to Greater Cincinnati.

Albright jumped around from club to club plenty in his MLS playing career, but life and work always brought him back to Philadelphia, where he was raised. During an October 2022 interview, Philadelphia Union manager Jim Curtin described Albright as having one of the two most historic playing careers in the history of Philadelphia-born soccer products (the other being Ben Olsen). Grade school-aged children looked up to Albright, Curtin told The Enquirer.

That level of notoriety in his home town afforded Albright and his family a level of comfort and familiarity that could only come with being a local hero.

Now, Cincinnati can probably start to feel even more like home for Albright's loved ones, which is fitting because of the sacrifices they make for the good of the FC Cincinnati community.

"As far as assimilating, we’re people-people kinda. As far as getting along with the neighbors and figuring out where the grocery store is, is second nature," Albright said. "The kid stuff, that was the real consideration. High school-aged kids and what the means, and kind of living in Philly their whole lives. That’s not an easy thing. I’m not going to sugarcoat that it is. Watching my kids kind of find their footing here over the last two years has been awesome. Them being a part of the winning and success and the celebration at the airport really kind of validates a lot for me, for them. When they see the impact of fandom and what it does for the city, and that they had to sacrifice for it, that’s really cool."

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Chris Albright: FC Cincinnati's biggest challenges are still to come