The Pigeons have not been as poor as their record indicates but have been guilty of a few mental errors, which we believe they will correct come Wednesday.
Cincinnati have been grinding out their share of results, and given they have a similar approach to the Union, we believe New York will have a slight advantage, having played Philly just days ago.
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a New York City FC win with a probability of 55.31%. A draw had a probability of 22.4% and a win for FC Cincinnati had a probability of 22.28%.
The most likely scoreline for a New York City FC win was 2-1 with a probability of 9.86%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 1-0 (9.36%) and 2-0 (8.83%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (10.45%), while for a FC Cincinnati win it was 1-2 (5.84%). The actual scoreline of 1-3 was predicted with a 2.2% likelihood.