{"id":6242,"date":"2017-04-20T00:08:26","date_gmt":"2017-04-20T04:08:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsoccer.com\/?p=6242"},"modified":"2017-04-20T00:08:26","modified_gmt":"2017-04-20T04:08:26","slug":"mls-expansion-rivals-share-spoils","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/2017\/04\/20\/mls-expansion-rivals-share-spoils\/","title":{"rendered":"MLS Expansion Rivals Share Spoils in Cincinnati"},"content":{"rendered":"

FC Cincinnati<\/a>\u00a0and the Tampa Bay Rowdies<\/a> played to a 1-1 stalemate\u00a0at Nippert Stadium\u00a0in front of a crowd of 15,227 on Wednesday. Two teams jockeying for position\u00a0in the MLS expansion race battled as USL Eastern Conference rivals for the first time. An evenly played contest\u00a0turned in Tampa’s favor when FC Cincinnati winger Kadeem Dacres was shown red for a studs-up\u00a0tackle in the 75th minute. The home team’s defense was able to hold firm though. They preserved a\u00a01-1 scoreline under heavy pressure from Tampa in the final minutes of the match.<\/p>\n

MLS Expansion Rivals Share Spoils in Cincinnati<\/h2>\n

FC Cincinnati entered the match on a high after dismantling\u00a0Saint Louis FC 4-0 at home last\u00a0Saturday. Tampa Bay was looking to recover from their first loss of the season this past\u00a0weekend, which came at the hands of\u00a0Louisville City FC.<\/p>\n

First Half<\/h3>\n

Tampa Bay jumped out to an early lead courtesy of a vicious long range strike\u00a0by former Bundesliga\u00a0standout Marcel Sch\u00e4fer. FC Cincinnati lost possession just inside their own half in the 7th minute of play. Justin Chavez relayed the ball to\u00a0Sch\u00e4fer who found\u00a0space to dribble at goal. Rather than look for a pass, he put his head down and launched a 30+ yard strike that clattered in\u00a0off the inside of the post.<\/p>\n

\n

.@TampaBayRowdies<\/a> up 1-0 with this beauty from Marcel Sch\u00e4fer! #CINvTBR<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/fEXRMPGHqx<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 USL (@USL) April 19, 2017<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

FC Cincinnati was\u00a0stunned and down a goal, but regrouped quickly and played back into the match. They found an equalizer in the 36th minute from a corner kick. A threatening run into the left side of the box by Jimmy McLaughlin was put out of play to create the opportunity. Kenney Walker delivered a\u00a0powerful arcing corner onto the head of center back Harrison Delbridge who climbed over his defender to head into goal.<\/p>\n

The half finished at 1-1 and\u00a0was characterized by increasingly physical play between the two sides.<\/p>\n

Second Half<\/h3>\n

The physical play continued into an evenly played second half. Tensions continued to rise, and the referee issued\u00a0three yellow cards before a pivotal moment in\u00a0the match occurred.<\/p>\n

Tampa cleared a Cincinnati free kick high into the air. Kadeem Dacres tried to control the ball with his foot outside of the box. It bounced away from him, and\u00a0Dacres\u00a0tried to reclaim it with a high boot. Tampa’s Deshom Brown was rushing out of his own box to clear. He made contact with Dacres\u00a0outstretched leg and went down in a heap. The referee issued\u00a0a red card offense and FC Cincinnati was\u00a0reduced to ten\u00a0men.<\/p>\n

FC Cincinnati coach Alan Koch said of red card after the match. “My opinion is that it wasn’t a\u00a0red card, we’ll obviously have to go watch the video…we’ll have a discussion tonight as a club and see what the right way is to go about addressing that (whether to challenge the red card at the USL level).”<\/p>\n

The home side bunkered-in and got men behind the\u00a0ball for the final 15 minutes of play. A\u00a0save\u00a0and a few body-sacrificing blocks\u00a0were required, but FC Cincinnati’s\u00a0defense held and the match ended in a 1-1 stalemate.<\/p>\n

Koch: “We’ll Take a Point Tonight”<\/h3>\n

FC Cincinnati head coach Alan Koch didn’t like\u00a0how his\u00a0team started, but thought they rebounded well\u00a0until the red\u00a0card eliminated the possibility of\u00a0a win.<\/p>\n

“We addressed things, came out with a positive mindset, and clawed ourselves back into the game. We’re disappointed we didn’t get the three points, because we showed that we could deal with situations, but in the context, we’ll take a point tonight.”<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay reclaims the top spot in the Eastern Conference with Wednesday’s\u00a0result. They move back above Louisville City FC on goal difference.\u00a0They have played one more game than the Kentucky club however. FC Cincinnati moves up to fifth place with the draw. They\u00a0face that same Louisville City FC side\u00a0on Saturday for their third Eastern Conference showdown in the space of eight days.<\/p>\n

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

FC Cincinnati\u00a0and the Tampa Bay Rowdies played to a 1-1 stalemate\u00a0at Nippert Stadium\u00a0in front of a crowd of 15,227 on Wednesday. Two teams jockeying for position\u00a0in the MLS expansion race battled as USL Eastern Conference rivals for the first time. An evenly played contest\u00a0turned in Tampa’s favor when FC Cincinnati winger Kadeem Dacres was shown […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1653,"featured_media":6272,"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":[918,113,995,811,1144,57,51,627,61],"class_list":["post-6242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-usl","tag-alan-koch","tag-fc-cincinnati","tag-harrison-delbridge","tag-kadeem-dacres","tag-marcel-schafer","tag-mls","tag-mls-expansion","tag-tampa-bay-rowdies","tag-usl"],"modified_by":"Joe Hojnacki","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6242","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=6242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}