The NCAA Division I soccer season kicks off this week, with multiple perennial powers starting their campaigns on the 20th. For decades, the college game has been an oddity, yet it has consistently produced talent for both Major League Soccer and, occasionally, European leagues. The level of play can be inconsistent, and the clock and substitution rules make for unfamiliar viewing (and confusing data), but the result is still an exciting, back-and-forth competition loaded with talent.

For New York City Football Club fans, there's extra excitement this year. Several academy products have already been drafted by NYCFC but returned to college for the 2026 season, their pro rights still on the club's books. These are players who could make an impact soon, or further down the line. Here are the players to watch:

Draftees Back in College:

The MLS SuperDraft has evolved in recent years, as sophomores have become eligible for the draft while retaining their college eligibility after being selected. New York City's draft picks have been no exception: current first-team player Arnau Farnos played a season for Oregon State after being selected by the club in the 2025 SuperDraft, before signing a first-team deal in 2026.

There are four players in college soccer this season whose signing rights are still held by NYCFC; since three of them are in the ACC, that may be the conference to watch.

Ransford Gyan, AM (Clemson)
2026 SuperDraft 1st Round, Pick 27

Of the four, none might have a bigger profile than Ransford Gyan. Gyan won the Gatorade National High School Player of the Year award twice, in 2023 and 2024, the first player ever to do so. NYCFC's own Jack Harrison, a SuperDraft selection, won it just once, in 2015. Gyan then left New Jersey for Clemson University, where he's been a dominant playmaker over the last two seasons. His diminutive stature and technical excellence stand out on tape; he's a fun player to watch.

If he makes the jump to professional soccer after his junior year, it would make sense for New York City FC to make him the creative engine of the reserve team. Gyan is a New Jersey native, and as a swashbuckling 10, he's the kind of player who could fill seats for a rebranded NYCFC II team playing in Edison, New Jersey.

Luka Nikolai, RB (UNC Chapel Hill)
2026 SuperDraft 3rd Round, Pick 87

Nikolai is a rising senior out of Germany. He spent his youth at the Borussia Mönchengladbach academy, the same club where NYCFC products Joe Scally and Giovanni Reyna played. After a two-year stint at James Madison University, he transferred his junior year to UNC, a step up in quality of play, after which he was selected 87th out of 90 players. His selection this low is surprising; he was one of the best attacking wingbacks in college soccer, leading his team in shots and creating chances at an exceptional rate. At the same time, his international status and his plans to return to college may have lessened his immediate value. Either way, the Pigeons got a steal. Right wingback may be one of the tougher positions to break into the first team, but Nikolai certainly has the skills to try.

AJ Smith, ST (Virginia)
2025 SuperDraft 3rd Round, Pick 78

AJ Smith was drafted in the 2025 SuperDraft after barely playing for UVA; the selection was a flier on a physically talented prospect who had dominated lesser competition in the junior college circuit before transferring to NCAA DI soccer. He had played fewer than 400 minutes for the Wahoos before NYCFC selected him with the 78th pick in the draft, in large part due to being injured in the 2024 season. His extended recovery, along with the rise of freshman All-American and future Generation Adidas Nicholas Simmonds (1st Round, Pick 3 2026 SuperDraft), led to him playing only 680 minutes in 2025.

Despite his relatively underwhelming performances at UVA, there is still a reason that NYCFC was willing to spend a draft pick on him, essentially sight unseen; the 6’4” forward has tremendous physical strength and speed along with a European development pedigree from his academy years in Denmark. If he’s finally fit enough to be a regular starter in college, he should be able to put his best foot forward.

Joey Mueller, M/D (Central Florida)
2026 SuperDraft 3rd Round, Pick 71

Mueller was a surprising pick for the club; at UCF, in a weaker conference, he never developed a clear standout skill. He has good size and projects as either a midfielder or a center back at the next level. Before college, he primarily played as an attacking midfielder, but he's drifted deeper as his college career continues.

Academy Kids in College:

New York City also has Youth Academy products worth watching as they continue their careers in college. Dante Polvara, Will Sands, and Prince Amponsah have all made that leap from the academy to the pros via college. The following names could be next in that line:

Julien Lacher, W (Princeton)
Year of Birth: 2007

Lacher was one of the brightest young players on NYCFC II in 2025, but heading into the 2026 season, he looked elsewhere for minutes. Whether NYCFC declined to offer him a contract or he turned one down, Lacher signed with the new-look New York Cosmos as they started their first season in USL League One. Despite strong performances in MLS Next Pro, Lacher never cracked the Cosmos' starting lineup. He and the Cosmos mutually agreed to part ways, and he declared his intention to play for Princeton, a team ranked in the top 10 in the 2026 preseason poll.

