{"id":3505,"date":"2017-01-30T14:04:40","date_gmt":"2017-01-30T19:04:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsoccer.com\/?p=3505"},"modified":"2017-01-30T14:37:15","modified_gmt":"2017-01-30T19:37:15","slug":"fc-cincinnati-strengthens-with-seven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/2017\/01\/30\/fc-cincinnati-strengthens-with-seven\/","title":{"rendered":"FC Cincinnati Strengthens With Seven, Is More Firepower Still Coming?"},"content":{"rendered":"

FC Cincinnati<\/a> had a quiet early offseason after a record setting first USL campaign in 2016. Most of the team’s headlines\u00a0before the new year were\u00a0about MLS expansion<\/a>, and\u00a0the move\u00a0of USL MVP and Golden Boot Winner<\/a>, Sean\u00a0Okoli, to New York City FC. The Ohio club captured\u00a0winger Kadeem Dacres from rival Louisville City in mid-December. The acquisition\u00a0was a welcome holiday\u00a0present for fans, but didn’t provide\u00a0reinforcements on the scale that some\u00a0expected.<\/p>\n

FC Cincinnati Strengthens With Seven<\/h2>\n

The club’s recruiting machine began\u00a0producing results\u00a0after January 1st, announcing a series of new signings. On January 6th, the club presented three new players to the public.\u00a0Holding midfielder Marco Dominguez joined from FC Montr\u00e9al, not long after parent club Montr\u00e9al Impact dissolved the USL outfit. FC Cincinnati also added central midfielder Aaron Walker and forward Andy Craven. Walker recently played in Iceland’s first division for\u00a0B\u00cd\/Bolungarvik and earned his spot through FC Cincinnati’s\u00a0open tryouts.\u00a0Craven was last with OKC Energy. The Georgia native was drafted by the Seattle Sounders in 2015 after a decorated college\u00a0career at North Carolina. He didn’t make the Sounders squad initially, but eventually signed with\u00a0the first team after impressing at\u00a0Sounders 2. The first ever Sounders 2 goalscorer, Craven moved to OKC Energy in August of last year, and has now landed\u00a0in Cincinnati.<\/p>\n

One week after that three player splash, FC Cincinnati\u00a0announced its headline signing of the offseason. Central midfielder Aodhan Quinn joined from Louisville City FC, where he was the team’s captain in 2016. When Cincinnati\u00a0signed Dacres in December, it\u00a0was a shot across Louisville City’s bow. It was a declaration of war to nab\u00a0their captain, who was looking for more money than the Kentucky club wanted\u00a0to spend. The Louisville Courier-Journal cites “rising costs”<\/a> as being a key part in their decision to sell Quinn. This year’s\u00a0derby games between these two sides will\u00a0be a spectacle to behold.<\/p>\n

The Queen City club didn’t stop\u00a0there. The same week that they announced Quinn’s signing, two NASL veterans joined the Orange and Blue. FC Edmonton’s Daryl Fordyce joined after four years in the NASL. He made 96 appearances and scored 28 goals with the Canadian outfit, enough to make him their all time leading scorer. Fordyce is a native of Northern Ireland and was groomed as a youth player at the\u00a0Portsmouth (England) academy. They also acquired hometown product Matt Bahner from\u00a0the Jacksonville Armada. Bahner grew up in Cincinnati’s northern suburbs and played collegiately for the University of Cincinnati. Head coach John Harkes likes\u00a0his positional flexibility. “He is an experienced, versatile defender who can be utilized in any position across our back four.”<\/p>\n

Is More Firepower Still Coming?<\/h2>\n

The seven additions plus the re-signing of several players from\u00a0their 2016 roster leaves FC Cincinnati with 27 total players, one more than last season’s total. They’ve signed a defender, three central midfielders, a winger, and two forwards. They’ve added talent, experience, and depth that was perhaps missing during the team’s first year campaign.<\/p>\n

Sean Okoli’s departure left\u00a0a clear goalscoring hole in the team. Craven and Fordyce add goals\u00a0to the equation, but it’s not immediately clear if either can\u00a0lead the line or how they factor in along with\u00a0Cummings, Townsend, and\u00a0Wiedeman.\u00a0The rumor mill has been turning recently, and there’s speculation that FC Cincinnati is in the market to add even\u00a0more firepower.<\/p>\n

This may make sense in light of General Manager\u00a0Jeff Berding’s lofty 62 goal target<\/a> for the\u00a0season.\u00a0They already have a full stable\u00a0of strikers, but are they\u00a0enough to replace Okoli’s goals? Can the team really add 21 more goals than last season’s total? For that tally to be realistic, they may look to add a marquee striker to their list of 2017 recruits. Proven goalscoring\u00a0talent is\u00a0hard to lock down at any level though, especially at a level below the first division.<\/p>\n

It should be noted that Okoli did not come to Cincinnati with gaudy\u00a0goalscoring numbers.\u00a0The coaching staff needs to identify their first choice number nine for this season, and continue the service that\u00a0produced steady goalscoring last year. They also need\u00a0more balanced and consistent production from\u00a0the supporting offensive cast.<\/p>\n

The USL regular season begins in less than two months. There’s\u00a0time to add more one or two more players. A quality MLS castaway may be available as those teams look to finalize their 2017 rosters. FC Cincinnati’s season begins on March 25th when they visit the Charleston Battery at MUSC Health Stadium.<\/p>\n

Photo credit: Orange and Blue Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FC Cincinnati had a quiet early offseason after a record setting first USL campaign in 2016. Most of the team’s headlines\u00a0before the new year were\u00a0about MLS expansion, and\u00a0the move\u00a0of USL MVP and Golden Boot Winner, Sean\u00a0Okoli, to New York City FC. The Ohio club captured\u00a0winger Kadeem Dacres from rival Louisville City in mid-December. The acquisition\u00a0was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1653,"featured_media":3734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[812,813,814,113,192,811,815,188,61],"class_list":["post-3505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-usl","tag-aaron-walker","tag-andy-craven","tag-aodhan-quinn","tag-fc-cincinnati","tag-john-harkes","tag-kadeem-dacres","tag-marco-domiguez","tag-sean-okoli","tag-usl"],"modified_by":"Joe Hojnacki","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1653"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}