New York City FC: Remember When New York Was Cool?

NOTE: Freaky AI art, not a stake-out

“On paper, New York City FC's attack should be way better than this. Mounsef Bakrar and Jovan Mijatović at striker. Julián Fernández and Agustín Ojeda as wingers (Talles Magno is out hurt). Santiago Rodríguez and Hannes Wolf as chance creators. Long-term, I'll hedge on that group clicking.”

- Jonathan Sigal, 29 Takeaways: One Thought on Every Team After Match Day 3

After sitting through New York City FC’s 0-2 Week 2 road loss at St. Louis CITY FC, I can confirm. As a side note, I don’t know how he gets to Match Day 3 when every team in Major League Soccer save two (Inter Miami CF and Real Salt Lake) have played just two games. But I digress…

With the MLS season in its late-preschool years (did the math; turns out if you take the average U.S. life expectancy of 77.28 years and divide it by 34 games, each game equates to roughly 2.3 human years), NYCFC doesn’t have much for a track record for 2024. I can, however, provide the following facts: they currently sit at the bottom of the Eastern Conference with an 0-2-0 record and a -3 goal differential, with zero goals scored. Both losses came on the road – the first against Charlotte FC, the second at St. Louis – and NYC is hardly piling up chances, posting 19 shots between the two games, with just four on goal, and a flaccid xG of 0.6 in Game 1 and 0.7 in Game 2. Now, one could put that down to a slow start, opening with two games on the road, the yips, a gypsy curse, a bad, as-yet-undisclosed Tarot reading – wrap your imagination in a freak flag and let ‘em fly – but, those issues with scoring carried over from a 2023 season that saw NYC get one thin whisker over 1.0 goals per game for the season (the actual number: 1.03 goals/game). In other words, this is a thing.

That thing really stunk up that loss at St. Louis, too. I spent the game waiting for NYC to do anything worth reporting, but like 83% of police stakeouts (this stat is not real), I wound up watching 90+ minutes of a whole lot of nothing from them – at least on the attacking side. St. Louis, on the other hand, found multiple looks on goal – and don’t let that 3 shots on goal fool you, because, on top of scoring the two goals, both Cello Pompeu (who’s looks worth the look) and Samuel Adeniran (ditto) knocked shots from about 20 yards out off the same post…which makes one wonder who’ll step up for the Portland Timbers.

I’ll get to that, but, with an eye to keeping a leash on the chatter, I’m condensing my scouting notes on NYCFC to five, quick-hit talking points. If I was better, younger and more confident, I’d post video, but I don’t have the foggiest as to how to do that. So enjoy….words!

The desk was weirder, but not far off.

1) Regarding the Offense, or Lack Thereof

To close out the quote up top, if I tried to describe what NYC does on the ball, I suspect it would sound like trying to describe a concept for a painting or even the dream I had last night (wild, btw; I’ve been naked in my dreams a lot lately; I got nothin’). If I had to condense that into a phrase, I’d go with “nothing coherent.” That said, they did get in these fast, close, one-touch attacking patterns two or three times and they carved up St. Louis pretty smartly in those moments. Impressive as those rare moments were, they ended with a very direct give-away every time – and I mean straight to a defender’s foot – so there’s that. That can’t go on forever, of course, but it has been going on a while.

2) They Like Holding the Ball

Despite being on the road, NYC out-possessed both Charlotte and St. Louis – the former by quite a bit. As noted above, they didn’t get much out of all that. This, combined with Talking Point 3, feels like an opportunity for a transition-reliant team like the Timbers.

3) They Defend(ed) Weird

(I didn’t watch any of the Charlotte loss, hence the parenthetical.) Two things stood out in the way NYC defended at St. Louis: 1) they played a high, yet passive line of confrontation, by which I mean they often defended from the top of St. Louis’ defensive, only without actively pressing and/or hunting the ball, and 2) they defended really narrow, sometimes on the flanks, sometimes up the middle, but they compacted the bejesus out of the field in defense. If I had to guess at the goal, it's to choke off every conceivable short pass, but if they leave acres of space on the weak side, I mean... The caveat here: because I don’t know St. Louis well enough, it could have been St. Louis that bunched their players and NYC just adapted to that. Going the other way, that makes no goddamn sense. This also feels exploitable, see below.

4) Any Stars Shining in Their Local Firmament?

Nah. In fact, there’s a somewhat bleak thread on the NYCFC subreddit that asks this specific question (fwiw, Hannes Wolf may be the player to watch). In fairness to them – and this could change…gods know how much of the above – of the players listed above, NYC did not start Fernandez, Ojeda or Mijatovic - never mind (the long, lately-struggling Talles Magno). That said, Fernandez came on at the 67th, Ojeda at the 74th, and Mijatovic at the 80th and none of that did anything to dispel the fog of futility this team appears to have operated in since all of 2023. To clear, that might change because…

5) This Will Be Their First Home Game

MLS Week 2 put a dent or five (it was literally five) in one of the steadiest of standard assumptions about MLS – i.e., that home teams win more often than not – but Portland will be NYC’s first visitors for the 2024 season and…dammit, NYCFC had a pretty solid home record even in a bad 2023, at 8-3-6. Very much related, they were a shit road team last season, posting a dire 1-8-8. That seems relevant to the above.

That’s all I have on New York City FC, aka, Portland’s one-MLS Cup nemesis, a fail-son stripped of his allowance in team form, etc. I’m going to close this out on…

What Portland Can/Should Do About All the Above

To start with a confession, I am bad at staying current. Being on reddit has helped a little, but the only new piece of information I have wouldn’t be new to…anyone who’s on reddit. Anyhoo (a word that has been spoiled for me forever by one cutting scene from Drive-Away Dolls, which was okay!), one report noted that Evander was present and practicing as of Wednesday. Given how active he was in preseason, Evander shouldn’t be too much off the current version of match-fit – and yet the question remains, should Phil Neville start him if he’s fully available? My only answer to that is, I wish I had a firm one. As for some quick nuts-‘n’-bolts…

If trends from the St. Louis game hold – and I hope some do - the Timbers should have the luxury of staying compact and defending that wet slaps that seem like the present limit for NYC’s attacks. Moreover, that high, passive defensive line should either spread them vertically or open up space behind for the Timbers to play into. Throw in the (admittedly small sample) tendency to defend narrow, and the Timbers would be wise to keep either Antony (or Dairon Asprilla) or Juan David Mosquera (and, with him, why not? 65% of reddit thinks the man defends fer shit) in space on the weak side for free-‘n’-easy ball progression up the relevant flank.

All in all, I consider this game a good point for one point and a solid, low-odds wager for all three of them. New York City FC does not look like a good team – not yet, anyway. Given the rest of the East and, to float an opinion, Nick Cushing as head coach, I get the impression they have a big ol’ piece of work cut out for 2024.

We’ll see how it goes, early Saturday, in my best jam-jams. Until after…