As one of the top young performers in MLS Next Pro, Lacher should make a comfortable transition to the college level, especially in the Ivy League. He was one of the most dynamic ball carriers in the developmental league, placing 4th overall in progressive carries and 2nd in completed take-ons in 2025. He's box-office with the ball at his feet and might eventually make his way back to the coop.

Alex Yagudayev, GK (Villanova)
Year of Birth: 2006

Yagudayev is another player with significant experience with NYCFC II. He's one of the youngest players to have started between the posts for NYCFC II. He entered college as one of the better shot-stoppers in MLS Next Pro. He struggled to establish himself as Villanova's starter, engaging in a back-and-forth minutes battle with fellow New Yorker Sebastian Cutler DeJesus, but by the end of his sophomore year, he'd claimed the starting job outright.

Villanova has struggled over the past couple of years. Yagudayev will need to be outstanding for his team to have a chance week in and week out. He'll need to make big saves often. His shot-stopping will decide whether Villanova has a season worth watching. He faces off against Lacher's Princeton to open the season.

Goalkeeper is often a position with a long developmental curve. Yagudayev saw plenty of developmental minutes with the reserve team and has continued to hone his craft in college. He could be an excellent option to join the goalkeeping stable, as NYCFC will need depth in goal if Matt Freese eventually departs.

Other Academy Players to Watch:

• Kelvin Da Costa, CM, Syracuse (Year of Birth: 2006)

• Kaief Tomlinson, CM, St. John's (Year of Birth: 2006)

• Evan Lim, CM, Notre Dame (Year of Birth: 2008)

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Local Team to Watch: Columbia University

Of all the college teams that play their trade in the five boroughs, none may be better this year than the Lions of Columbia. The team has no former academy prospects on its roster, but it does have some big-time pro prospects in the starting group. Left center back Joe McDaid (2005) was one of the best defenders in the NCAA last season, and his twin brother Jack (2005) leads the attack as the starting No. 10. Sophomore defensive midfielder Amir Yahalom (2006) was electric in his minutes as a freshman in 2025. If he keeps this up, he'll be a major pro prospect. Columbia's soccer matches are free to attend at Rocco Commisso Soccer Stadium; impressive in a city where it's hard to get anything for free. ❧

Image: Pigeon mask copied and pasted onto John Belushi

Editor’s note: This interview was edited for clarity.

Today's kind of a big day, in that we'll probably find out who the new MLS commissioner is. What do you think about the next phase of MLS? And what are the biggest things that the new person in charge, and the league in general, need to get right?

Brad Sims: I think potentially a big day here. I think first I would say that it’s big shoes to fill for whoever comes in, because I don’t think, in some respects, that Commissioner [Don] Garber gets all the credit that he deserves. I think when you go 10, 20 years in the future and you look back, I think he’s gonna go down as one of the best commissioners of any sport. He took a league from literally the ground up and found a way through multiple times early on. MLS 1.0, the league, who knows if it was gonna make it or not. To where it is today, with 30 teams, strong teams, 27 or 28 soccer-specific stadiums, teams valued at very, very high numbers. A handful of teams valued over a billion dollars, New York City FC being one of those. It’s amazing.

I think that across the board, the league out-punches its weight in so many areas: the sponsorship revenue, licensing, attendance and ticket sales, and sponsorships and things like that. It’s a very strong business, and I think everything’s in a really strong place. I think someone new coming in, it’s not like, hey, this is a fixer-upper, or we gotta tear this thing down to the studs and start over. I think they need to build upon strengths and try to identify areas that we can get even stronger. There are some for sure, there’s no doubt. I think that there’s a level of competition.

I think that all the owners have always been united in the fact that they want the level of play to continue growing. I don’t think anyone would dispute that the level of play in this league in 2026 is far better than it was in 2021, and that 2021 was better to far better than it was in 2016, and 2016 was better than it was in 2011. I think that there’s some level of, how do we make sure that that continues to happen?

I think some of the great groundwork in terms of where the league is going has already been laid ahead of time, with a new commissioner coming in, in terms of new competition formats and new calendar. I think the new commissioner’s gonna be stepping into kind of a playbook that has been mostly written for where the league is going forward. So it’s a matter of how do they challenge the owners in ways that maybe they haven’t been challenged before, thinking maybe differently. I think there’d probably be some debate on parity in the league. Parity, it was kind of like a founding ethos of MLS, essentially. Is that gonna continue to rule the day going forward, or is there some potential balance, after seeing, quite frankly, what Miami has done? Is there ways to encourage more of that in this league? And would that have more positive ramifications or negative ramifications? I think that’s what the owners will have to figure out: how to get positive ramifications. Could be, like, broadcasts: does the league become a more compelling broadcast? Now you have this value proposition. Or do we want to make sure that parity is also paramount, where every year, fans in at least 30 markets can feel like going into the year, their team has a good chance? Or if your previous year you were dead last, you could go worst to first, and we’ve seen a lot of times in this league, teams go worst to first, and teams go first to worst. I think that, in a lot of ways, has been good for the league. It’ll be interesting to see where it goes.

