New York City FC Drop Points at Home

For pretty much their entire existence, New York City FC have made Yankee Stadium their fortress. Teams have been hard pressed to get a result there and often find themselves limping home back to their shiny new stadiums. On Sunday, however, that was not the case. New York City folded to Minnesota FC within three minutes and chased the game for the duration leading to a frustrating 2-1 loss in front of their disappointed fans.
Minnesota is a counter pressing team content to let their opponents control the ball and then strike off the counter, and a little over two minutes into the match they did just that, exposing a confused and oddly slow New York City back line. Tani Oluwaseyi got in behind the line and received a good cross from Joaquin Pereyra and sent the ball sizzling past Matt Freese.

New York City Looked to respond but soon found themselves giving up the ball in all the wrong places. In the 29th minute, that proved costly as Kevin O’toole made a bad throw in and compounded his mistake with a bad foul just outside the box. The Loons took advantage of a mistake on marking on the free kick and found a wide open Wil Trapp who slotted the ball into the net.

Mitja Ilenic tries to hold and advance the ball. Photo Credit: NewYorkCity.com

Both Minnesota goals arguably could have been called back. the first for offsides and the second for the whole Minnesota team being offsides and shielding the keeper, but both were allowed to stand. They were indicative of the kind of day it was for New York City. Sloppy, uninspired and lethargic from the gate. The team has not looked this way all season and it harkened back to the days of Nick Cushing ball. Just fives minutes before half Pascal Jansen had seen enough, making two subs to send a message to his team. Off came Julian Fernandez and Birk Risa and on came Monsef Bakrar and Strahinja Tanasijevic in an attempt to inject some life into the squad. It nearly paid off when New York was awarded a penalty kick in the waning minutes of extra time. Alonso Martinez was forced to wait for several minutes as the play was reviewed and eventually let stand. Martinez however struck the crossbar and the match remained 2-0 at the half.

After the match, Jansen spoke about his choice to bring on the subs early, ” If you look back to the match you see the shape change immediately and as I addressed just now there was no sense of urgency in the team.  The way Minnesota plays and played against us is no surprise it is very clear and they are very good at it, but you need to but the aggression, intensity and willingness against it and add your own qualities and that’s what we didn’t do so I changed the shape and changed two players who were unfortunately not able to get to their level today. “

After a shift in formation, the team found new life in the second half. The Loons were content to absorb pressure and New York switched to a two striker three at the back formation and pressed for a goal. It finally came too little and too late in the last minute of regular time as Alonso Martinez took a rocket of a shot forcing Dayne St. Clair  to make a save but bobbling it out back into the box. Keaton Parks pounced on the ball and scored. New York would continue to press hard for the next four minutes and come close to salvaging a point but to no avail.

Keaton Parks scored NYCFC’s only goal on Sunday. Photo credit newyorkcity.com

Jansen spoke about the changes in the second half. “As I said to you guys just now, it was something that we anticipated. It’s part of their strategy… The speed of play has to be in our rhythm, and that’s what I get back to—the protection of the ball. It’s a huge part of that. You have to keep them moving so the spaces will open. They have to invest way more in running from side to side and in finding those open opportunities. 

You see, when Agustín Ojeda comes on on the left side, this kid just took him on 1v1 and he creates a lot of danger, and that was lacking in our play. You have the opportunity with Hannes [Wolf], of course. So, we had a few moments that we could have gotten back into the game with the new strategy, but that’s something that was lacking today.”

Kevin O’toole spent a lot of time pushing on the wing. Photo Credit: NewYorkCityFC.com

After the match the Kevin O’toole addressed the team’s inconsistency. “The priority has to be playing a complete performance — a full 90 minutes. It’s something we’ve emphasized coming into this game, and I think, again, we failed to do that today. The first 15–20 minutes weren’t good enough, and we’ve got to learn from it really quickly because we need to start stringing together 90-minute performances if we want to get results and be the team that we know we can be.”

This was not the result New York City needed or wanted after letting the game in Atlanta slip through their grasps last week. It was a disappointing day for all with New York City not giving their home fans much to cheer about.  They have a new chance to play a full 90 next Saturday against visiting Philadelphia.