Arace: Hell is Real will never be realer than it will be Saturday night in Cincinnati
Saturday night, the Crew face FC Cincinnati in the MLS Eastern Conference final. There may come a day when these Ohio rivals meet for a trophy, such as the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup or the Leagues Cup or some piece of hardware yet to be invented by Don Garber or CONCACAF or Apple TV. Campeones! Yet, in all likelihood, the stakes will never be higher than they are for this conference championship, with the winner advancing and getting home-field advantage for the MLS Cup final.
Saturday night, Hell is Real will be as real as it gets. It’s not a date that is circled on calendars in Columbus and Cincinnati. No, it is a match that is made in dreams and nightmares, depending on the outcome, and it will mark time in the lives of the faithful, no matter the outcome. With the possible exceptions of the two MLS Cup finals that have been played in Columbus – the Crew’s 2-1 loss to Portland in 2015 and their 3-0 victory over Seattle in 2020 – it will be the biggest MLS game ever played in Ohio proper, and certainly in Kentucky and Indiana.
Cincinnati is a huge, Skyline time, favorite to beat the Crew (16-9-9 regular season, including 4-8-5 on the road).
Cincinnati (20-5-3 during the regular season, including 13-2-2 at home) was the wire-to-wire winner of the Supporters’ Shield. One might note that the Orange & Blue did “lose” a couple of meaningful games in penalty shootouts on their home sod at TQL Stadium: Nashville beat them on kicks in the Round of 32 of the U.S. Open Cup Aug. 4; and Inter Miami did the same in a League Cup semifinal Aug. 23, right near the peak of Messi mania. But there is no doubt that Cincy is the best team in MLS, and the toughest home out in a league where home-field advantage is massive, if not Massive.
Cincinnati’s No. 10 stump Luciano Acosta (17 goals, 14 assists) is the league’s MVP, Matt Miazga is the Defender of the Year and Pat Noonan the Coach of the year. You’re going to run into honorifics at this time of year. In the first round, the Crew had to dispatch Atlanta, which boasted the Young Player of the Year (Thiago Almada) and the Newcomer of the Year (Giorgos Giakoumakis). It’s daunting.
The Crew, the No. 3 seed in the East, were favored to beat No. 6 Atlanta in their best-of-three, first-round series. A lot of folks figured the Black & Gold were on shaky ground after they were whipped in Game 2 in Atlanta, but they persevered.
The Crew were not expected to escape Orlando, home of the East’s No. 2, with a knockout victory in the conference semis. But so it went in extra time at Exploria Stadium, near Disney World, Saturday night. It was a shocker.
Most Crew fans believed the best road to the finals for their team was a scenario that included Cincy getting knocked out by No. 4 Philadelphia in the conference semis. Had that happened, the Crew would've dodged the Queen City juggernaut and gained home-field advantage in the conference and Cup finals. That scenario vaporized late Saturday night, in the 94th minute, when Cincinnati defender Yerson Mosquera put the finish on a set piece that gave Cincy a 1-0 victory over the Union. (If you are a Crew fan and watched it, you cringed not only because Cincinnati won, but because you flashed back to a few of the Crew’s set-piece defense meltdowns this season.)
Cincinnati’s fans have been through a few years of pain, so they deserve to win. Cincinnati is another Seattle, the birthplace of soccer, or Atlanta, where the game was invented. Cincinnati is the midwife of the delivery of the game to the Midwest, with apologies to St. Louis. This is their year.
Hell is Real.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus vs. Cincinnati MLS conference final will mark time in Ohio
