New York City FC extinguish Fire

Chicago Fire came into the Bronx on Sunday riding a four-game winning streak and looked to be the early favorites in the match, going up a goal in the first twenty minutes. Some key halftime changes made by Pascal Jansen turned the tide decisively in favor of New York City, however, and sent Chicago back to the Windy City in style.

New York City came into the match seeing if they could find a consistent stretch of play and trying to build off their win last week against Red Bulls. They were slow out of the gate however and Greg Berhalter’s team pounced on some sloppy defending with a good shot past Matt Freese. The tides turned a bit in the 32nd minute when Brian Gutierrez was sent off with a straight red card after striking Aiden O’Neill in the face. City tried to rally and had big chances. Alonso Martinez sent a sitter over the bar and bounced another shot off the crossbar but the team went in at half with nothing to show for it and down a goal.

Pascal Jansen changed the tactics in the locker room to provide more speed and attacking power up top by switching to a two striker line up. He brought on Monsef Bakrar and took off Jonathan Shore. He also subbed out Tavon Gray for the more attack minded Mitja Illenic and the result paid off in dividends.

Jansen’s changed to two strikers caused havoc for Fire defenders in the second half. Photo Credit: NewYorkCityFC.com

Bakrar scored his first goal of the season at minute 58 providing a nice finish on a cross into the box by Justin Haak. Hannes Wolf doubled the tally twelve minutes later with a stellar goal to the far post and Martinez scored a penalty in the last minute of regulation to provide City with their first back to back wins in the season.

Once again, Jansen was able to make in game tweaks to change the outcome of the match. He has proven deft at making the most of what he has been provided by switching tactics and formations midgame to get more out of players. The coach is getting more results out of a team that lost more players than they added in the offseason and the team is starting to really believe again. More than that, they have also won two games not by multiple goals for the first time all season. Jansen had praise for his team’s character in the second half.

“I’m very happy with the character the team showed in the second half. But to be fair, we made it very hard on ourselves. Being a goal down at halftime with the chances that we missed in the first half is tough, but it’s the reality. So, with the red card for the opponent, we switched gears, brought another attacker, and had to take Defender Tayvon [Gray] off. The decision was made based on his yellow card because sometimes you might have to take a little bit more risk and chase the goal. You could see once we had the equalizer, things started to settle down and then we could go and look for the second one. But there’s one moment that made it very, very clear what our determination was about in the second half, and that is the moment that Forward Mounsef Bakrar—coming on as a second striker—did the dirty labor trying to prevent them from scoring. In that moment, he intercepted in the box, and that shows everything we were about in the second half.”

New York’s speed up front exposed Fire’s backline. Photo Credit: NewYorkCityFC.com

Martinez had praise for his coach after the match as well. “I think the team reacted well. Head Coach Pascal Jansen saw we were losing in the first half and put in another forward [Mounsef Bakrar], and I think tactically he did a great job. We came away with the perfect result.”

The perfect result that leads into a tough two game week with a home match on Wednesday against Houston and a road game against Nashville this coming weekend. May has been a brutal schedule for New York City but if they can keep turning up the heat like they did on Sunday the future could be bright indeed. Several players who have not been available because of injury are scheduled to return. With the added support this team could really have a chance to be dangerous in the East.