A Top Pedro Santos Performance

Last night the Columbus Crew worked over Cincinnati by a 3-0 scoreline. In it, we saw great performances from most of the team, but one, in particular, stands out: Pedro Santos.

His WhoScored rating of 8.99 makes it his second performance in the top 1% of all 3,672 Crew player ratings since 2013 (as far back as their and Opta MLS ratings go).

Here is a look at the number of times a player has performed in the top 1% off all performances.

Top 1%	Name
8	Justin Meram
7	Federico Higuain
7	Kei Kamara
3	Gyasi Zardes
2	Pedro Santos
2	Ola Kamara
2	Ethan Finlay
1	Aaron Schoenfeld
1	Chad Marshall
1	Gláuber
1	Kekuta Manneh
1	Lucas Zelerayan
1	Youness Mokhtar
1	Zack Steffen

Notable for Santos because this puts him one of only seven players in 8 seasons to fall in the top 1% two times or more. For some, this might stand in contrast to how they feel about his play. There have been some really rough games for him, but the top-level that he can play at is also near the top of Major League Soccer and he's doing it at 32 years of age.

FC Cincy Dismiss Coach

Alan Koch has been let go after just 11 games into FC Cincinnati's 1st MLS season. President and general manager Jeff Berding said in a team release:

“After a series of recent issues and a team culture that had deteriorated, we determined that it’s time to make a change to return a club-centered focus to the team... We have not come close to maximizing the talent we have in the dressing room this year, nor have we seen a foundation being built that will set us up for success this year and into next year."

There are precisely 2 things to pull out of this statement.

1. CLUB-CENTERED
I believe Cincy is sensitive to the fact that they gave up everything neat about having a soccer team in order to have the "privilege" of playing in MLS. Summed up here:

Took 11 games for Cincy fans to start openly admitting to missing USL. pic.twitter.com/6rYXGTrp7y

— ʟᴏᴜʟɪɢᴀɴ ʙɪʀᴅ ⚜️ (@LouliganBird) May 5, 2019

2. MAXIMIZING TALENT
FC Cincy's roster is not very good. At the start of the season, I had their starting XI ranked 10th in the East (only above Chicago Fire and Orlando) with an average bench. Right now they are about where I expected them to be, sitting at 11/12 in the East.

The Eastern Conference is filled with some very average teams this year, but I don't think it is all that unreasonable to think anything better than last is a pretty good bar to get over with this roster.

'19 Carolina Cup Grades, Rd 1

Long live the Carolina Challenge Cup. Believe it or not, this year marks the 15th consecutive year for this little four-team tournament that always manages to get a strong effort from players and coaches. This year sees hosts Charleston Battery (15th appearance) face up against the Columbus Crew (6th app), Chicago Fire (4th app) and FC Cincinnati (1st time).

Last night the 1st games of this mini round robin kicked off. Columbus took on Chicago and Charleston took on FC Cincy.

As far as season projections: I've got Columbus finishing near the top of the East, with Chicago and Cincinnati finishing near the bottom.

Results aside here's team grades based on performance vs what I expected:

B : COLUMBUS CREW
A sloppy tackle by Wil Trapp saw him get sent off, but it sent this game into an interesting direction. With most of the team returning, I was looking to see if Crew players were engaged. Playing with 10 men for 60 minutes was a great way to measure that. They were. I was also interested in seeing new ideas from Caleb Porter, but we'll get an incomplete on that via red card.

C : CHICAGO FIRE, CHARLESTON BATTERY
Chicago looked like they have for the past few years. A handful of talented players mixed in with a bunch of guys that have no business being out there. They played hard and desperately wanted another goal to put away Columbus. Perhaps if they were facing any other MLS team they would have gotten it but the Crew pretty much brought everyone from last year back. It was pretty much like facing a season ready team.

Another thing from Chicago I was looking for was a plan. They didn't seem to have one. Their coach seems like a nice guy, but that's about it. "Get forward, play tough defense, look for the break" is not coaching.

Charleston gets a C grade for playing up to their competition, which they usually do in this tournament. FC Cincy was looking to come out of the gates firing here but the Battery soaked it up and played competitively.

