FC Cincinnati challenged Major League Soccer’s futility records in its first three seasons, winning just 14 of 91 games while building a minus-105 goal difference, posting 22 losses in both of its full campaigns — the first club to lose that many twice — and finishing at the bottom of the overall table each year.
 
Enter Pat Noonan.
 
The former MLS forward, in his first gig as head coach, has guided the Lions into the thick of the Eastern Conference playoff chase, using an aggressive, attacking style of play en route to a 9-8-11 record through 28 games. Cincinnati sits in eighth place, one spot out of the postseason but even on points with seventh-place New England, after Saturday’s 2-0 victory over visiting Charlotte FC extended its unbeaten streak to seven games and left it with just one loss in 14 outings since the end of May.
 
He and general manager Chris Albright, who came aboard last October, are transforming the club into one to watch after playing roles — Albright as technical director, Noonan as an assistant on Jim Curtin‘s staff — in the Philadelphia Union’s rise as an MLS powerhouse.
 
Noonan, a three-time All-American at Indiana University, was the Revolution’s first-round draft choice in 2003 and played an integral role as the club won a U.S. Open Cup title and reached three successive MLS Cup finals before stints in Norway and with the Columbus Crew, Colorado Rapids, Seattle Sounders and LA Galaxy.
 
He made 15 U.S. national team appearances and was part of the Yanks’ 2005 Gold Cup triumph, but injuries limited his effectiveness in the second half of his playing career, although he found success nearly everywhere he went, winning the Supporters’ Shield/MLS Cup double with Columbus in 2008, two Open Cups with the Sounders, and closing his playing career in 2012 with an MLS Cup crown in LA.
 
Noonan joined Bruce Arena‘s Galaxy staff the following year and assisted the maestro in the U.S. national team’s failed 2018 World Cup qualification bid, then spent four years in Philadelphia. He’s put together a terrific staff with Cincinnati — including former San Jose/Houston/interim Galaxy head coach Dominic Kinnear and former Galaxy/LAFC assistant Kenny Arena — and has a strong squad led by midfielders Luciano Acosta (7 goals and 16 assists after one of each against Charlotte) and Obinna Nwobodo, forwards Brandon Vazquez (16 goals) and Brenner (9 goals) and defender Geoff Cameron.
 
Soccer America caught up with Noonan to chat about growing up in soccer-rich St. Louis, his success in New England and elsewhere, the lesson he learned during his time in Norway, his evolution as a coach and his mentors along that journey, and the pivotal elements in Cincinnati’s rise — and what he sees for the club’s future.
 
SOCCER AMERICA: You’ve guided FC Cincinnati through some huge steps forward this season and right into the playoff race. How gratified are you with what you’ve accomplished thus far?
 
PAT NOONAN: Look, no disrespect to anything that happened previous to myself and Chris [Albright] taking these roles, but here we are in eighth place. We’re just below the playoff line. So while we might be in a better place than in years past at this stage, we’re still, I would say, not where we want to be. And we could be, based on performances and how games have played out. Probably we should be at a better spot than we are.
 
I like the fact that we’re in the hunt at this stage in the season. That’s important, because there’s meaningful games coming up and certainly motivation for our group to be winning games to position ourselves to be a playoff team. So in that regard, I’m pleased. I’m pleased with the progress from when this started in December and then obviously when we were on the field in January. I think the group has made huge strides and experienced a lot in these eight months or so, with winning, with losing, with a lot of firsts as a group. And I think in some ways it’s helped us grow and continue to move in a positive direction.
 
In other ways, you know, we’ve seen some of the areas where we still need to be better and where we can strengthen the team so that we’re a little bit more consistent in our week-to-week performances.
 
SA: This seems almost like a first season for the club, a new start, with the new technical regime and principles and such superior quality of play. Was there much debris to clean up? Was psychological work needed to breed confidence?
 
PAT NOONAN: I think it’s fair to say there was still some debris. I think when we came in, whether it was, you know, bad contracts or just players that obviously might not be the fit to to what we were doing, there needed to be changes early on, but with also the understanding that we wouldn’t be able to make all the moves we might have liked to have made in December and in January and prior to the season starting. But we were well aware of that.
 
But I also think, and this is the message early on, we have a lot of strong pieces and a lot of good pieces to help the group move in a better direction. So it didn’t need to be wholesale changes. It needed to be creating a better culture, certainly getting players to understand how how we want to play, and showing belief in individuals and in the group that we can have success. I think that’s important. And it’s important that it’s not, I guess, a false sense of reality, because when you’re telling players or teams [that things] are great, but they don’t feel that way or it’s obvious that that’s not the case, then they’re just words. But I do think when we started this project, it was important that these players knew that we were going to believe in them, we were going to work with them, and we were going to expect to step on the field and have success, regardless of of the previous three years in league play.
 
That was a lot of the messaging early on. There was a lot of messaging about accountability and professionalism and doing things the right way everyday. And that’s what winning environments look like. We’re still not there, but I think there has been improvements on individual levels and certainly collectively in the time that we’ve been working together.
 
I’ll also say, in having conversations with ownership and with Jeff [Berding, the co-CEO] and Chris early on, the feeling of being rushed into the league probably was evident in the struggles, with how quickly things happened for FCC becoming an MLS franchise. I think that that played a part in maybe some of the early struggles. But I do think the experiences that Chris and myself have had in this league, in different clubs, and seeing what success looks like in different ways has at least helped for the messaging side of things and the understanding of what type of characters and personalities we need in here and what type of players we’re looking forward to help us play in a certain way and to eventually hold trophies.

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