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.
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 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.
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.
“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.
“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.
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.
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.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at FC Cincinnati, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at FC Cincinnati. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
In brief
The dugoutJoe Corona dropped after a run of poor form
Bryan Ramírez 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.
12 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at FC Cincinnati has been clear about where Alvas Powell stands, which is more than many ever get.
Atlanta United FC next, and one man in the FC Cincinnati dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at FC Cincinnati, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether FC Cincinnati can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; FC Cincinnati are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at FC Cincinnati training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Samuel Gidi 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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑3 Owen Wright left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
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.
“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 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.
6 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.
1 for Evander, marked 7.88, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
9 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about FC Cincinnati and Columbus Crew in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Beaten 7 times, 1 saves, and an afternoon that will go on his record whether it was his fault or the defence’s. It is the quiet unfairness of the position.
Squad14 Sep 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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
“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.
“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.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Samuel Gidi had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what FC Cincinnati can pretend not to have heard.
5 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.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
“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 team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
6 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
Supporters turn on the $15.8M sale of Kévin Denkey
He is going to Everton, the club has $15.8M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Orlando City left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad24 Aug 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Owen Wright after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
The offer went to Coventry City this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
FC Cincinnati have gone to Jagiellonia with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The name of Pavel Bucha has come up in conversations FC Cincinnati were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Evander 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Bryan Ramírez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at FC Cincinnati can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.