I don’t have any insights on the two candidates, like what their platforms are, so to speak. I think they both would know that they were moving in on a position of strength, and especially on the heels of the U.S. World Cup and all the excitement about this for this country. I think it’s just a matter of how do we maximize growth.

You've said a couple times that you believe the vision for New York City FC is, at the end, to be a flagship club. What does that mean to you?

BS: When you’re anywhere in the country, or anywhere around the world, and you’re thinking of soccer in the United States, or you’re thinking of MLS, we would be the first club that pops into your mind. That’s how you become undisputed: you’re the one that pops into your mind.

And again, this is meant to be aspirational, and something that doesn’t just happen overnight. Right now, the likely answer to that question, over the last 2 or 3 years, you’d probably say Miami. You see pink Messi jerseys on every continent. After Messi retires, we’ll see where they go. It seems like they’re adamant about trying to stay on that path. It’s easier said than done. We don’t have the greatest player of all time.

But part of it is you have to have the best infrastructure. To me, there’s a stadium story, and until we have what we think is going to be the best soccer stadium in the country, that’s going to check one of the boxes to being considered a flagship. I think being seen as a top operator and a top fan experience is one for us once you have the building. Also, I think the content that we’re providing: having top-flight women’s football, having U.S. men’s and women’s national team games, having things like the LA 28 Olympics, hopefully the Women’s World Cup in 2031, CONCACAF Gold Cups, things of that nature where we’re associated with that as a club. I think we’re getting events on the regular that no one else is getting, or the number of events and the caliber of events is unrivaled among teams around the league.

And you have to be a winning team, you have to be a consistently winning team, you have to win trophies. And probably have to have a marquee signature player, probably. I think those are most of the components that would be in that conversation.

Can you talk about how you would leverage CFG's connections to other clubs and its scouting network in trying to find this flagship player?

BS: It’s no different than saying, why haven’t we brought in former Man City players, or things like that? I mean, it’s similar. Man City and City Football Group, I think, are more connected than any group in the world. We’re the biggest global soccer organization. I think once we have the stadium, that’s one piece. We have the market in New York City. There’s a small handful of markets where any player around the world would say, if you could go to the US, where would you want to go? I think if we all took out a piece of paper and wrote three cities down, we might all write the same three cities, maybe with a small variation. I think we have that going for us. We have our global network going for us. We’re gonna have what we believe is gonna be the building going for us. So I think it’s not a matter of whether players are going to be interested in coming here.

I think first and foremost, you need players that want to come to MLS. If you have to try to convince somebody, I think that’s the very first indicator of whether there’s potential for something to work out: whether the player really wants to be here. Something I learned when I got here that I hadn’t heard throughout my sports career in other sports is the term “project.” You hear Pascal, you hear coaches talking about it all the time, players talking about it, executives talking about it: “I want to be part of this project.” I was like, what are they talking about, project? But then I actually bought into it. I was like, I get it. I came here for a project. I came here, this is New York, we could build New York City’s first-ever soccer-specific stadium. We have a sleeping giant in a league, in a sport that’s on a massive trajectory, that woke up all these things, checked all the boxes. So for me, this was a project: come here, build the best stadium in the country, build a brand, build the world’s game in the world’s city. That’s a project. So we want players, we want coaches, we want executives, we want everyone to buy into the project.

And so if there’s a free agent, or a big-name free agent, available right now who says, “I’d be happy to come to MLS if you pay me like $60 million a year,” no matter how good someone is, that’s not how you want to start a conversation, from our standpoint. They’re in it for the wrong reasons. For us, we’ve gotta find players that want to be here, want to buy into MLS, want to buy into being in America. And if they’re into that, then our project is as compelling as, or more compelling than, any other project in American soccer. If that’s just not in their head, or they’re not there yet, then it’s a no-go. There’ll be plenty of great players who aren’t going to be in that headspace.

The calendar is changing next year. Curious if there have been plans finalized, or if it's still being discussed, on changes to the All-Star Game and Leagues Cup. What can we expect from there going forward?

BS: My understanding is the All-Star Game will continue to happen, it just won't be in July. It'll probably be sometime more mid-season. My understanding is there's going to be an announcement sometime in mid-September with more clarification on calendar, competition, things of that nature, that they're getting close to figuring out or finalizing. And I think probably both of those things will happen there. But my understanding is that Leagues Cup is going to continue, with a similar or exact same format as it's had last year and this year. I don't know exactly what time, whether it'll still be August or not. I think it could be. It could still be the same time. And All-Star will definitely happen, not in July, probably later. My guess is it'll be on this side of the calendar, before the winter break, versus after the winter break. I think after the winter break, the schedule's gonna be jammed, scrambling right into the playoffs.

