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| Even the artist's rendering is embarrassing. |
When New York City FC joined MLS in 2015, it revived the premise of planting a junior club for a major international team – (recent) EPL juggernaut Manchester City in this case – in the U.S. Think Chivas USA 2.0 (and see tomorrow's post). New York’s second team had the advantage of joining a different league, one where the rules actively invited the signing of ringers. As befitted a team playing in the country’s premier city (I'll brook no dissent on this), the organization went big, signing England/Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard, classy Italian regista (think I’m using that correctly), Andrea Pirlo (fucking legend), and Spanish golden-generation great, striker David Villa. They also opted to insult that talent by making them play homes games in a baseball stadium, an embarrassing look that hasn’t graced the league since the earliest days of MLS, when teams regularly played over football lines every fall. (Ed. – I understand there’s a soccer-specific stadium in the works, at a place called Willets Point, and I can’t spit out “good job,” with “about fucking time” getting in its way.) NYCFC’s debut season reinforced a familiar lesson, chief among them, that seeding an MLS-regular expansion team with a few high-profile (and aging) ringers from Europe’s biggest teams ain’t enough. The team missed the playoffs in their first season (by quite a bit), and defensive failures would plague the team until they got more holistic about roster building. Defensive reinforcements arrived over their second and third seasons, led by Maxime Chanot and Alexander Callens in central defense and Sean Johnson in goal, and that laid the foundation for the rebuilt team. Success wouldn’t come until the team found lower-profile, but better and frankly hungrier, ringers at fullback, up the midfield spine and at the sharper end of the attack. A lot of the relevant players were on the roster as early as the 2019 – guys like crunching No. 8s, Alexander Ring and a young James Sands, fullback Anton “Tin-Tin” Tinnerholm and Ronald Matarrita, and a young forward named Valentin Castellanos, who went by “Tata” – but Maximiliano Moralez was the modest mouse that got the attack singing from the same page (and gods bless the genius who found the image for his Wikipedia page). NYCFC finished in the top ten overall in every season from 2016 to 2022, and in the top five more often than not. That solid set-up just needed a nudge at that point, and that arrived in the persons of a head coach (Norwegian Ronny Delia, now with Atlanta, btw) and in a star-turn season from Castellanos. The blue side of New York raised its first MLS Cup in 2021 (over the fallen bodies of the Portland Timbers) and, with Ring as a notable exception, one doesn’t see many changes between the 2019 roster and the one that started and won MLS Cup 2021. Apart from Castellanos leaving in the middle 2022 wasn’t so bad, but, as always happens some players aged out (not Moralez; dude just re-signed), and others moved on - Johnson and Callens stand out – and the hot, new, often young fixes like Santiago Rodriguez, Talles Magno and…Richie Ledezma struggled to maintain the same standard. Before they knew it, the 2023 season was over and NYCFC neither played nor figured in the MLS playoffs.
Total Joy Points: 12
How They Earned Them (& How This Is Calculated, for Reference)
MLS Cup: 2021
MLS Playoffs Semifinals: 2022
MLS Playoffs/Quarterfinals: 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2024
CCL Semifinals: 2022
CCL Quarterfinals: 2021
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| You can build a big fucker by getting this right. |
The team still stands on the strong foundation laid by Chanot, Callens and Johnson and, despite any changes, sturdy defenses have been NYCFC’s calling card since 2016. After reliably over-achieving from 2018-2022, the attack fell on its face in 2023 and has rose only to its knees in 2024, something that feels like a better fit for…
How 2024 Measured Up
I can’t say why what looked like a good season from the middle of March to the end of May soured from June of last year into the middle of September. A run of games against bad teams, or teams in bad form, had something to do with it, but the memory cells are only flashing intermittently and figuring out a specific cause would take more digging than I'm willing to take on. Suffice to say, the draws mounted as the scoring slowed (if less than you'd think) and the road games piled up, but NYCFC rallied late, starting with a goring of Red Bull New York at Red Bull Arena, and qualified for the playoffs with room to spare. Whatever buzz they got out of kneecapping an FC Cincinnati team that limped grumpily into the post-season took a splash of cold water to the face when the Red Bulls kicked them out of the playoffs on their own field in the conference semifinals. Looking back (and refreshing my memory a little), none of that looks unjust: NYCFC’s 2024 defense, while good, wasn’t great and the list of scorers falls off a cliff once one gets past forward Alonso Martinez (not bad) and Rodriguez (who turned in his best season). That said, it’s not like the ultimate Eastern Conference champion Red Bulls overloaded the scoreboard. In all honesty, but for losing to their cross-river rivals, it could have just as easily been New York City FC losing to LAFC in MLS Cup 2024…
Questions for Their 2025 Season
With their off-season quiet as it has been – on the “going” side, there’s just forward Thiago Andrade making a two-stop jump to the J-League and loaning out long-time No. 8 James Sands; on the “coming” side there’s just a couple of homegrowns (Jacob Arroyave (M) and Prince Amponsah (D)) and trying to hook Maxi Moralez up with the Fountain of Youth – the main question is what NYCFC will do between time of writing and…let’s go with the end of July to once again become the Joneses (e.g., Miami and Columbus), as opposed to a team trying to keep up with them. That impression could follow from my blind spots or me missing an injury that limited this player or that, but I don’t see anyone on the current roster who strikes me as primed to level-up. And that leaves me waiting for a sparkly new signing or on-field proof of concept over the first 12-15 games of 2025 before this team reads as anything but upper-mid-table to me. Which, as demonstrated by the 2024 playoffs, isn’t all bad. Outlasting and out-thinking the opposition can get your local team places in this silly league we call ours.
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