D : FC CINCY
In a few ways, they are being built like the Chicago Fire. Half the starting XI is good, the other half bad. I wasn't looking for much last night. The effort was great, but there was no clear plan. Facing an inferior team of players should afford you some latitude in trying out stuff. Even if it doesn't work, it's a great opportunity to work on it. Cincy just went out and played general soccer (if that makes any sense). I don't care if they made mistakes, just wanted to see some structure in what they were doing. There wasn't much. About what I expected, I guess.

The season starts in a couple weeks. Major takeaways from last night for each team:

1. Columbus: Are ready to go
2. Chicago: Good effort, bad coach, sloppy roster build
3. Cincy: Sloopy roster, no plan

Next round of games are on Wednesday.

Mennah to FC Cincy

Kekuta Manneh will be joining FC Cincinnati for the 2019 season. He will be a key piece that fills one of the holes for an expansion side trying desperately to find its footing.

After the recent injury to Jimmy McLaughlin, FCC was certainly looking for a midfielder. Menneh fits that bill. There are questions around him, however. After jumping on the scene with Vancouver as a teen (6 goals and 4 assists in just 767 minutes), he drifted a little bit into the land of anonymous MLS land. Not because he isn't talented, but more because he was playing for a team that gets zero recognition.

Vancouver plays out west, on turf, and hasn't been able to find its place in MLS. I tend to think their strong connection to their NASL past makes MLS a little hesitant to feature them in anything. Combine that with the fact that they are a Canadian team and you get a team where good players might go unnoticed (save for Alphonso Davies going to Bayern, come to think of it, Manneh's talent in his early days might have put Vancouver on the radar and brought Bayern out to look at Davies).

Mennah, at one point in 2013, was seen as the next big thing in MLS. 2014 and 2015 gave him more minutes to work with but the team sucked and his production dropped to somewhere around "good MLS starter range."

Year: Mins (G+A p90)
2013: 764 (0.94)
2014: 1198 (0.45)
2015: 2424 (0.48)
2016: 1139 (0.55)

With his production consistent, it is easy to see why Gregg Berhalter and the Columbus Crew picked him up in 2017. He went on to put away 4 goals and assist on another three in just 838 minutes (0.75 G+A p90).

I think Manneh wanted to dip his toes into international waters for a while and Berhalter made that happen. He ended up down with CF Pachuca in Mexico, but he didn't break into the 18. From there he went to FC St. Gallen 1879 of the Swiss 1st Division, where he played as a sub.

The lesson we have learned here is that LigaMX and the Swiss Super League are competitive levels that are slightly ahead of MLS. Manneh was not able to do much in his time there. However! Back in MLS, he should be able to knock back a handful of goals and assists for FC Cincy.

As of this moment, we are not sure how much Columbus got from FCC for owning his "rights," but I imagine it wasn't a whole lot.

Ultimately, Manneh brings experience and an attacking presence to FC Cincy, but it doesn't get them anywhere close to playoff level.

Here's an updated look at the teams I've evaluated:


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		Player Ratings (avg)		TransferMarkt Value (000)
	Team	Starters	Bench	Starters	Bench
1	NYC	70.5	64.6	$ 16,303	$ 4,470
2	ATL	70.4	66.7	$ 49,014	$ 14,484
3	DCU	69.7	56.6	$ 21,934	$ 2,990
4	NYR	69.7	64.9	$ 20,192	$ 3,745
5	TFC	69.7	65.4	$ 18,061	$ 3,502
6	MIN	69.6	57.1	$ 13,800	$ 4,470
7	MTL	69.6	65.2	$ 13,410	$ 4,876
9	CLB	69.3	66.2	$ 24,671	$ 4,180
9	NER	69.1	65.6	$ 13,955	$ 5,811
10	FCC	68.7	64.3	$ 12,326	$ 4,790
11	PHI	68.2	56.5	$ 9,933	$ 5,529
12	CHI	67.8	63.7	$ 17,022	$ 3,955
13	ORL	67.2	62.2	$ 10,365	$ 3,309

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Pre-Season Look at FC Cincinnati

I'm looking to take a more comprehensive look at MLS teams this year. The offseason can be a really tricky time to look at these sorts of things, but I'm committed to building a MLS database of player information. With somewhere south of 700 players, it's a doable thing.

