Marked for Ștefan Chirilă
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad16 Nov 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Bryan Ramírez
40 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. FC Cincinnati lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match16 Nov 2026
6 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” FC Cincinnati may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Miles Robinson was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at FC Cincinnati training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Brian Anunga is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Kyle Smith
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 Nov 2026
Bryan Ramírez damages knee ligaments — 50 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 50 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Evander and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Brian Schaefer falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad9 Nov 2026
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one FC Cincinnati will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Market9 Nov 2026
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Evander’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout2 Nov 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Market2 Nov 2026
David Douděra wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at FC Cincinnati hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Brian Anunga in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FC Cincinnati this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Squad2 Nov 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for David Douděra
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. David Douděra has come out of that comparison in the side, and FC Cincinnati have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Obinna Nwobodo's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad19 Oct 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Match19 Oct 2026
Every point is an argument now for FC Cincinnati
Position 14 and 6 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ștefan Chirilă is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Defensive actions: 24, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Squad19 Oct 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FC Cincinnati this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Oct 2026
At 36, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 19 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Ender Echenique
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Owen Wright after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match3 Oct 2026
8 matches without a win, and then this, against Charlotte Football Club. Relief is a strange noise in a football ground and it was the only noise at the end.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Miles Robinson and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Bryan Ramírez falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad5 Oct 2026
200 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
A masterclass from Evander
Marked 8.17 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Time is catching up with Kalen Ryden
Everybody at FC Cincinnati saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 35 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Owen Wright could afford to be generous.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
Obinna Nwobodo is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match19 Sep 2026
7 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad21 Sep 2026
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Evander and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Nobody could get near Evander
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
A mark of 7.26, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Owen Wright after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
Joe Corona dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
Evan Louro gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Match19 Sep 2026
Ninety minutes, two goalkeepers with clean gloves, and not one finish worth keeping. CF Montreal will be the happier side with the point.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market7 Sep 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Bryan Ramírez and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
Joe Corona gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Samuel Gidi falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Too much change too quickly at FC Cincinnati
11 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Somebody has moved past him. It is not a dropping and it is worse than one, because a dropping is about a Saturday and this is about where he stands.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Ștefan Chirilă is on it.
Market7 Sep 2026
No place for Paul Walters in the plan
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Paul Walters has his answer from FC Cincinnati; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
Paul Walters knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Paul Walters trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match12 Aug 2026
2‑3 against Minnesota United FC, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Match15 Aug 2026
0‑3 to New York City, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
No sign of nerves from Ștefan Chirilă at 19 — 7.60
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Ștefan Chirilă did not need any: 7.60, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
The window shuts on the Haji Wright deal
FC Cincinnati ran out of time with Coventry City. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Up for the corner, and Obinna Nwobodo delivers — 7.26
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Obinna Nwobodo scored, was marked 7.26, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad17 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at FC Cincinnati this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market10 Aug 2026
Business is business: Pavel Bucha goes
Sparta Prague paid $2.9M and FC Cincinnati took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Boardroom10 Aug 2026
Deadline passes with 15 signed and 1 gone
That is the business done at FC Cincinnati until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The window shuts on the Leon Flach deal
FC Cincinnati ran out of time with Jagiellonia. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Market10 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and FC Cincinnati did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
No thanks: Juan Herrera rejects the move
FC Cincinnati had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Veracruz, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Miles Robinson and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Market10 Aug 2026
David Douděra wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at FC Cincinnati hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Market10 Aug 2026
Add another name to the list: LA Galaxy have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Samuel Gidi. The answer from FC Cincinnati has not changed — yet.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” David Douděra commits to FC Cincinnati for another 4 years.