Level Set 21, New York City FC: Chivas USA 2.0, Which (Mostly) Works Better

No.

What follows is a brief history of New York City FC, plus more brief notes on whatever long-term tendencies they have. Their 2025 season gets weighed on both sides of that and the whole thing ends with where I see things with them in this very specific moment in time - i.e., before First Kick 2026. You should count on things happening between here and there.

The post ends with a scale I came up with to measure the long-term success of every team in Major League Soccer. It does some things well (e.g., count trophies/achievements), other things less well (capture recent trends). It's called the Joint Points Scale and you can find a link that explains what it does. I was really stoned when I came up with the scale and wrote the post. Caveat lector. With that...

Thumbnail History
When New York City FC joined MLS in 2015, it revived the concept hatched with Chivas USA – i.e., planting a junior club for a major international team in the U.S., in this case, (recent) EPL juggernaut Manchester City. New York’s second team joined a very different league, of course, one where the rules actively invited the signing of ringers. As befitted a team playing in America’s premier city (sorry, LA), the organization went big (if mostly in name), signing England/Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard, classy Italian regista (think I’m using that correctly), Andrea Pirlo (loved this guy), and Spanish golden-generation great, striker David Villa. They also insulted that talent by making them play homes games at Yankee Stadium, aka, a baseball stadium, an embarrassing look that hasn’t been a regular feature in MLS since the league’s earliest days when teams played most games over American football fields. Happily, NYCFC has constructed a soccer-specific at a place called Willets Point. (Yay!) Unhappily, and somewhat incredibly, that facility won’t open until the 2027 season (boo! Honestly, I can’t 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 that rebuilt the 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.” The seemingly eternal Maximiliano Moralez was the key piece, though, the modest mouse that got the attack singing from the same sheet. The seasons since have been berry, berry good: NYCFC finished in the top ten every season from 2016 to 2022 - and in the top five more often than not – and reached the quarterfinals of the playoffs in 2024 and 2025. Blue New York reached its peak in 2021 with the arrival of Norwegian Ronny Deila as head coach, a star-turn season from Castellanos, and its first MLS Cup at the end (over the fallen, last-gasping bodies of the Portland Timbers). With Ring as a notable exception, that roster didn’t look so different from 2019’s and that speaks to the consistency of NYCFC’s roster-builds. Their worst season came in 2023, after Castellanos left (factually happened in the middle 2022), a couple players aged out, 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. NYCFC have come back since, but the lofty peak they climbed in 2021 towers a little higher lately.

Getting Reacquainted with New York City FC, MLS's Proof of Foundation

Even the artist's rendering is embarrassing.

Thumbnail History
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

Getting Reacquainted with New York City FC, MLS's Trust Fund Kids

The past-time of America's past-time.

[Standing Disclaimer: While I have watched…just a stupid amount of MLS over the years, I don’t watch the vast majority of games, never mind all of them. As such, it’s fair to take anything below that isn’t a hard number or a physical trophy as an impression, a couple steps removed.]

Thumbnail History

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 – into the U.S. market. Think Chivas USA 2.0, only this time they’d take it seriously. Or something. As MLS fans know, they play their games in a baseball stadium, an embarrassing look of the sort that hasn’t graced the league since teams regularly played over football lines every fall. The Organization finally ponied up to build a soccer-specific stadium in New York City, at a place called Willets Point, congrats and all that, but it looks like they’ve got two more seasons of slipping on tobacco spit before that space opens. While a good product has typically graced that janky field, NYCFC had to learn some old lessons – chief among them, that seeding an MLS-regular expansion team with a few high-profile (if aging) ringers from Europe’s biggest teams is not enough. The team missed the playoffs that first season (and by quite a bit), but defensive reinforcements arrived for the second season and righted the ship. That brought consistency, but success wouldn’t arrive until the team found lower-profile, but better and frankly hungrier, ringers (Sit tight. I’ll flesh out the point below). That combination didn’t just make them regulars in the MLS playoffs; 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 those arrived in the persons of a head coach (Norwegian Ronny Deila) and a star forward (Valentin “Taty” Castellanos). The blue side of New York raised its first MLS Cup in 2021 (over the fallen bodies of the Portland Timbers, dammit) and the future looked very bright…until it very abruptly didn’t. More below…

Best Season(s)

Easy call. 2021. And by just about every measure.

