Portland’s Visit Stirs Memories of FCC’s Hot MLS Home Debut

April 20, 2023 – Major League Soccer (MLS) – FC Cincinnati News Release

Jeff Berding is all about moving forward, of course. The FC Cincinnati co-CEO has a team on the rise, yet much still to accomplish. A playoff berth and one playoff win in 2022, following three quite trying seasons, are not laurels plush enough to rest upon. Nor is the team’s 5-1-2 start to 2023, good as it is for a points deadlock (at 17) with New England atop the MLS Eastern Conference. It’s still only April, after all.

But this week, as FCC await only the second visit of the Portland Timbers to Cincinnati, Berding allotted a few minutes to look back. As veteran FCC fans likely recall, Portland was the foe in the first MLS home game for the Orange and Blue. The date was March 17, 2019, the site was Nippert Stadium, and though the result did not prove a harbinger of first-season brilliance, it was one huge hoot at the moment.

“I can tell you all three goals right now,” Berding said of FCC’s 3-0 dismissal of a Timbers side that had reached the 2018 MLS Cup Final. “(Defender) Kendall Waston gets the header off a set piece, (midfielder) Allan Cruz with a backheel, and (defender) Mathieu Deplagne with the right foot off a cross. Cruz’s backheel, in particular, was a really terrific goal.”

Then there was the clean sheet for keeper Spencer Richey.

“And it wasn’t just Spencer,” Berding says. “We were strong all night. Never gave them much chance. We showed a lot of fight.”

On a seasonably cool Sunday (51 degrees and cloudy), a crowd of 32,250 packed Nippert, the University of Cincinnati’s historic football home, for a 5 p.m. kickoff. The crowd size wasn’t a shock, given the remarkable gate success of FCC’s United Soccer League clubs from 2016-18. Seldom if ever has a minor league team drawn such support in a major league city.

But still there was an undercurrent of giddy disbelief when referee Ismail Elfath’s full-time whistle sounded, because FCC had pulled off this night after a frantic rush to get ready. The match came a bare nine months after MLS officially granted the franchise. For contrast, consider that St. Louis City SC didn’t play a game for four years after getting its MLS call.

“It was the quickest introduction into MLS that has ever happened, and to be fair, I’m sure I had an alcoholic beverage or two that night,” Berding said. “After I went down to congratulate the players, I went up with my family, and with Dan McNally and Jeff Smith, the two guys who have been with me since…