Since it is early the offseason, take this with a grain of salt. I don't know what primary formation Head Coach Alan Koch will play, but I can tell you what his strongest lineup will be at this time.

With a current roster in hand, here is a quick analysis of where FC Cincinnati is. I take the most recent ratings of Football Manager, Electronic Arts' FIFA and WhoScored for each player and then take the median of the three to determine the general quality of the player.

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FM19	FIFA	WhoScored	WS x10	Rating	Name2	Position
74.3	80	6.85	68.5	74	Kendall Waston	Centre-Back
76.1	73	6.72	67.2	73	Fanendo Adi	Centre-Forward
67.1	72	6.98	69.8	70	Roland Lamah	Left Winger
69.2	70	6.65	66.5	69	Greg Garza	Left-Back
66.4	69	6.83	68.3	68	Alvas Powell	Right-Back
70.1	68	6.78	67.8	68	Mathieu Deplagne	Right-Back
69.1	68	6.04	60.4	68	Leonardo Bertone	Central Midfield
64	68	6.77	67.7	68	Emmanuel Ledesma	Centre-Forward
64.1	70	6.72	67.2	67	Victor Ulloa	Defensive Midfield
63.1	68	6.67	66.7	67	Darren Mattocks	Centre-Forward
63.8	66	6.63	66.3	66	Fatai Alashe	Defensive Midfield
64.4	68	6.58	65.8	66	Przemyslaw Tyton	Goalkeeper
66.4	65	6.54	65.4	65	Eric Alexander	Central Midfield
63.3	63	5.68	56.8	63	Corben Bone	Central Midfield
63.7	61	5.82	58.2	61	Spencer Richey	Goalkeeper
58.7	61	6.33	63.3	61	Blake Smith	Left-Back
55	61	6.5	65	61	Hassan Ndam	Centre-Back
60.1	61	6.09	60.9	61	Justin Hoyte	Right-Back
57	60	6.3	63	60	Emery Welshman	Centre-Forward
59.7	55	6	60	60	Jimmy McLaughlin	Right Midfield
65	0	0	0	0	Nazmi Albadawi	Attacking Midfield
62	0	0	0	0	Forrest Lasso	Centre-Back
0	0	0	0	0	Ben Lundt	Goalkeeper
0	0	0	0	0	Frankie Amaya	Attacking Midfield
0	0	0	0	0	Jimmy Hague	Goalkeeper
0	0	0	0	0	Logan Gdula	Defender
0	0	0	0	0	Tommy McCabe	Defensive Midfield
0	0	0	0	0	Rashawn Dally	Forward?

WhoScored takes x10 multiplier to make it out of 100. As the 2019 season rolls on, I'll be able to add my own Helltown Beer player rating.

The theory behind this is that there is so much public data out there on individual players, one can use it to get a very good idea of things. Players with "0" can both be exciting and not so much. Just means there's nothing out there on them.

Nazmi Albadawi is in the Football Manager 19 database at a 65, but hasn't pinged FIFA or WS yet. He's a 27-year old that has spent his entire life in the Raleigh, NC area. Wake Tech Eagles, NC State, Carolina RailHawks, North Carolina FC and then to FC Cincinnati last year. 10 goals, 4 assists in 2244 minutes played. His distribution was pretty good at 78% with most of his passes going forward. I'm very interested in how he is able to perform in MLS this year, as I'm tracking how USL players do in MLS (there are not many direct USL - MLS examples).

As the offseason rolls on and I get more teams profiled, I'll be able to place them on the table - and even predict how well they do week to week via matchup.

If I were to grade FCC right now, it'd be a "D" - meaning: out of the playoffs. But that comes with some excitement behind how they are building a roster.

MLS is a bizarre beast. Here's how I project their strongest XI (number represents the player's rating). Right now they have enough up top, but the quality isn't there to pull one from the midfield. If they do, it'd be bad news, but I can see moving McLaughlin out in favor of Ledesma or Mattocks.