Long-Term Tendencies

Talking “tendencies” doesn’t make a lot of sense for a team that hasn’t yet celebrated its 10th birthday, but kicking around the secret of NYCFC’s success isn’t too complicated. They became a good defensive team in 2017 and solidified into a great one from 2018 to the present. A potent attack came together one season after that and, with the exception of a slight falling off in The Year of COVID, stuck around through 2022 (the latter, i.e., the season after they won MLS Cup, was their most lethal). As it happens, you don’t need to look at anything but the top-line numbers to answer the question, what the hell happened to New York City FC in 2023? The attack took a giant shit is what happened.

MLS Week 9, 10 Things, And How You Know About a Team

Went uplifting this time. See TFC? Basement trolls can be awesome!

Hello darkness, my old friend. (Also, Paul Simon and/or Art Garfunkel was a worse lyricist than you remember. Trust me.)

As advertised (I can say that now, right? I've been doing this long enough?), I’m still wrestling format to ground and feeling…just really pointless guilt about leaving things out. Can I be of service? (Please, let me be of service!) Per some number of the several pathologies that drive me, here are all the past week’s results, or the one’s I remembered to include:

Vancouver Whitecaps 2-0 Real Salt Lake

Atlanta United FC 4-1 Montreal Impact

Toronto FC 2-2 Chicago Fire

Philadelphia Union 3-2 DC United

Columbus Crew SC 2-1 San Jose Earthquakes

New England Revolution 1-0 Sporting Kansas City

Minnesota United FC 2-1 Houston Dynamo

Los Angeles Galaxy 2-3 New York Red Bulls

Colorado Rapids 1-2 Orlando City SC

New York City FC 3-1 FC Dallas

Los Angeles FC 1-0 Seattle Sounders FC

I’m going to try to take all the above loosely and dedicate the “10 things” segment to expansions, details, theories and myths, that kind of thing.

This felt like the first decently predictable Week of the 2018 season. Or, better, I can offer either a detail or a narrative that reasonably explains every result above. The same goes for the opposite result in each case, and welcome to Major League Soccer, The League of Relativity, but the results make most sense in this timeline. For example, based on most data points you’d expect NYCFC to beat FC Dallas at home, and for Atlanta to beat Montreal at home, while neither anticipating how much Dallas would contain NYCFC (by 200-250 fewer passes, roughly), nor how long it would take Atlanta to unlock Montreal (70+ minutes, and trailing most the while).

New York City FC 2-1 San Jose Earthquakes: Scrappy, Yet Just

You seen Godoy?

That wasn’t the prettiest game, by any means; in fact, the first goal, scored by the San Jose Earthquakes, set the tone nicely, in that it came as the New York City FC’s winner would – e.g. pressure forcing an error, thereby creating a goal. Wow, is that a mess of words and punctuation.

For all that, New York deserved its 2-1 win, and, to swing back to a pre-game tweet, I don’t see much to fear from the specific iteration of San Jose that played today. Their defense held up admirably under, oh, 500 pounds’ of pressure from New York, even with San Jose’s midfield too separated, but with San Jose’s attack struggling to get going, they got overwhelmed in the end.

Now, some specifics on both teams.

New York City FC

- It’s been said countless times, but it bears repeating: David Villa (two assists) was one hell of a signing, both for NYCFC and MLS. He made something out of a mushy cross to set up NYCFC’s momentum-sucking equalizer.

- I have two notes on the “middle 3” of NYCFC’s 4-3-3. First, Alex Ring and Maxi Moralez bring enough to let the 37-year-old Andrea Pirlo play just about the only game he can, by way of aggression/eating ground and an ever-available passing combination outlet, respectively. Ring, in particular, gives two-way cover for the Italian legend, but, second, you really have to ask whether it’s worth it. Tommy McNamara scored NYCFC’s winner thanks to a run I’m not sure Pirlo would ever make. (And, I gotta say, Villa seems to LOVE playing with Wallace...see the celebration.)

- In spite of Alexander Callens (admittedly forced) error on San Jose’s lone goal (I'll lard up the links once I can get to them sans spoilers), between him, Maxime Chanot, and Frederic Brillant, NYCFC looks like it has a pretty damned solid CB rotation for 2017.

- Rodney Wallace gets deserved praise for his solid two-way play, but it’s having Roland Matarrita behind him that makes NYCFC’s left as strong as it is. San Jose couldn’t get a damn thing going down that side…which makes for a great segue.

MLS Previews: NYCFC v. Portland Timbers. And All That.

It's ON!

Right, preview time. Major League Soccer (MLS), Week 7. Let's see if this week finally makes sense of anything. Just going to jump right in with the main attraction (for the locals). Yea, the last shall be first. Pretty sure that’s in the Bible.

New York City FC v. Portland Timbers
(Sunday, April 19, 4 p.m.)
I have just taken in New York City FC's (NYCFC's) last three games in form of a delicious, condensed paste. The following is my report.