Would there be hope to host the All-Star Game at Etihad Park with the calendar change?

BS: Oh yeah, we would definitely want to host. I would be surprised if we’re not a host in the first one to three years of the stadium opening.

Some of the founding members are a little concerned about the new park, regarding the possibility of getting tours, any kind of free gifts. They're also concerned when it comes to certain things, like being priced out. Do you have any thoughts on that? Do you have a game plan?

BS: We've been on record many times saying we're gonna have affordable tickets, tickets that are gonna work for every kind of budget.

Do you have any numbers on that?

BS: No, we don’t. We’ve been very methodical about how we’ve done releases of different pieces of inventory, starting with the most expensive and working our way down. We get a lot of learnings out of that, and it also gives us the ability to understand what supply and demand is gonna be. We continue to take new season ticket deposits, which, by the way, have ramped up significantly during and post-World Cup. We were getting new season ticket deposits at the rate we were when we actually launched the stadium, when we announced the stadium. They were up here, and they kind of plateaued and started to dip, and then the World Cup happened. And we’ve gone massively back up since.

We look at all those factors. Maybe two or three weeks ago, we started our fifth phase, which we’re calling Prime Reserve, the best of the best lower-bowl seats. We’re anticipating that the next phase will be sometime this fall, in the September-October timeframe, which would probably be the vast majority of general seating.

Do you think any of them, the fans, are going to get a chance to get a tour early?

BS: The problem right now is, while there’s construction going on, we have limited windows where we can do tours, and we can only really do ten to fifteen people at a time. There’s a lot of logistical challenges with that. You have to have PPE, personal protective equipment. Everyone has to have that. It’s easier for us to do small, very small groups and tours, but there’s not a lot to see that we haven’t already shown online. Once we get into the turn of the year, and into the three or four months leading up to the home opener, it’ll be much easier. We’ll be able to tell people they won’t need PPE, and we’ll be able to flow people through much more easily.

We did release a teaser for Etihad Park Plus, which we’ll add more information on before Phase 6 seating happens. A lot of the feedback we’ve gotten, and also charting usage, right now in the 2026 season, we’re at about 13,000 full season-ticket holders. There’s a range in how people use certain benefits, other benefits, and no benefits. There are people who highly value gifts, and there are people who don’t even ever pick up their gift or ask for it. We have people who highly value live events and meet-the-team kind of things, and behind-the-scenes access, going to practices, while other people never go to any events. We’ve had different benefit levels for premium seat holders and general seat holders. And general seat holders say, “Why do they get better benefits? They get better seats, they’re paying for better seats, but why do they get better benefits? I’m a more hardcore fan, and I should get better benefits.” I thought that was interesting. I’ve heard that a few times.

So the idea behind Etihad Park Plus is two things. One is almost like a create-your-own-adventure type of thing, in terms of what are the things that are most valuable to me. And if I want them, I’ll choose this membership package and pay for it, because I see the value in that. For those who don’t see the value in certain things, or see less value in certain things, don’t pay for it. So this is another way, going back to your affordability question, that we look at being able to offer more affordable season ticket prices: essentially not having a huge cost of sale on season tickets. We do all the data on this. We have season tickets, in our current world, where we actually lose money on the season ticket. Based on what they pay for the year, they get this gift, they get this gift, they go to these three events that we pay for food and beverage and rental on, and essentially it’s a negative, we lose money on the deal. And we’re not in a situation where we can do that in the new world. In order to have season tickets at an affordable rate, we’re essentially going to have a very base level of benefits attached to every season ticket holder. And if you want more benefits, you can look at the Etihad Park Plus options, and there are gonna be some really cool benefits where the value exceeds the price. And people can just say, “I really value this, and I want this, so I’m gonna go in this direction,” or “I don’t, and my season ticket is at a reasonable price.” So I think we’re trying to accomplish two things at once with that program, which we’re really excited about.

So you recently confirmed that Gotham is moving to Etihad Park. I'm curious to talk more about the process of getting them as a tenant there, and what you see as the potential for that collaboration to grow over time, beyond them just being a tenant. Do you see more opportunities to open in other areas?

