Opinion: Here's why FC Cincinnati will get into the MLS

Wednesday marks the one-year anniversary of the official start date for the ongoing round of Major League Soccer expansion that Futbol Club Cincinnati's engaged in.

That's a significant timestamp in the process because, while much has been achieved and FC Cincinnati is bigger and better than it was a year ago, no one expected the process to last this long.

We were never supposed to get to this point. MLS said the process would completely unfurl by the end of 2017, but the process changed unexpectedly.

Now that we're here, it's still not entirely clear what happened behind closed doors that caused the ongoing delay.

The process has been imperfect and, at times, trying.

There have been uncomfortable conversations, hard looks in the mirror as a community and heated, nasty debates with friends about the polarizing issues attached to the expansion process.

Things that have been said won't soon be unsaid even though people for and against issues such as taxpayer money for the proposed FC Cincinnati stadium all seemed to have one thing in common throughout all the bluster: They all seemed to have the Greater Cincinnati community's best interests at heart.

Maybe that common theme could have been used to find more middle ground.

Though the process has been trying, FC Cincinnati fans should be confident their patience in this process should soon be rewarded. I've said this before and I'm as confident in the prediction today as I was the day I first staked out a position: FC Cincinnati will get its MLS bid.

This is the most logical conclusion to the expansion race I can imagine after more than two years of study and thousands of miles traveled while covering this saga.

In FC Cincinnati, the Queen City has had a major-league product for the last two soccer seasons. You could be easily distracted from that fact because the club is currently an outlier among its peers – a monied, gargantuan club swimming amidst more than a couple hard-up minnows (and I'm not dumping on USL. It's a great league, but it is still teething).

FC Cincinnati is a gold standard in ways that transcend its USL constructs. The soaring attendance and season-ticket figures, the in-market relevance, the self-made core of the organization, the on-field competitiveness, the groundswell of international attention FC Cincinnati's gained for itself – all of it points to FC Cincinnati getting the coveted MLS bid.

How could MLS leave pass on all of that? It can't and they won't because there are too few clubs like it on this continent, and particularly in this country.

Plenty has been achieved by FC Cincinnati in the last year. Most notably, funding and support from local government entities has been confirmed for the all-important soccer specific stadium.

One year on from when the club submitted West End, Oakley and Newport sites as possible stadium destinations, we might not know where the stadium will be built but FC Cincinnati's closer to have the stadium today than it was Jan. 31, 2017.

That amounts to hard-won progress.

Meanwhile, FC Cincinnati's competitors – Sacramento Republic FC and Detroit – have major flaws and there's no public indication the problems are being solved as FC Cincinnati continues its pursuit of a stadium.

Detroit lacks a reasonable stadium solution after it submitted the Detroit Lions NFL venue when it made its final pitch to MLS in December.

Sacramento's down a billionaire from its ownership group – an almost self-explanatory hinderance to their expansion bid.

More: Jeff Berding: FC Cincinnati 'gave our best' at MLS presentation

More: MLS Commish: I'm confident FC Cincinnati's in 'a really good spot'

FC Cincinnati's bid still isn't perfect. As noted above, government support for a stadium is confirmed in Cincinnati but it remains to be seen if we're any closer to knowing where the stadium will go.

That's also a big project to turn around in 11 months, so maybe we shouldn't be surprised that it's been a year and counting on that subject.

Either way, if the stadium is the biggest concern MLS has about FC Cincinnati and this community, all sides can be reasonably assured that a resolution is coming.

So, too, is a resolution coming for FC Cincinnati's entire expansion bid.

For me, every indication points to that this process will soon conclude with FC Cincinnati having realized its MLS aspirations.

Pat Brennan is an FC Cincinnati beat writer for The Enquirer. He can be reached via email at pbrennan@enquirer.com and on Twitter @PBrennanENQ.