IT’S FC CINCINNATI MATCH DAY! But not just any match day, it’s international friendly match day. And just like last year, FC Cincinnati was playing host to another team from Spain’s top flight, La Liga. This year it happened to be RCD Espanyol all the way from Barcelona…

We stopped at Mac’s Pizza Pub before the match for some, er… pizza…

And then we headed over to Nippert to watch the friendly…

We were really liking Espanyol’s yellow kit…

HERE WE GO!

GOAL! FC CINCINNATI! FC|C grabbed the 1-0 lead in just the fifth minute…

It was a really pretty night for soccer…

My favorite FC|C Player, Justin Hoyte was warming up…

Espanyol leveled the match at one all…

At halftime, it was still 1-1. Instead of getting to see Sprinkles, FC|C put on some complete and total cheeseball “Cincinnati, Welcome to MLS” celebration at halftime…

It was pretty embarrassing. We stopped watching about halfway through…

And then mercifully, we were back to our regularly scheduled international friendly with RCD Espanyol…

There was a surprisingly small crowd of 16,135 at tonight’s match…

But to be fair, there was a music festival downtown that I hear drew over 90,000 people over the weekend. There was also Reds’ Votto giveaway followed by a free Walk the Moon concert at GABP, And there was Man United Versus Liverpool in Ann Arbor. It was one of those weekends where there was a ton of fun stuff going on.

GOAL!! FC CINCINNATI!! FC|C tied the game at two-all in the 76th minute. Manu Ledesma scored another incredible highlight reel goal…

The match ended 3-2 to RCB Espanyol. It was a surprisingly good match with FC|C holding their own against the Spanish side…

After the match, we were surprised by just how many players were wearing sports bras under their jerseys…

Like I said, it was a good game and a pretty fun night. But the most fun international friendly was still the very first one against Crystal Palace just because we’ve seen them play a bunch on TV and knew a lot of the players. I wonder if there will be an international friendly next season when they are in MLS? And if so, will it be an even more notable team? I guess we’ll have to wait and see… 😀🇺🇸⚽️🇪🇸❤️