Pat Brennan | Cincinnati Enquirer

The Enquirer / Pat Brennan

The Enquirer/Kareem Elgazzar

So far, Alan Koch looks like a pretty smart guy in 2018.

Koch's been right about quite a bit going back to the beginning of his tenure as Futbol Club Cincinnati's head coach some 14-plus months ago, it turns out.

He was right about the FC Cincinnati team he was handed in 2017, about the one he's built almost from scratch in 2018, and a dozen or so other important assertions he's made about playing styles, squad rotations, and personnel selections.

Some FC Cincinnati fans won't like that. Those same fans probably haven't liked anything since John Harkes was ousted on the eve of the 2017 preseason.

The fact of the matter is that what Koch has built this year, along with FCC President and GM Jeff Berding and technical director Luke Sassano, has the potential to be the best iteration of FC Cincinnati in club history.

The early returns certainly suggest as much. Here are the records and stats to prove that's already the case through seven matches (compared to the first seven matches of 2016 and 2017):

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• 2016 – 4-2-1, 13 points, 12 goals scored, nine-goals against (+3 differential).

• 2017 – 2-3-2, eight points, eight goals scored, seven goals against (+1 differential).

• 2018 – 4-1-2, 14 points, 11 goals scored, six goals against (+5 differential).

In just five weeks this year, FC Cincinnati's already achieved as much on the road in terms of results as it did in the entirety of the 2017 season.

How's that for engineering a turnaround?

Koch's latest triumph – and he'll be the first to tell you these are team achievements, not individual – was Wednesday's 3-2 victory against Indy Eleven.

FC Cincinnati guaranteed itself a season-series win against Indy by beating the Indianapolis club at Lucas Oil Stadium for the second time in five weeks – something Koch told The Enquirer he couldn't have expected when the USL schedule was released over the winter.

The teams won't play again until a September match at Nippert Stadium on the University of Cincinnati campus.

There's plenty of season left and the USL doesn't award any championship titles in April or May, but what FC Cincinnati's accomplished so far is noteworthy.

Here are the big takeaways from Koch's and FC Cincinnati's hot start, and the team's 3-2 come-from-behind win in Indianapolis:

• IF ONLY FC CINCINNATI COULD PLAY ALL ITS GAME ON THE ROAD... Not literally, of course. So much of the positive aura that surrounds FC Cincinnati emanates from the match-day experience at Nippert Stadium and the boisterous, USL-attendance-leading crowds that pack the stands there. But FC Cincinnati's made a killing away from Nippert so far in 2018 via a 4-0-1 record. Cincinnati is 0-1-1 on home turf in 2018 and is still waiting to deliver on expectations on the University of Cincinnati campus in the way that it has away from UC. The team is well aware of this unsavory trend. It wants to make FC Cincinnati fans happy and give them reasons to get up and dance in the Nippert grandstands, and Atlanta United FC 2 could be running into a buzzsaw for their visit to Nippert this weekend for that reason. Cincinnati is having fun, is pliable in terms of its depth and personnel and knows it needs to deliver a quality performance in its hometown.

• Depth, depth, depth... By most accounts (and it was clear to many that watched), Wednesday's performance was the best of the season by FC Cincinnati. The wild thing about that is that Koch fielded a starting lineup with six changes from Saturday's 3-0 win against Ottawa Fury FC. Several players made their respective debuts for FC Cincinnati, too. It was a new look for FC Cincinnati personnel-wise and didn't necessarily jump off the team sheet as a group that could hang in a back-and-forth match with one of the most skilled clubs in USL in Indy. Nonetheless, FC Cincinnati looked the steadiest it has all season even though it went without the steadying presence of players like Dekel Keinan and Justin Hoyte. The standard was raised by the players Koch fielded on Wednesday, as opposed to the opposite and what most expected from that group.

FC Cincinnati sought to create a personnel group that, to borrow American football phraseology, was "two-deep," or featured two players capable of starting at every spot on the field. It sure looks like the club pulled off that huge ask based on Wednesday's performance.

• Kenney Walker's scored three goals in the last three games. Prior to this season, he had three goals combined in 2016 and 2017 for FC Cincinnati. His third tally in his current streak came via the penalty spot against Indy Eleven in the seventh minute of Wednesday's game. Walker told The Enquirer he's never scored in three straight games at any point in his career.

"Players like to see the ball go in the net. That makes scoring easier," Walker told The Enquirer. "But I'm not going to change how I play and look for opportunities to score. I'll take them when they come to me."

Walker's primary charge isn't to score goals. He's a field general, and data supports the fact that FC Cincinnati is significantly better when he's on the field. It's not Walker's scoring that makes FC Cincinnati better when he's around. It's a lot of other things, and primarily his box-to-box play and smoothly connecting Cincinnati's back line to its attacking corps. Cincinnati will certainly take the offense from Walker, though. In most sports, prolific offense from a player you don't necessarily rely on for offense usually speaks to a team-oriented approach that's opening opportunities up for many players.

Wow - soccer really works here. pic.twitter.com/G9hgurgMVE — Pat Brennan (@PBrennanENQ) May 3, 2018

• I walked down to the concourse at Lucas Oil Stadium and stepped into the seating bowl at halftime of Wednesday's match. The roof was open, the Indianapolis Colts championship banners were whipping around in a stiff breeze amidst the backdrop of a cloudless twilight sky. I had a great view of the field from about halfway up the lower bowl. Prior to Wednesday, I'd only ever been to Lucas Oil Stadium for high-profile college football and NFL, but in that moment I thought to myself, "wow, this venue really works for soccer." Drop the top on that behemoth stadium and I'd put it up against any larger-scale American soccer venue in this country. Don't forget that Indianapolis was one of the surprise entrants that applied for MLS expansion, but didn't make the cut as a finalist for this round. If the city and soccer culture there could somehow find a way to buy into soccer on a larger scale, there's real MLS potential in that market – if the soccer fans there truly want MLS (we assume all fans do, but some don't).

• If you've read this far, I'd like to get your opinion on the USL Player/Manager of the Month awards. I'll be pondering my votes for those honors through the rest of the weekend, and I'd be glad to hear your input via email (pbrennan@enquirer.com and Twitter, @PBrennanENQ).FC Cincinnati doesn't have a nominee for either award (interesting because Koch has a 1-1-1 record against three of the five Manager of the Month candidates). Here's what I have to choose from:

Manager of the Month:

-Bob Lilley, Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC.

-James O’Connor, Louisville City FC.

-Braeden Cloutier, Orange County SC.

-Mike Anhaeuser, Charleston Battery.

-Simon Elliott, Sacramento Republic FC.