Patrick Brennan

pbrennan@enquirer.com

In Futbol Club Cincinnati Land, the intersection of fan perception and the team's reality is congested like 5 p.m. rush hour gridlock on eastbound Columbia Parkway.

It's a tangled mess, in other words, and you can understand why.

Lofty expectations were floated out to the fan base in the offseason – things like a pursuit of 62 goals, ending the city's playoff victory drought and ultimately contending for a league title.

Through seven games, reality's been cruel to these preseason expectations, but that doesn't mean it's time to bail, even after Saturday's 1-0 loss to Bethlehem Steel FC, a result that was met with wide frustration and angst among FC Cincinnati supporters.

​For some fans, Saturday's loss meant doom and gloom and some exacting questions of FC Cincinnati personnel and technical staffers.

But even despite the Bethlehem loss and the salt-in-the-wound red card that compounded frustrations late in the match, this is what reality looks like for FC Cincinnati (2-3-2) at the moment: The club is preparing for Saturday's match against the Richmond Kickers and feels pretty darn good about itself.

There are no plans for wholesale changes ahead of the match, and many in the team left Bethlehem disappointed but also encouraged by the performance.

"After reviewing the Bethlehem match with emotions aside, I thought we had a really good performance," Jimmy McLaughlin said in a post-training interview Thursday. "I think, probably, besides the St. Louis FC performance, this was our best performance of the year."

That's not happy talk. Jimmy Mac is dead on in his, and the team's, evaluation of the 1-0 loss.

They owned the majority of possession in the game. Twenty-one shots on goal. Nine shots inside Bethlehem's penalty area (tight space to work in, so this points to ball movement and creating chances under pressure).

And at least two shots the clanked off the crossbar. Essentially, they did everything in the game but score. That being the case, they also provided a more-than-sufficient response to the question looming over the team: "Who will score in the absence of Djiby Fall during his six-game suspension?"

To be sure, the late red card Andy Craven picked up, along with the four-game suspension, was cause for concern. More teams are going to try and provoke red-card worthy actions from FC Cincinnati for the rest of the season. Discipline will be tested.

MORE: USL hits FC Cincinnati's Craven with 4-game suspension

MORE: FC Cincinnati: We will welcome Djiby back

MORE: FC Cincy, Lou City at odds over alleged Djiby bite

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FC Cincinnati conceded late against Bethlehem, meaning the sum total of its trip to southeast Pennsylvania was leaving town with a losing record and another player facing suspension. A bitter pill to swallow, especially considering the performance they put in and that they were just a couple minutes away from a four-game unbeaten streak.

That's what you call a narrative flip, but it doesn't mean the club is doomed for the rest of 2017 to red cards and late goals against.

Some fans still reacted to the loss with the following comments/questions on social media, and others in the same spirit:

"Wonder if firing John Harkes was a good decision."

"How long until Alan Koch starts to feel some heat?"

"Why isn't this going like it's supposed to? Like last year."

Before you march on the players' apartment complex with pitchforks and lighted torches, consider the quality of Saturday's performance. Then place that performance within the context of the previous week's 1-0-2 record against the likes of St. Louis FC, Tampa Bay Rowdies and Louisville City FC.

By most measures, the trend here is a decidedly upward one.

Head coach Alan Koch, owner of three (3) coaching licences on three (3) continents, can turn this around and he has a proven track record at the USL level where, in point of fact, he accomplished far more last year than Harkes did.

Don't believe me? Check the USL playoff bracket. You'll notice FC Cincinnati didn't advance while Koch's Vancouver Whitecaps 2 side advanced to the penultimate weekend of the tournament.

Koch is not going anywhere, nor should he. He was recommended to FC Cincinnati by Major League Soccer for a reason, and is arguably the most valuable asset team President and GM Jeff Berding has at his disposal.

And don't forget that Koch's been on the job for about three months, and took over as head coach on the eve of the team's departure for preseason training camp in Florida. He's juggling a locker room containing second-year FC Cincinnati players that have been supplanted by newer signings, a high-profile loanee from Seattle Sounders FC in Victor Mansaray and 12 man-games lost to suspension just seven games into the season.

Djiby and Craven are both suspended for all of May, too.

Given all that, you think you could do Koch's job right now? Know anyone that would like a crack at it? You won't find many takers.

I wrote the following back on April 10, when FC Cincinnati was 1-2-0: "The USL Cup is awarded and hoisted in October, not the second week in April."

The spirit of that one-liner is still true today: FC Cincinnati will ultimately be judged by how they finish in October, not through the month of April.

This season, as the cliche goes in sport, is a process.

"The team's in good spirits," McLaughlin said. "We're going to continue on the process."

Trust that process and be patient. The results will soon follow.