The bottom two teams in Major League Soccer will face each other on Saturday at TQL Stadium as FC Cincinnati host Toronto.
Cincy have gone winless in their last 12 matches, while the Reds have lost their previous four games and are winless in seven straight fixtures.
Match preview
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They have 13 games remaining this season, but with 13 points to make up, the prospects of a postseason berth for the Orange-and-Blue look bleak.
Last Saturday, they did a good job of pressing Inter Miami, but their shooting let them down in the final third as they lost for a third straight time.
Jaap Stam has seen his side keep a lot of their matches tight, but they continue to turn the ball over in dangerous areas, which has cost them several games this year, including last Saturday.
The management team has done a lot to bring in some proven talent at every position, but at this point of the year, you have to wonder what that is doing to the chemistry of this team and how that is affecting the confidence of the players who were with the club before the start of this season.
Their last victory came against Toronto, which seems like a lifetime ago when they collected a second consecutive victory and were in the hunt for a playoff spot in late June.
Even though they came into this campaign with high expectations, there are signs that this franchise is moving in the right direction, as they are seven points away from their best-ever regular-season total and have already scored nine more goals than they had in the shortened 2020 season, while there are still plenty of matches left for them to add to that total.
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The turnaround season that TFC had hoped for when they replaced Chris Armas with Javier Perez has not materialised.
Since being promoted to the full-time boss, Perez has seen his team take a big step backwards and revert to old habits, conceding three goals in each of their last two matches.
In the Canadian Classique at the end of August, a red card in the fifth minute seemed to change the complexion of the game dramatically as the Reds left Montreal with a lot of space in between the middle of the field and their own defensive zone, and they were really exposed on the counter.
This veteran group has had two weeks to fix what has gone wrong in their last two matches, and given that they have allowed 47 goals already this year, it seems that fixing their leaky defence should be a primary focus.
Perez has said that they are not going to rule out the playoffs just yet, but sitting 15 points back of the postseason and with seven teams to catch, they need to start winning and fast if they want a shot to prolong their season beyond November 7.
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Team News
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Cincinnati attacking midfielder Luciano Acosta reached 11,000 career minutes in his MLS career last Saturday, while Allan Cruz made his 50th appearance for the club, putting him second behind only Nick Hagglund in all-time caps for this franchise.
Calvin Harris came on as a substitute versus the Herons, his first appearance for the Orange-and-Blue since May 16, while Kenneth Vermeer made his second successive start in goal, and although he was not under siege as much as in their previous match against the Columbus Crew, he did concede on the only shot on target that he faced.
Ronald Matarrita was with Costa Rica for their World Cup 2022 qualifying campaign, and midfielder Kyle Scott will be looking to make his debut for the club after signing until 2022 at the end of August, Maikel van der Werff is out with a sports hernia, Caleb Stanko is out due to health and safety protocols and Joe Gyau is questionable with an Achilles injury.
Toronto could be without several players as the result of the World Cup qualifiers played earlier this week, including Richie Laryea and Jonathan Osorio, who were with the Canadian side, Kemar Lawrence was with the Reggae Boyz, Chris Mavinga represented the Congo, Yeferson Soteldo was with Venezuela and Eriq Zavaleta featured for El Salvador.
Noble Okello is ineligible to play following his red card versus Montreal, Ayo Akinola has a torn ACL, while Jozy Altidore and Ralph Priso have lower-body injuries and Dom Dwyer and Tsubasa Endoh came on as substitutes after missing a lot of time through injury.
Ifunanyachi Achara notched his first goal of the season in their last fixture, while Michael Bradley played the full 90 minutes in that match after coming on as a second-half substitute in their previous game against Miami.
FC Cincinnati possible starting lineup:
Vermeer; Hagglund, Cameron, Vallecilla; Harris, Cruz, Kubo, Mokotjo, Barreal; Acosta, Brenner
Toronto possible starting lineup:
Westberg; DeLeon, Singh, Gonzalez, Morrow; Okello, Delgado, Pozuelo, Bradley; Mullins, Achara
We say: FC Cincinnati 3-1 Toronto
Both teams have struggled lately, but the Orange-and-Blue have done a better job at keeping opposing teams at bay and have also done well when it comes to defending on their home field, conceding only three goals in their last five matches.
Toronto are reeling once against, allowing 10 goals in their last three road games, as they look lost and out of sorts.
Top tip
Joel Lefevre
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a FC Cincinnati win with a probability of 42.54%. A win for Toronto had a probability of 30.06% and a draw had a probability of 27.4%.
The most likely scoreline for a FC Cincinnati win was 1-0 with a probability of 12.07%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-1 (8.58%) and 2-0 (8.02%). The likeliest Toronto win was 0-1 (9.73%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (12.91%). The actual scoreline of 2-0 was predicted with an 8% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted that FC Cincinnati would win this match.