BS: Yeah, it’s super exciting. I think there’s a ton of possibilities in working with them. You guys have heard me for years say we endeavor to have women’s football at the stadium, and there are numerous ways that could happen. It’s not as easy as us just saying, “hey, we want into NWSL, we’re gonna take a team, cool.” It wasn’t that easy. They had a team in the most important market in the country that had a suboptimal situation. So there was real willingness, interest on all sides, in the beginning. Interest on our side, interest on Gotham’s side, interest on the NWSL side. Everyone was like, boom, this makes so much sense, we gotta make this happen. It was a complicated deal to get all these things done, so it took a while. But I think everyone was super excited about it.

For us, it’s a less traditional structure. It’s not just a straight landlord-tenant relationship where the tenant pays rent, kind of like what we have now, or what maybe they have now. I think we wanted this, from the beginning, to be a tighter relationship. The way Etihad Park and New York City FC benefit is more by them being successful. The more successful they are, the more financially beneficial it is to NYCFC. So we have skin in the game; we want them to sell as many tickets as possible, and sell premium seating and sponsorship. Our team will be out there helping them sell on their behalf as well. Ideally, we’d love all of our corporate partners to also support Gotham, all of our suite holders to also buy their suites for Gotham, we want all of our club seat holders to also buy their seats for Gotham. It’s part of Etihad Park Plus members’ preferred rights to get in earlier and be able to buy preferred seats, and we’re still working with them on all these kinds of things.

I think what was also important to them is: how do we have our brand more reflected? We have so much digital signage throughout the building, whether it’s The Cube on the outside, or other video boards and video everywhere around the stadium, that it’s easier for their brand to transcend and not just be, you guys know, you go to Harrison, and there’s a lot of red. Even when we play there, we try to get as much blue out there, but there’s still a lot of red. When they play there, there’s still a lot of red. Here, it’s set up so we can Gothamize the building pretty easily. Something that was important to them was the locker room. So we’re building out what will be the visitor locker room. We gave them the option of either dressing up the home locker room, but it’s temporary, or being in the visitor locker room and making it permanent for them. And they said, “Hey, we want to make it permanent.” So MLS visiting teams will essentially be in the Gotham locker room.

And that’s just a few examples, but how do we collaborate on so many different things together? We think there’s a lot of opportunity, to mention youth programs, academies, we have girls’ academies now, so there’s things like that. How do we maybe also collaborate with them from a Man City Women’s standpoint, which is one of the premier women’s teams in the world? So we talked about whether there are some learnings there, whether there are things we can potentially integrate with them on. I think there’s a ton of opportunity. But for us, first and foremost, our success and their success are linked, in terms of the upside for NYCFC, versus just having a big guarantee where it doesn’t matter how many tickets they sell, or whether they’re successful or not. How do we build everything for them, help them grow their brand, grow their revenues? And if all those things work out well, it’s gonna work out well for New York City financially too.

I saw you guys recently announced, with Mayor [Zohran Mamdani], a program for summer employment for youth, technology, and soccer, and that's the first collaboration with this current mayor. Obviously, with [former Mayor Eric Adams], there was a lot of involvement with the stadium. Can you talk a little more about that partnership, and also if there are any more plans, with this new era of NYCFC, the stadium, and the partnership with Gotham, if any more conversations are happening?

Brad Sims: I want to say, first, during the World Cup, with the pitches, the Mayor’s Office came to us and liked the idea of having 24-hour, non-stop pitches. We worked with NYC Footy and the Mayor’s Office to pull off that program. We’ve been working on a few things with them, and then the Gotham piece, which they had a real interest in as well, from both a city standpoint and a state standpoint. That’s why Governor [Kathy] Hochul was also at that event, because it’s important, it’s a franchise essentially relocating from New Jersey to New York, and I think that’s also important.

Obviously the mayor’s a massive soccer fan, so I think there’s a lot of potential. He’s been very interested in what we’re doing, and what we’re going to be doing in the stadium, from a community standpoint, like City in the Community type initiatives. He’s been super interested in helping us out with all those things. So yeah, I think we’re looking forward to having a great relationship with the mayor. We have a group that’s focused on how we tighten those threads with the city as well.

I'm curious about how the club is operating with some of the league-wide roster rule changes, commissioner votes, et cetera. I know you mentioned earlier that it sounded like you weren't completely certain of the platform of each commissioner candidate. And there are also the roster rules. So when these presentations are being given to MLS owners, who's representing the club? And how is the club tied into that, in terms of "yes, we support these changes"? It sounds like maybe some of these are different groups of people than others, maybe commissioner and roster rules are handled separately.

BS: Anything that comes from a league governance standpoint, every club has a governor and an alternate governor. Those are your two seats that essentially sit on the Board of Governors. Our governor is Ferran Soriano, and our alternate governor is Marcelo Claure. And we have an unofficial alternate-alternate governor, Marty Edelman, who has previously been a governor and has been associated with us for many years.