Scouting New York City FC
NYCFC's opposition over the past three games has been, to put it metaphorically, the stuff that the cream rises above: the Colorado Rapids, Sporting Kansas City, and the Philadelphia Union. Two of those teams have worn the "League-worst" label at some point during this brief 2015 season; in fact, Manchester Jr. (aka, NYCFC), faced the Rapids during a stretch when their goal-scoring slump was simultaneously record-breaking and allergic. In that time, New York's second team put together a 0-2-1 record. And that basically makes them New Jersey, right?

In NYCFC's defense, they played one of those games during an international break, which robbed them of Adam Nemec (meh); that same week, I think an injury/suspension/whatever robbed them of their marquee player/attraction, David Villa, plus a couple other guys who may or may not matter (Sebastian Valesquez and Shawn Facey). When KC came to visit that week, well, to put it unkindly, the Missouri club faced a team smack in the middle of the MLS median. New York fielded the average of the average, players like Andrew Jacobson, Mehdi Ballouchy, Jason Hernandez, Patrick Mullins, and even Ned Grabavoy. I can name some other names besides (say, Jason Hernandez and Chris Wingert), and, personally, I rate all those players as somewhere between quality (Grabavoy, Wingert, and Hernandez) and solid depth (Jacobson and Ballouchy). They lost to KC that night, if narrowly, but, to borrow a cliché, KC can’t score in a brothel with bank-roll, so there's that.

MLS, Week 3, Ho!!

It doesn't really matter which bed you choose...

OK, still working on a name for this feature...bear with me...

Did things a little differently this week. It wasn't perfect, but it's the germ of several ideas that will, 1) let me cover soccer in a way in which I’m comfortable and, 2) yes, preserve my marriage.

Did I say I would post 5 topics this week? Madness, I tell you, like getting stoned on the urine of three motivational speakers in the saddest hotel room in the world. Three league-wide topics, plus one Timbers Review/Preview post, is clearly my cap and, no, I didn't get there this week. That said, I did get through two topics and the Timbers Review Preview. Links below:

The Columbus Crew’s Justin Meram: His Ceiling, His Upside, Etc.
Flip-to-the-Flop for the Seattle Sounders FC and Toronto FC: What’s It Mean?
The Timbers Draw Against LA and What They Have to Do to Beat Sporting KC

So that's done. I had this swell idea about creating an all-Major League Soccer (MLS) U.S. Men's National Team roster and I made good progress there. But, then I laid down nonsensical parameters and generally made a mess of the thing, so that's another post for another day. When I get my head around what I want out of that.

The rest of this post looks forward, as it will every week from here on out (ideally; or just better). First, I'm going to flag what looks like the best game of the weekend ahead – and, of course, why it's so goddamn killer – and, after that, I'm going to look back at a couple stories from the week that's just about over to chatter about the biggest stories (or, let's face it, the ones that meant the most to me...there's a theme this week).

MLS Week 2: Sinking, Swimming, and Treading Water

That you, Chicago?

Trying something new for Week 2. Rather than pull 10 talking points out of my ass (takes a lot of digging, not all of it pleasant), I thought I'd cut those talking points in half, post those one by one, and start the week instead with something at once simpler and more global – e.g. thumbnail impressions of each of Major League Soccer's (MLS) 20 teams (big thumbs). More or less information will form each impression based on the obvious – e.g. how often I watch any given team. Each week will start, then, with a really basic overview – e.g. "Well, that was a week of red cards dipped in bullshit!" – after which will come a list of the games I watched over said weekend. Thumbnail impressions of each MLS club will follow from there, each organized according to how each club currently projects.

As for the impressions, first, these will be honest. If I don't really know, or have much to go on, I'll admit it. You'll see. Second, I'll frame those around an obvious water metaphor: sinking, swimming, and treading water – failing, succeeding, and holding steady, respectively. Even if they'd match the site better, tree- or citrus-fruit-based metaphors just don't communicate as easily. I mean, I like oaks better than pines or, say, grapefruit better than limes, but is that universal? More to the point, who doesn't understand that sinking in water is bad, because drowning?

Moving on to regular programming, I took in the following games over MLS's Week 2:

Portland Timbers v. Los Angeles Galaxy
Real Salt Lake v. Philadelphia Union (well, 60+ minutes of it)
FC Dallas v. Sporting Kansas City
Columbus Crew SC v. Toronto FC

And it was good. It was a pretty solid weekend, overall, some good games, exciting goals and some top-notch weirdness (see: RSL v. Philly). Still, that was a week of red cards dipped in bullshit, y'all!