FC Cincinnati climbed back to take a 2-2 draw at Charlotte FC despite playing the final 15 minutes down a man Saturday night.
The match was a physical battle with eight yellow cards, one yellow to red card accumulation and 27 total fouls.
Despite entering halftime down 2-0, Cincinnati (13-2-6, 45 points) came out to start the second half much more aggressively and was rewarded only seven minutes in. Charlotte (6-8-8, 26 points) defender Jaylin Lindsey conceded a penalty by kicking Alvaro Barreal, and Luchiano Acosta put the kick into the upper corner out of the reach of a diving Kristijan Kahlina (two saves).
Then in the 68th minute, Acosta slipped a pass through to Barreal, who made one defender miss and then squeezed a shot inside the far post with the outside of his left foot.
In the 75th minute, Cincinnati defender Ian Murphy cut down Kamil Jozwiak to pick up his second yellow card of the match to put his team down to 10 men. Charlotte FC were unable to capitalize despite the man advantage.
It marked the third game out of the last four they dropped points from a winning position. However, the draw did extend their franchise-record unbeaten streak to five.
Charlotte’s Karol Swiderski scored the first of his two goals in the 14th minute. Charlotte pushed up the field and a through ball took a deflection off a Cincinnati defender which allowed Kerwin Vargas to run past the defense. Vargas looped a cross toward Swiderski, who leaped and got a boot onto the cross to tip the ball over goalkeeper Roman Celentano’s right shoulder. Celentano finished the night with one official save.
Swiderski secured his brace 10 minutes later. He headed a cross wide to Vargas, who gathered it in and dropped it back to Jaylin Lindsey. Lindsey hit a first-time cross that found Swiderski in the box. He stuck his leg out and redirected inside the post to make it 2-0 in the 24th minute.
Swiderski had multiple chances in the second half to complete his hat trick and give Charlotte the win, but he could not find the net.
He had a partial breakaway that Celentano shut down, Jozwiak put a cross in that Swiderski could just not get to, and then he ripped a curler past Celentano that hit the post and bounced out. Then in the 85th minute, his free kick bounced through traffic but Celentano got down and gathered it in.
–Field Level Media