So, for example, today in New York, at the commissioner announcement, both Ferran and Marcelo are out of the country and unable to be here. Marty is there today, in person, one of his rare days in New York, even though he’s New York-based. So he’s there. But at Board of Governors meetings, whether that’s at All-Star, those happen three times a year. Typically either Ferran or Marcelo, or both, are there, and me. But when it comes to voting, anything that comes to a vote at any point is governors only. So for commissioner, which is happening today, for roster rules, or things like the change in competition format or the change in the calendar, every club has a vote, and it’s whoever’s there, the governor or alternate governor, and they vote on it. So roster rules would be the same, but to my knowledge, that’s not at a point to vote on yet.

So for the roster rules, mainly from a role perspective, how are you, Todd, et cetera, getting involved and making sure you're communicating to whoever's in that seat for that particular vote, so they're aware of where the club wants to go?

BS: It’s essentially the league on all these things, whether it’s competition format, the calendar, the change of calendar, playoff format, roster investment rules, all those kinds of things. The league will do multiple, essentially, focus groups, for lack of a better term. Small groups with teams, chief business officers, chief soccer officers, sometimes with owners altogether. Over the course of the last two or three years, we’ve had dozens of conversations and presentations, and every time there are league meetings, there are updates. There’s a chance for input, things of that nature.

There are also committees. There are always committees, owner-committee levels, and some are more involved in certain aspects of things like this than others. So roster investment would fall under one specific committee, maybe about 12 owners, so they’re spending a ton of time on this. And then the league, and/or any other outside consultants or anyone else involved in the process, would come and meet and share the feedback from the chief business officers, chief soccer officers, et cetera, with the committee. They debate it, and then things come back, and they’ll come back with more feedback, kind of a continual feedback loop, until they get to the point where they have something they want to put on the table for owner support.

It’s been two or three years of continual conversations, three times a year, where everyone gets together. It’s been a lot of due diligence within each of these things.

And things like the calendar change obviously weren’t made lightly. There are cold-weather markets, and getting feedback on how we schedule. There are eight winter markets labeled most weather-impacted. There’s another eight that are second-most weather-impacted, which we’re in that second group. With all this feedback, the top eight most impacted won’t have a home game in the three weeks going into the winter break, or the three weeks coming out of the winter break. The next group, which we’re in, would have no more than one home game in the three weeks going in, and then three weeks coming out. These are all things that, ultimately, because of continual feedback and trying to solve different challenges, you come out with solutions like that. But I’m just using that as one example of the process. It’s not just twelve people sitting in a room, figuring it out, and saying, “this is what’s happening.” It’s this continual feedback, poking holes in things, and how do we try to solve for everyone’s challenges. That’s just one small example of how long it took to get to a point where, all right, now we’ve got this, we can put it to a vote.

They want to get unanimous votes. That’s why things take time, and anyone can debate the merits of that, but a lot of these things take a lot of time because they don’t want to pass something 16-14, or 20-10. It’s like a super-majority. They want to get to the point where it’s unanimous, like on the calendar thing. You know there’s more than eight teams that have bad weather and could be worrisome. And they got to the point where that vote was 29 yeses and one abstention, or something like that. But it takes a while. You’ve gotta poke all these holes. I think they have a really good process, it just sometimes takes some time.

How are you gonna navigate the parking situation with those events? I’m assuming New York City FC games will be at a different time than the Mets’, or later in the day than the Mets, but what about Gotham?

BS: All the parking is the Mets’ parking. So the way it’s set up now is that we have up to 45 major event dates there, which would include New York City FC, Gotham, and other major events that the Mets have agreed to provide parking for. That could be on non-Mets days, or it could be on the same day as the Mets, as long as there’s a buffer period.

So that’s the current structure. We hope, we endeavor, to host more than 45 major events, so we have to work with the Mets on what that means, their availability to make that work. And then, on these smaller events, they’re more, they could be 10 people, 25 people, up to maybe 500 people. So there’s commuter parking right now. There are opportunities for smaller-event parking. There’s a lot of work being done on the parking side because of Metropolitan Park and everything the Mets are doing there.

They’re in the process of building the first of what will be at least two, and maybe three, major parking garages in the northeast corner of the Citi Field lot. I think it’s Lot A that’s under construction now. So essentially, their plan is they’re gonna build parking structures that’ll replace surface lot spots. Once that’s ready to go, they can start the second one, and eventually the casino will also have a parking garage attached to it. Things could also change over time if that ends up yielding more parking.

Also, at some point there will be fewer people driving and parking their own cars on site, as driverless cars become more common and more readily available. So maybe parking will become less of an issue over time, but initially, that’s the structure.

I just wanted to ask about MLS Next Pro, and the announcement that they’re going to do a third-party private equity partnership, where teams can opt in to have that entity take over their commercial operations. Do you think that’s something NYCFC II might go that route with?

