If FC Cincinnati needs to take the 2026 Leagues Cup seriously, they have to strike when the iron is hot. Considering the offensive firepower coming from TQL Stadium lately, that iron is hot enough to melt the strongest of defenses.
Once again facing a deficit at home, FC Cincinnati (1-0-0, 3 pts.) turned to their first-team players to pull through, defeating CF Pachuca (0-0-1, 0 pts.) 3-1 on Tuesday night. After Evander produced another indescribable goal from outside the box, Pavel Bucha and Kenji Mboma Dem added to the goal differential for all three points in this pivotal first match of the Leagues Cup.
Pat Noonan was pleased with the output to start the midseason tournament. “I think we followed up one of our strongest performances on the weekend with another good performance against a strong Pachuca team. The response after a slow start to the game was excellent and a lot of good contributions from guys we’ve seen and from guys that had an opportunity tonight.”
Cincinnati enters this season’s Leagues Cup with hopes to advance into the knockout stages. With the format altered in 2025, the Orange & Blue were unable to make it into the Top 4 in the standings, winning only one of the three matches against Liga MX competition. The initial 3-1 win over CF Monterrey was impressive, but a PK loss to Juarez and a 2-1 loss to Chivas doomed Cincinnati to an early exit.
Tuesday’s opponent CF Pachuca had better form in the 2025 tournament, winning over San Diego and Houston to get into the knockout stage. However, Los Tuzos were unable to recover after two first-half goals against LA Galaxy, bowing out in the quarterfinals.
Pachuca has started a bit starved for goals in the 2026 Liga MX Apertura. The opening 3-0 away win over Pumas has been clouded by two straight losses, including a 1-0 loss to sister-club Leon on Saturday.
Cincinnati entered the tournament after a long Saturday evening victory against San Jose. While there were no injuries recorded, there was a bit of rotation scheduled for the squad. Only four of the eleven in the lineup started on Saturday, but four of the starters (Evander, Tom Barlow, Ayoub Jabbari, Bryan Ramirez) scored in the victory against San Jose.
Of note, defender Andrei Chirila got his first start since May 9th against Charlotte, and Evan Louro started as goalkeeper for the first time since he faced his old Red Bulls squad in April.
Pachuca rotated less of their Starting XI, keeping seven from last week’s loss to Leon. The attacking core of Salomon Rondon, Oussama Idrissi, and Nicolas Vallejo was kept intact, while former Inter Miami midfielder Rodolfo Pizzaro started on the bench.
First half
For much of the first ten minutes of the match, Pachuca suffocated the defense with their press. The Liga MX unit took the first eight shots of the match before Cincinnati managed their first. Overall, Pachuca dominated the xG battle (1.3-0.29) in the first half.
When Pachuca did attack, they targeted Samuel Gidi at the right center-back position. In the seventh minute, Idrissi shoulder-blocked Gidi off of the ball in the box, then lobbed an easy pass to midfielder Adrien Alcaraz. His header ricocheted off the post past Louro to give Pachuca the early 1-0 lead.
Once the FC Cincinnati offense got their bearings, the score eventually flipped through their MVP candidate. Evander received a pass from Dado Valenzuela atop the box in the 18th minute, then slammed another solid shot past goalkeeper Carlos Moreno to knot the score. The Brazilian’s 12th goal in 21 matches across all competitions puts him ahead of his pace from his three previous MLS seasons.
Cincinnati slowly pushed their offensive line higher, while Pachuca spent much of the half in retreat. The possession favored Cincinnati throughout the first half, and the shots slowly came into focus, thanks to good buildup play by the midfield.
In the 39th minute, off of a cross from Pavel Bucha, Ramirez toyed with possession in the right edge of the Pachuca box. His pass through the center of the six-yard box was untouched, thanks to a bit of screen play by Jabbari. Bucha gained an open look on net, and his fifth goal across all competitions made it 2-1, a scoreline that lasted the rest of the half.
While Pachuca did dominate with shots in the first half (14/5), Cincinnati were comfortable with ball possession, especially once Pachuca opted to pull back their press. The overall Cincinnati possession did not fall below 55% for most of the match.
