Brenner scores 3 to beat D.C United, putting Cincinnati in MLS playoffs for first time
If there’s one thing the Reds have learned this season, it’s that they aren’t one dimensional. The team has had offensive production (a league-only top-10 in shots) and solid defending, but none of them have been enough to make the team into one cohesive unit. And now, they have learned the hard way that you can create points without scoring a single goal. It’s something that could get the team out of the bottom spot in the East with the regular season winding down and potentially into the Playoffs.
Saturday against D.C. United, things started out with a pretty standard win for the team. Cincinnati nearly tied the game in the first half after the match was called off with a foul being taken by the home team. That set the tone for the rest of the game as both teams started to run at each other in the first twenty minutes.
The game started to take a new turn after that point in the first half as the game was pretty evenly played between the two sides.
In the first thirty minutes, this game went to the wire as it looked like the game could go either way. Midway through the second half, the Reds had started on the front foot once again. Despite a hard foul that led to a red card called on D.C. and a red card against Andrew Wooten for being offsides, the Reds came within inches of tying the game.
After that foul, the game started to get even more interesting. There was the missed opportunity by Andrew Wooten in the 62nd second (he was able to put a shot on Goal Keeper Clint Irwin that would have put it in the back of the net) that turned into a golden opportunity by the Reds when their first ten men were able to get involved down the right side for a second time.
And it continued to be something that both teams have been missing. While the game wasn’t all Reds by any means, it could have gone either way. The second half was all about which team would take advantage of the open space in the middle of the field and get the better of the match once more.