BS: Yes.

And what do you think it’ll do for the business? You’ve spoken in the past about wanting NYCFC II to become its own team, and about commercial viability and all that. So will this change really help MLS Next Pro become a more sustainable business on its own?

BS: I think so. Yeah, I’ll give you a quick answer: yes, we’re gonna do it. Yes, I think we’ll be one of the first teams that does it. Maybe the first team that does it.

With a new location and all the rebranding and all that stuff?

BS: Yeah. We see a lot of benefits in it, because right now, you want your players to develop in a positive atmosphere, where you’ve got sold-out buildings. It’s kind of like a minor league baseball atmosphere. Minor league baseball stadiums around the country might have 3,500-seat capacity, or 5,000-seat capacity, or 10,000-seat capacity, and a lot of minor league baseball teams play at capacity almost every night. It’s a fun atmosphere, it’s great family-friendly, affordable entertainment. And you’re playing in front of a real crowd. Unfortunately, right now, the vast majority of MLS-owned MLS Next Pro teams are playing in front of friends and family, a couple hundred people if you’re lucky. And it’s mostly because you don’t have soccer-specific stadiums, whereas minor league baseball stadiums are baseball-specific stadiums. So you’re not running a business, you’re running, at most, an extension of the academy.

It’s strictly a player development function, not a commercial function. I think if MLS Next Pro can get, over the next five to ten years, 30-plus soccer-specific stadiums in the small B- and C-level markets, and they can support a team commercially, that’d be a great outcome. Because then you have players playing in front of 3,500 to 10,000 fans every single night, depending on the capacity of the market. It’s just a better player experience. I think there’s a hole in affordable family entertainment. There’s this boom of minor league baseball, and I started my career in minor league baseball, so I can speak to this, between 1990 and 2010, there were about 150 minor league baseball stadiums built in this country.

I think between 2030 and 2050, that should be the same story for soccer. You could have minor league soccer stadiums built in all these kinds of markets, and have men’s and women’s teams playing in them, 38 to 40 dates, and then use them for other events and things like that. I think it makes a ton of sense.

So I’m bullish on it. We want our players to be able to play in front of a good atmosphere. ❧

Image: Anton Otto Fischer, Chase of the Constitution

I have always loved the World Cup. It has given me some of the best sports memories I've had as a fan of this game. On a warm night in Qatar, nearly four years ago, Argentina and France competed in one of the most exciting finals I have ever watched. It was the coronation of one of the greatest players of all time, Lionel Messi, and a breakout moment for one of the best players of this new generation, Kylian Mbappé.

But the more I examine it, the harder it is to ignore what surrounds it. Those same games were shadowed by Qatar's human rights record, the abuse of migrant workers, and corruption in FIFA's selection process. And while FIFA's president Gianni Infantino would prefer that critics "just focus on football," it is hard to ignore FIFA’s long history of complicity, and this was not the first time FIFA has looked the other way.

During the 1938 World Cup final in France, Benito Mussolini compelled the Italian team to give the fascist salute during their national anthem. After Italy won, Mussolini had the trophy brought to him. In 1978, Argentina hosted the tournament under a military junta that had overthrown Isabel Perón's elected government. This prompted boycott calls from nations and human rights groups who noted that detention centers operated within miles of the stadiums. The 2010 South African games drew allegations of bribery and pre-tournament match fixing. Those charges were among the findings that led to a US indictment of over two dozen FIFA executives in 2015. In 2018, the games in Russia followed the 2014 annexation of Crimea, with several governments and human rights groups calling for a boycott that never came.

FIFA has always chosen profit over principle. In 2026, that choice is playing out in American cities.

Beginning January 1, 2026, the US imposed complete or partial travel bans on 39 countries. Players from those nations remained exempt as per the law, but their fans were not. Two weeks later, the Trump administration suspended visa processing for another 75 countries, further narrowing the pool of fans who can travel. In December 2025, the State Department added a social media screening requirement for all ESTA applicants, covering five years of posts: anyone deemed to hold a hostile attitude toward the USA could be denied entry on that basis alone. This has already affected the games themselves. Africa's reigning Referee of the Year, Omar Arten, has been denied the ability to officiate at the tournament. The Trump administration has not cited his Somali nationality as the reason. It doesn't have to.

During the Concacaf Gold Cup and FIFA Club World Cup, both hosted in the US, ICE was reported outside stadiums attempting to identify and deport undocumented immigrants following matches. Meanwhile, President Trump has repeatedly invoked his authority to strip World Cup matches from cities he deems unsafe, using the tournament as a lever to force compliance with his immigration agenda. On Monday, right before President Trump fell asleep before 10 pm during Game 3 of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden, Border Czar Tom Homan announced an unprecedented surge of ICE officers into New York City, the host city of the final, responding to Governor Kathy Hochul's legislative efforts to shield residents from federal immigration enforcement.

