FC Cincinnati concedes late goal against Orlando to settle for 1-1 draw

 A header by Alex Freeman with two minutes left in stoppage time gave Orlando City a 1-1 draw with FC Cincinnati Sept. 28, in front of 24,135 fans at TQL Stadium.

Cincinnati is 18-9-5 for 59 points with two matches remaining in the regular season. Orlando is 14-7-10 for 52 points. Cincy remains with only one win against Orlando in TQL Stadium, in 2022.

The draw leaves Cincinnati four points behind Philadelphia for first place in the MLS Eastern Conference and in the MLS Supporters’ Shield standings, and two points ahead of San Diego and Vancouver in the Western Conference. Cincy failed to clinch a top-four seed in the conference and home field for Games 1 and 3 in the first-round best-of-three series, which begins Oct. 24, but the team only needs one point the rest of the way to do that.

Kevin Denkey gave FC Cincinnati a 1-0 lead in the 74th minute. Evander found him at the front of the 18 in stride and Denkey fired a strike inside the near post.

It was his 14th goal of the season, his first in MLS play since Aug. 16 at Portland. It is his 16th goal of the season in all competitions.

Denkey had missed some time with injury, and his previous MLS goal was at home against Chicago on July 5. Denkey’s goal continued a remarkable streak for the Orange and Blue, who have only conceded first eight times this season, the fewest in the league.

“Kevin takes it well,” Noonan said. “So you see what those two are capable of when the timing in the movement is right, when we have space to attack.”

Orlando outshot Cincinnati 22-19 for the game, and had a big advantage in the expected-goal metric with 3.7 for the night to 2.1 for Cincinnati. Orlando's transition game caused problems for Cincinnati.

“It felt like the goal was coming from them,” said FC Cincinnati head coach Pat Noonan. “I don't think we defended particularly well over the course of the 90 minutes. Got too opened up in this game against a very good team in transition. Whether it was sloppy turnovers, rushed plays, we struggled to control the tempo.”

Orlando’s Pedro Gallese and Cincinnati’s Evan Louro had a great night in goal with some spectacular saves, and Orlando had several near-misses from close range.

“There was plenty of chances out there,” Noonan said. “So at this stage, if we want to make a run deeper into the playoffs, it's got to be better defense.”

Defender Miles Robinson agreed.

“It seems like recently this has been happening to us, and we're trying to learn from it, but we got to continue to see what aspects we can get better at,” Robinson said. “And for me, it's one of those things where we need 11 players defending at all times, if we're up one goal and a 95th minute, so it's definitely tough. We're going to have to look back on it and see what went wrong, but it's definitely tough.”

Early in the second half, Orlando’s Robin Jansson missed high on a wide-open rebound from close range.

Pedro Gallese made two tough saves right after that on shots from Brenner and Kevin Denkey.

About 15 minutes into the second half, Gallese saved a long shot from Evander.

In the 69th minute, Alvas Powell’s shot from the middle of the 18 was saved by Gallese. The rebound went to Pavel Bucha on the outside, but he couldn’t get clean contact for a follow-up shot.

The dropped two points were painful to cap a weekend in which some of the other contenders also dropped points.

“We can only focus on our games,” Noonan said. “We missed an opportunity tonight, but for me, we’re trying to get the highest seed possible. If we can have two good performances and see if we can get six points.”

MLS playoff picture

Here are the updated MLS standings. The maximum points for each team is in parentheses. Miami has another makeup game Sept. 30, at home against Chicago. All 30 teams play a match next weekend. .

Eastern Conference

1. Philadelphia 63 (69)

2. Cincinnati 59 (65)

3. Miami 56 (68)

3. NYCFC 56 (62)

5. Charlotte 53 (59)

5. Nashville 53 (59)

7. Orlando 52 (61)

8. Columbus 50 (56)

Western Conference

1. San Diego 57 (63)

1. Vancouver 57 (66)

3. Minnesota 55 (61)

4. LAFC 53 (65)

What’s next for FC Cincinnati?

Cincy plays at the New York Red Bulls 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 4. NYRB is in 10th place in the Eastern Conference and needs to win both of its remaining games to have any chance of making the MLS playoffs.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: FC Cincinnati gives up late goal against Orlando in 1-1 draw