Patrick Brennan

pbrennan@enquirer.com

THE MATCH: Futbol Club Cincinnati (0-1-0, 0 points, -1 goal differential) VERSUS Pittsburgh Riverhounds FC (0-0-1, 1 point).

RECENT RESULTS, ALL-TIME SERIES (Cincinnati leads, 2-0-1): FC Cincinnati took at least a point from all three games the teams played in 2016, winning a memorable, early-season "orange-out" at Nippert Stadium before drawing and then winning at Pittsburgh in the span of a few days late last season. The last two results helped Cincinnati clinch a home playoff berth.

FC Cincinnati wins regular-season finale

FC Cincinnati opened its second year in the United Soccer League with a 2-1 road loss at Charleston Battery. Pittsburgh grabbed attention from USL observers across the country with its 3-3 weekend draw against New York Red Bulls II, the defending USL Cup champions.

PLAYER TO WATCH FOR PITTSBURGH - Corey Hertzog, forward: The former New York Red Bulls draftee did his former organization in at the weekend, scoring two goals in the 3-3 draw. Goals weren't anything new for the player, of course. Last season, the Penn State and Antietam Junior-Senior High School (Reading, Pennsylvania) product made a late push against ex-FC Cincinnati forward Sean Okoli in the race for the league's golden boot honors. Hertzog finished the 2016 campaign with 15 goals and was named an all-league selection.

The Enquirer cast its Player of the Week vote for Hertzog after his double against NYRBII. He claimed 42 percent of the votes in the poll conducted by a national panel of independent media representing every USL market.

PLAYER TO WATCH FOR CINCINNATI - Djiby Fall, forward: Much was made this week of FC Cincinnati's newest acquisition, but the player to focus on at Pittsburgh will be Djiby Fall, who opened his FC Cincinnati account with a goal in the team's 2-1 loss at Charleston Battery last weekend. He was FC Cincinnati's leading scorer in preseason and has been a constant threat at the top of FC Cincinnati's formation.

FC Cincy notebook: Ex-EPL vet touches down and why can't FCC solve Charleston Battery?

SCOUTING REPORTS

These are still the formative days of FC Cincinnati's 2017 season under first-year head coach Alan Koch. That fact probably has more to do with the 2-1 loss at Charleston than anything else, and the result shouldn't be interpreted as any kind of harbinger for the season to come. A win would be nice, but a draw would do as FC Cincinnati continues a three-game road trip to begin the year.

Cincinnati possessed the ball for nearly 60 percent of the Charleston game. You'd expect them to do at least that well in possession against a side that won just sixgames last season, but this doesn't appear to be the Riverhounds of old. Pittsburgh halved possession against NYRBII's high-octane attack over the weekend – an impressive feat that suggests dominating possession might not be so easy to come by for Cincinnati.

Pittsburgh head coach Dave Brandt, the former NCAA national champion coach of Messiah College, has had a full offseason to mold his squad. The work is paying off so far as Pittsburgh earned an impressive point against NYRBII in its season opener. Even FC Cincinnati was unable to accomplish that last season.

Brandt is a master tactician and has helped further the careers of great attacking players while in the NCAA ranks at Messiah, and later at Navy. He appears to have set the table for Hertzog, a player FC Cincinnati's back line must clamp down on if it's to take anything positive from the match.

MATCH DETAILS

Kickoff: 5 p.m., Saturday, Highmark Stadium in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

TV/Stream: Star 64/YouTube