New York City FC win at home.

On a rainy night in the Bronx, New York City FC got three big points in a come from behind win at Yankee Stadium against Nashville SC. The result put the team back in playoff position and looking at a crowded September in a better position.

From the start Nashville pounced on the ball and looked dangerous. They were rewarded for their efforts in the tenth minute when Hany Mukhtar found Jacob Shaffleburg to take the lead. New York City responded after the goal and started to win more possession and look more dangerous as the half progressed.

For a time in the first half on Sunday it was unclear if the game would continue due to a severe thunderstorm in the area, but it had been Andres Perea that had brought the lightning right before the delay evening the scoring at one each. Perea found himself in the box and did a clever move to escape two defenders and free himself up for a right footed shot past Joe Willis and into the back of the net. The rain delay came just a minute after.

Andres Perea moves past defenders into the box. Photo credit Newyorkcityfc.com

When the teams came back from the delay, New York City had the upper hand, controlling 57 percent of possession in the second half and outshooting Nashville seven to three.

It took a while for it to happen but with the substitution of Augustin Ojeda for Hannes Wolf in the 64th minute New York City looked even more dangerous on the left side. Ojeda’s speed seemed to much for Nashville to handle and he found Alonso Martinez with a nice cross in the 77th minute to seal the game for good.

The goal put Martinez on the top of the game winning goal list. Martínez now sits at the top of the list in Club history during the MLS Regular Season with seven game-winning goals in a single season. He surpasses David Villa (2015) and Jack Harrison (2017) who had six each in their respective seasons.

Martínez also tied Maxi Moralez for the third-most goals scored in Club history during the MLS Regular Season, with 29 goals.

Martinez now has more game winning goals than any player in NYCFC club history. photo credit: Newyorkcityfc.com

After the game,Pascal Jansen praised the comeback but wasn’t all smiles. “My view on the game, the first 10, 15 minutes were my biggest surprise of the day. I told my boys again in the dressing room that this is something that we have to get out of our DNA, out of our system. We’ve had too many matches that start this way, and we have to play catch-up. The quality is there, so that shouldn’t be the problem. But I can’t put my finger on it just yet. But we fought back into the game. It’s a huge moment to get back into the game just before the first break. Good goal.

“We were playing better in that phase of the game, and obviously, the break took over an hour, and you could already see the change in behavior when we came out for the next seven minutes. But the MLS is the MLS, and you also give away a big opportunity with that corner kick. Even when we were on the counterattack, we got the counterattack back at us again. We had a little chat about that moment as well during the break. I think the second half, apart from maybe one or two moments, you could see that we were determined to get back into this game and win it at the end.”

The team will need that determination to face first place Cincinnati on the weekend and to get through a brutal schedule in September there the team basically plays every three days for the entire month. This is the playoff push for NYCFC with just nine games left to secure a spot in the field. One saving grace about the upcoming schedule is that the team plays five of those final nine matches at home. For NYCFC, that is a definite advantage.