October 27, 2024 – Major League Soccer (MLS)
FC Cincinnati News Release
The 2024 MLS Cup Playoffs are back, and FC Cincinnati hosts the opening match in their Round One, Best of 3 series with NYCFC. The new playoff format, first instituted in 2023, makes it so this match is not a knockout match. Still, the intensity of the playoffs will be there, with the chance to start a championship run on a high note.
“It feels different, it should. And you realize that you have to be very connected in every aspect of the game,” Pat Noonan said Saturday morning ahead of the Monday night match. “So many little things become so much more important at this stage that you have to get right.”
FC Cincinnati enters the playoffs on a high after defeating Philadelphia Union 2-1 on Decision Day and equaling an MLS record for road victories in a season. The playoff calendar has allowed for extra time off, as FCC will kick off on Monday night, meaning they will have an extra two days to prepare than the usual one week.
The extra time gives Noonan and his staff the opportunity to continue the work done before that Philadelphia match-work that, Noonan says, paid off with a strong performance and result.
“It’s just given us a couple days to start the conversations about some things that we’ll do on both sides of the ball and like the lead up to Philly, I think we saw improvements of the understanding of some of those ideas in moving players around to try different things and have guys be prepared to do different things,” Pat Noonan explained. “Oftentimes at the end of (playoff) games, it could look frantic. And when there’s desperation you see things that you typically don’t see, I think I said that in the previous years. Players in different spots, or a very aggressive approach or a very defensive approach, depending on the game state, you see a lot of that at the end of these games. So everybody just needs to be so tuned in as the games are progressing (and) to understand how they can impact the game late.”
FC Cincinnati has made the playoffs for the third straight season and won their opening-round match in each of those years. With that third consecutive clinch, FCC became just the second Cincinnati-based top division pro sports club to make the postseason in three straight seasons.
With a win, FC Cincinnati could clinch their spot in the Conference Semifinals should they win Game 2 next week at Citi Field. Should this match be tied after 90 minutes, a winner will be decided in a…
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