CINCINNATI – One goal down at halftime. FC Cincinnati was staring down the face of a second successive home loss, trailing Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC by a goal at Nippert Stadium on Saturday night after struggling to make headway in attack over the opening 45 minutes. But at halftime, Alan Koch made the necessary changes to give FC Cincinnati more opportunities up front that allowed the side to emerge with a point from a 2-2 draw in front of the 24,505 fans at Nippert Stadium.

Cincinnati wasn’t exactly outplayed in the first half. The hosts dominated possession with 62 percent of the ball but struggled to create goal-scoring opportunities, with just two shots in the first 45 minutes, compared to Pittsburgh’s five. But out of the halftime break FCC turned things around, finishing the match with 13 shots that included a pair of goals by Danni König and Kenney Walker.

"We literally took the script and threw it out the window at halftime," said FCC Head Coach Alan Koch. "We changed everything in the second 45 minutes. If you went into our locker room right now, you'd see a bunch of crazy drawings in terms of how we wanted the guys to play."

Riverhounds SC has the strongest defense in the league and entered Saturday's game having yet to concede a goal in its first four games of the season. That reflects the nature of how Head Coach Bob Lilley sets up his sides. Lilley's 2017 Rochester Rhinos having finished second in the league last year with 28 goals conceded, while the USL Cup-winning side of 2015 still holds the league record for fewest goals conceded in a regular season, a miserly 15 goals against. Lilley also refuses to let his sides be daunted by the strong crowd that Cincinnati has, having never lost to the side, with a 3-0-2 record.

In order to try and break that defensive organization down, it meant changes to the way Cincinnati looked to deliver the ball into the attacking third of the field.

The change is clear when looking at the heat maps between the two halves, in the first it is obvious that Cincinnati is bogged down in its own half, and had difficulty completing longer passes aimed at trying to utilize Jimmy McLaughlin and Emmanuel Ledesma on either flank. The heat map only has the lightest shades in the Hounds’ half, including a large pocket of space in midfield that was regularly bypassed, with the area around the penalty area seeing hardly any touches from Cincinnati players. That was what Koch saw that lead to the ‘crazy drawings’ at halftime to try and turn the tide.

In the second half there is much more of the ball in the Hounds’ half, and while it is still somewhat stopped by a stern defense there is a much more even spread of possession in the two halves of the pitch. There is much more success in the penalty area for FC Cincinnati in the second half, with the tactical shift from Koch clearly working.

But what was the change? It was a combination of things, but two stand out. The first is a change in where and how FCC was passing. The second is a little subtler, shifting Nazmi Albadawi further on the right wing, which brought him more into the match. The attacking midfielder completed no successful dribbles in the first half to four in the second, and he also managed to make four key passes in the second half.

In the first half, a lot of the passing was back, to goalkeeper Evan Newton, or were switches of play in the FC Cincinnati backline. The switching of play showed an effort from the Cincinnati players to try and mix things up, but from the pitch, it can be hard to see where the ideal space is, and that’s where Koch came in, seeing the right move.

Moving Albadawi to the right forced Pittsburgh to shift the defense to try and stop him off the dribble. That in turn opened up space on the left, allowing Albadawi to either switch the play, building on the strength of the first half, or for the players on the left to make the run with the ball into the penalty area and set up opportunities that led to the first goals Riverhounds SC conceded in 2018. 

Heading to Canada this weekend to take on Ottawa Fury FC, a side that has conceded 11 goals, tied for second-highest in the league, will be a different task for FC Cincinnati but with Koch’s ability to shift on the fly, and the players’ ability to execute that shift there should be some confidence that the side can break a three-game winless streak at TD Place.

BY THE NUMBERS

64.1 – The current leader in the USL Golden Boot race with seven goals, Swope Park Rangers forward Kharlton Belmar is scoring at a rate of a goal every 64.1 minutes this season.

57 – Tampa Bay Rowdies forward Georgi Hristov tied the club's all-time record for goals on Saturday night, and now sits alongside original Rowdies legend Derek Smethurst with 57 goals in Green and Gold for his career.

34.21 – Here’s your hint for the USL Pick ‘Em competition this week, Las Vegas Lights FC’s shooting accuracy average for the season is 34.21 percent.

24.5 – The Charleston Battery's 3-0 victory against ATL UTD 2 on Tuesday night saw the visitors at Coolray Field hold just 24.5 percent of possession in the game.

18 – Both Las Vegas Lights FC and the Swope Park Rangers have cumulatively received 18 yellow cards this season, the most in the league without having had a player sent off so far in 2018.

0 – The number of perfect teams in USL after Week 6 following Real Monarchs SLC's 2-0 loss to the Tampa Bay Rowdies, and Louisville City FC's 1-1 draw with ATL UTD 2.