As FC Cincinnati ramps back up for the second part of the Major League Soccer season, the team faced a different sort of test on Friday night in the form of Burnley FC.

The Orange and Blue ended the match as 3-1 winners but, with different timelines and goals for each team from the 90 minutes, the final score only matters so much. Friday was Burnley's first preseason game of the 2026-27 season, with nearly a month until its first competitive game, whereas FCC will face off against Vancouver in the resumption of the MLS season next week.

A win for FCC was obviously the preferable result, but there's little sense in trying to draw any wide ranging conclusions about the Orange and Blue's competitiveness in the English pyramid. But a preseason environment can still provide useful information.

Measuring Up

On Friday night, without data or the ability to rewatch, I was mostly interested to see if the Orange and Blue, especially the team's younger prospects, could hang with Burnley's best. Not on a technical level, mind you, but just to see if they looked like they belonged on the same field as a legitimate top level athletes.

After the game, Burnley's goal scorer Josh Laurent was clear about his priorities for the game, "Our first game...just get it into the legs and get as fit as possible. You're not really looking for technical or tactical." He continued, "You just want to get as fit as possible and sort of in a way struggle and get it out of the way, so to look forward for a long season. So yeah, that's what you look for, just some hard yards."

There's more to soccer than pure athleticism, but there's a baseline requirement that a player needs to clear to be effective. All the technical ability in the world is of little use if a player can't get open and can't stop anyone. That athletic minimum is a whole lot higher in the Premier League - and also almost certainly in the Championship - than it is in MLS. And given Burnley's focus on getting back into match shape, that athleticism should have been on display, even if they weren't trying to play beautiful soccer.

Case in point: During the first half, Burnley center back Bashir Humphreys ran stride for stride with Ender Echenique, snuffing out a counter attack. How many MLS defenders have you seen do that? Similarly, midfielder Florentino Luís just covers ground at a different speed in the middle of the field unlike other ball winning midfielders that the Orange and Blue see. Even a diminished Kyle Walker provides a different level of pace than nearly any MLS defender can.

Let's just level set a little bit about Burnley if you're unfamiliar. Yes, the Clarets finished the most recent Premier League season in 19th, winning just four matches. Also, yes, there has been and will be some pretty major squad turnover, where the club's best players leave, meaning the Orange and Blue didn't exactly see a first choice opponent on Friday. But the Clarets' level is still high, simply because the Burnley is swimming in the deep end of world soccer's finances, albeit barely keeping its head above water, and FCC is stomping around in a much shallower end of the pool.

The financial realities are just different and those realities aren't particularly close. If you're receptive to Transfermarkt valuations, as of this writing, Burnley's squad had a value of €184.90 million compared to FCC's €58.85m. The real, concrete numbers tell a similar story, too. In the most recent available financial information from the club, covering the 2024-25 season, in which the Clarets won promotion back to the Premier League, the club spent £82.3 million ($110,050,325 in today's dollars) on wages and salaries. The most recent disclosure from the MLSPA in Spring 2026 disclosed FCC players were set to earn $23,560,648 in 2026.

This is a long way of getting to the point that even though FCC didn't see a first choice starting XI from the Clarets, they lined up against legitimate Premier League experience, or, at the very least, players brought in to play at that level. There are levels to global club soccer, and just because Burnley got waxed by the best 18 teams in England during the 2025-26 season, it doesn't mean the players aren't talented.

It was no surprise to see Kévin Denkey and Evander hold up physically at that level. But it was very encouraging to see 17-year-old Andrei Chirila hold his own, both defensively and in possession, against an athletic step up. Dado Valenzuela more than held his own in midfield, operating in spaces that got tighter faster than usual as well as continuing to make defensive contributions. Kenji Mboma-Dem had some moments in the first half, too, and certainly didn't look out of place.

There's still room for development, but seeing FCC's prospects holding their own against top tier athletes is a pretty good foundation to build off of in the coming years.

Defensive Structure

Now for the more concrete takeaways: nothing much. Even though MLS' summer transfer window just opened, FCC rumors and news have been scarce. So it was no surprise to see the Orange and Blue operating out of its customary 3-5-2. With Matt Miazga unavailable because of personal reasons, Samuel Gidi, Chirila, and Nick Hagglund started the game, with Pavel Bucha and Ender Echenique lining up at right and left wing back respectively.

Chirila got a look in the middle of the Orange and Blue's back three to start the second half. After the game, Noonan said, "Andre was meant to be on the left, and then at halftime, the adjustment with how we were going to defend against the ball, we felt like switching Sammy and having Andrei in the middle and see what that looked like with the ball, with decision-making." That a teenager is being pushed by the coaching staff to a more central position, even against a team made up of Burnley's academy, seems to be a sign that his role isn't going to decrease in the second half of the season, and for good reason.

Echenique was solid in his return to the left side of the field. Noonan has occasionally favored inverted wing backs (see: Orellano, Luca at left wing back), and Echenique created central overloads by making outside-to-in runs. Defensively, he held up against maybe someday USMNTer Luca Koleosho, who looked to attack from wide throughout the first half.

Kristian Fletcher checked all the eye test boxes in his first appearance for the senior team in Orange and Blue, scoring a penalty in second half stoppage time. However, given that his minutes came almost exclusively against Burnley academy players, caveats apply. Still, he should provide a valuable option for Noonan in the second half of the season and beyond.

The Orange and Blue look to be approaching games in a similar manner to the first half of the season, but with no roster movement, that's not terribly surprising. Will the defense be miraculously better when competitive play starts again? I'm not sure I'd bet on it, but there's plenty of time for roster movement and lots of soccer to be played in 2026. Regardless, it'll be good to have more FCC soccer to write about.