What we learned from FC Cincinnati's first MLS win of 2024

CHICAGO − FC Cincinnati's first win of 2024 offered scenes reminiscent of the 2023 Supporters' Shield-winning campaign.

The post-match laughter returned to the locker room. Players smiled, hugged and joked with one another. They seemed to savor their post-match dinner just a little bit more amidst the thumping bass of the bluetooth speaker system.

That's the FC Cincinnati we became accustomed to seeing last year, regardless of the venue. And sure, FCC's won two matches in CONCACAF Champions Cup play, but the scenes were muted, plus the locker was closed to media (typical for international competitions).

On Saturday, that familiar, winning feeling returned as FC Cincinnati claimed its first victory in Major League Soccer play this year via a 2-1 victory over the Chicago Fire at Soldier Field before a crowd of more than 26,000.

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Aaron Boupendza and Miles Robinson did the scoring for FCC as the club dispatched a Fire side that appears to be improving. The result lifted Cincinnati's league record to an undefeated 1-0-1, and 3-0-1 including the Champions Cup series against Cavalier FC.

FC Cincinnati now has a boost of much-needed confidence in MLS play that came just in time for a CONCACAF Champions Cup showdown Thursday (6 p.m.) at TQL Stadium, which might qualify as the biggest match in FCC history.

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More on what we learned about the Champions Cup series to come, plus FCC's first league win of 2024:

Does FCC's record look familiar?

It should. At 1-0-1 and four points in the standings, FC Cincinnati now has an identical record to how the 2023 team started the season. We all remember how 2023 turned out for FCC, and its worth noting the small achievement of keeping pace with the club's 2023 points haul after the angst that followed last weekend's scoreless draw with Toronto FC.

It's only two results through two matches. We're a long way from back-to-back Supporters' Shield but after some of the discontent following the scoreless draw, you'd think FC Cincinnati was winless over a long period to begin the year. We're far from that, too.

In fact, FC Cincinnati's keeping pace in the Eastern Conference at a time when its attention is divided between MLS and CONCACAF Champions Cup, which has traditionally caused participating MLS clubs to drop regular-season games.

The win Saturday at Chicago came without Luca Orellano, too, who was away from the team due to an urgent family situation.

FC Cincinnati won't be one of the more talked-about teams in the MLS community this coming week, especially as long as Inter Miami CF is doing the kinds of things it did Saturday against Orlando City SC (a 5-0 win with multiple goals for Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez, in case you missed it). But don't worry about the hype, or lack of it, around FCC at this stage in the season. The club has so far done almost everything it's needed to in league and cup play.

FC Cincinnati is (still) a dominant defensive team

Here's how FC Cincinnati's defensive record reads through four competitive matches in 2024: Three shutouts, no goals allowed from open play, and one contested, VAR-awarded penalty-kick goal conceded.

Not bad for a team with a new starting center back, albeit an elite one in Miles Robinson, and new and shifting pieces on Robinson's flanks and in front of him in the midfield. Nonetheless, the club has been very stout defensively, and Saturday's win required even more shuffling because of Orellano's absence.

Was FC Cincinnati expecting itself to be this good defensively this early in 2024? "Yeah," goalkeeper Roman Celentano responded confidently to that exact prompt after the match.

"Obviously, at the start of the year you would think, 'oh, guys need to get used to playing with each other,' " Celentano said post-match in Chicago. "But Ian (Murphy) and Matt (Miazga) have been around. Miles is an elite center back. It's more just the disconnection I was worried about throughout the field. Like, how different pieces in the midfield and outside backs would work, like Yuya (Kubo) playing not in his favorite position at a wing-back spot but that's a credit to the guys for being adaptable. It's nice when I'm bored back there and everyone is doing their job . . . We have ballers across the field."

Aaron's Boupendza's heating up

Boupendza was in blistering form in preseason, scoring six goals in four matches. Now, after not playing in the Champions Cup opener against Cavalier FC due to challenges around his visa, and having limited minutes against Toronto FC last weekend (hamstring), Boupendza is back to his scoring ways.

He has two goals in two games and looks every bit the designated-player striker who can dominate a match. He can also simply pop up at the right place and time to deliver a clinical finish. That was the case Saturday at Chicago as he burned the Fire for a turnover and then pummeled the ball into the back of the net.

Corey Baird isn't quite firing yet as Boupendza's strike partner. You can see Baird's still working things out with "Boup" and Luciano Acosta. But Boupendza is more than enough for FCC for the time being, and Baird will come around too.

Monterrey FC heading for TQL Stadium

FC Cincinnati now turns its attention back to Champions Cup play this week as it will welcome Monterrey FC, one of the titans of soccer in the CONCACAF region, which is comprised of the soccer federations from North and Central America, and the Caribbean.

Monterrey is a five-time winner of the Champions Cup, and all their victories in the tournament have been this century. They most recently won it in 2021, and they have former-FCC great Brandon Vazquez leading their attack in the current Champions Cup campaign. Vazquez and Co. come to Cincinnati Thursday for a 7 p.m. kickoff at TQL Stadium.

Every year, it seems FC Cincinnati gets a game that enters the "biggest match in club history?" conversation. Last year, it felt at the time like the U.S. Open Cup semifinal against Inter Miami couldn't get bigger. Then, each home playoff game felt like an event that couldn't be topped. Monterrey might actually be as good as it gets, though. At the very least, it's in the conversation.

Rare are the moments when FC Cincinnati will play a meaningful game against a foreign club. Leagues Cup promises to offer more frequent high-profile occasions of that sort, but that competition only includes Mexico's Liga MX (for now). And some (not all, but some) still see Leagues Cup as a contrived cash grab of a tournament, so games against bigger Mexican teams (see: FC Cincinnati defeating Chivas Guadalajara last summer) don't quite measure up to the hype and pageantry of Champions Cup meetings.

And keep in mind the Champions Cup also provides its winner with a ticket to the FIFA Club World Cup, and it doesn't get bigger than that in club soccer.

Monterrey is the No. 1 ranked club in CONCACAF right now. Vazquez might be the hottest player in all of CONCACAF, too, and he's Cincinnati's all-time leading scorer. Storylines abound here, and both teams are elite in their respective leagues.

Even Robinson, a regular contributor for the U.S. men's senior national team and a veteran of some of the biggest club matches CONCACAF can offer during his time with Atlanta United, conceded he's excited for the Monterrey series.

"Oh, definitely. I think these games are the games you want to play in, these high-stakes games," Robinson said. "These great opponents. I played (Monterrey) once in the Champions Cup with Atlanta. We couldn't advance but hopefully this can be kind of a series where we can show the rest of the country, the rest of CONCACAF what Cincinnati can do."

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: What we learned from FC Cincinnati's first MLS win of 2024