Second half
Pachuca tinkered with their lineup and saw more opportunities early in the second half, but the Cincinnati back line was surprisingly steadfast and unshaken by the press. The Pachuca offense stacked an xG around 1.3 in the first half off 13 shots, only for that xG to fall to 0.5 on nine shots in the second half.
FC Cincinnati continued to hold possession in the second half, using placement and speed to slam the door shut. In the 70th minute, after a long spell of interconnected passes, Louro punted a long ball up the left side of the pitch to a streaking Ender Echenique. Having beaten his defenders, the Venezuelan wingback fed a pass back to Kenji Mboma Dem, who fired a one-timer past Moreno.
Mboma Dem’s seventh goal across all competitions stretched the lead to the final 3-1 score. The Orange & Blue would salt away the rest of the match, giving Cincinnati an important three points off the bat with a +2 goal differential.
Noonan reemphasized that a strong three-match streak wasn’t enough to go far in a tournament with such limited options to advance. “When you’re playing a very strong team, the result’s the most important thing. And what we didn’t do well last year was follow up with a similar performance and getting more points. So we’re in a good position, but we need to turn it around and have another strong performance. And you see with the structure of the tournament, seven points and a good goal differential is probably what gets you through.”
Mboma Dem noted that winning was the priority. “(Goal differential) is not the primary goal that probably goes around. If you’re able to win all three games, you don’t really think about it differently. But when you come into that game with a one-goal difference, you want to make it feel comfortable and then you manage. Once we got that next one, it was more about keeping it at 3-1 than to make it 4-1, but we see how that went.”
While 12 of the 18 MLS teams still have their first matches to play, FC Cincinnati are off to a good start with three points and a positive goal differential. At the moment, Columbus and Charlotte also have three points with victories against Pumas and Atlas, FC Cincinnati’s next two opponents.
2026 Leagues Cup, Match #1
FC Cincinnati vs. CF Pachuca
TQL Stadium, Cincinnati, OH
Attendance: 23,687
Result: FC Cincinnati 3, CF Pachuca 1.
BOX SCORE
FC Cincinnati Starting XI (3-4-1-2):
Evan Louro (GK); Samuel Gidi (Miles Robinson 82′), Matt Miazga, Andrei Chirila; Pavel Bucha, Gerardo Valenzuela, Brian Anunga (Obinna Nwobodo 82′), Bryan Ramirez (Ender Echenique 64′); Evander (C); Tom Barlow (Kevin Denkey 90′), Ayoub Jabbari (Kenji Mboma Dem 64′).
Bench: Roman Celentano, Fabian Mrozek, Alvas Powell, Nick Hagglund, Kristian Fletcher, Teenage Hadebe, Kyle Smith.
CF Pachuca Starting XI (4-2-3-1):
Carlos Moreno (GK – C); Carlos Sanchez (Illian Hernandez 78′), Eduardo Dos Santos, Sergio Barreto, Mauricio Isais; Alan Bautista (Rodolfo Pizzaro 67′), Christian Rivera; Javier Vallejo (Alexei Dominguez 58′), Adrian Alcaraz, Oussama Idrissi (Gael Alvarez 67′); Salomon Rondon (Elias Montiel 58′).
Bench: Juan Ramirez, Jose Eulogio, Jorge Berlanga, Francisco Venegas, Alan Mozo, Sergio Rodriguez, Pedro Budib.
Scoring summary:
PAC – Adrian Alcaraz 7′ (Idrissi)
CIN – Evander 18′ (Valenzuela)
CIN – Pavel Bucha 39′ (Ramirez)
CIN – Kenji Mboma Dem 70′ (Echenique)
Discipline:
YC – Carlos Sanchez 15′ (PAC, foul)
YC – Sergio Barreto 30′ (PAC, foul)
YC – Brian Anunga 51′ (CIN, foul)
YC – Gerardo Valenzuela 68′ (CIN, foul)
YC – Evander 75′ (CIN, foul)
Next up:
Leagues Cup: vs. Pumas UNAM, 8 pm, Friday August 7th; Apple TV+
Recommended for you