On February 28, 2026, Trump initiated military action against Iran. Trump posted that he didn’t believe it was “appropriate” for Iran to attend, citing concerns for “their own life and safety,” a veiled threat from a sitting president toward a nation he had just attacked. Since then, Trump has allowed the Iranian national team to enter the US, but a number of team staff have been denied entry for “security reasons,” including the head of the federation, his deputy, and the team’s media director. The team itself has been required to base itself in Mexico, permitted to cross the border only the day before each match. And now, on the eve of the tournament, Trump has announced the reignition of military action against Iran following a failed ceasefire.

FIFA’s own mission statement calls for promoting football “in the light of its unifying, educational, cultural, and humanitarian values.” It is difficult to read that sentence in 2026 with a straight face.

Infantino’s relationship with Trump goes well beyond diplomatic courtesy. During the FIFA Club World Cup, Infantino handed Trump a medal on stage amid a victorious Chelsea squad as Chelsea captain Reece James lifted the trophy. It was later reported that FIFA gifted that trophy to the White House, and Chelsea received a replica.

During a meeting at the White House with Infantino in June of last year, Trump disparaged trans athletes’ participation in gendered competition, pressing a position FIFA’s governing body has historically avoided taking.

The most egregious appeasement came with an inaugural FIFA “Peace Prize,” given to quell Trump’s frustration at his inability to win the Nobel Peace Prize. This size-mandated prize marked a stark shift from the “let’s focus on football” mantra of the Qatar games to the geopolitical meddling of this one. The allegations of a quid pro quo hardened when, after the prize was awarded, a bribery case against FIFA was dropped at the behest of “a Trump official” in the Justice Department.

The US team and its federation have given fans their own reasons for pause. For years, the U.S. Soccer Federation has consistently drifted right, in part as a response to pressure from the more progressive U.S. Women’s National Team. Some players have leaned in. Others have been pulled along. Star player Christian Pulisic came under fire for doing the “Trump Dance” after scoring against Jamaica. Pulisic tried to walk it back, but former teammates were critical of the gesture.

Both Tim Weah and Weston McKennie were invited to the White House on June 18, 2025, as part of a Juventus delegation, where Trump, with the two USMNT players as a captive audience, held forth on Middle East policy, Joe Biden's "Auto-pen," the federal minimum wage, and the prospect of transgender athletes joining the Juventus team. McKennie and Weah seemed uninterested in the political theater.

Weah later said, “It was all a surprise to me…they told us we have to go…I had no choice. It was a bit weird…I’m not one for politics. I just want to play football, man.”

FIFA’s “forget about politics” posture has a simpler explanation: it is, at its core, a money-making operation, and has never been shy about using politics to protect its margins. While FIFA is registered as a not-for-profit organization, it makes billions off the World Cup. As outlined in the 2018 bid, tickets for the USA, Mexico, and Canada would average between $60 and $1,500. Tickets are averaging between $380–$4,150, nearly six times the original low-end estimate. The gap is so wide that U.S. lawmakers had to compel FIFA to honor the originally stated $60 floor. Those $60 tickets, where they exist at all, are vanishingly few. Less than three weeks from kickoff, New York Attorney General Letitia James and New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport announced a joint investigation into World Cup ticket pricing, stating that fans have been misled on pricing.

It’s hard to watch the game I love get swallowed by the politics of people I find reprehensible. And while it is equally irrational to believe that every place the World Cup will ever be hosted will share my values, I’m struggling to accept that it’s my country’s turn to contribute to this revolving door of moral bankruptcy. The governing body is corrupt, the host nation is involved in war crimes, and the team seems to have adopted Laura Ingraham’s “shut up and dribble” approach to politics, rather than oppose human rights violations done in the name of the badge it plays for. The US, under Trump, is murdering citizens on the street in major cities, conducting warrantless searches and seizures on people’s property, and creating an anti-immigrant policy and enforcement akin to that of the Third Reich.

So, while I will still watch the games, I cannot say I am excited to do it, and I find that sad. I love this sport. I love what it can be and what that night in Qatar was, briefly. But I’m struggling to root for my team, I’m struggling to be proud of my country, and right now I’m not sure those two things can be separated. ❧

Image: Edvard Munch, Melancholy

“The first goal in the game is a massive thing in our sport,” New York City Football Club head coach Pascal Jansen said after Sunday’s match against the Columbus Crew. He’d presumably admit the weight of front-running is even more important when you haven’t won in seven games, a stretch in which the Pigeons had the 8th-worst non-penalty expected goals (npxG) differential in Major League Soccer.

Needing a quick start to stem the tide against the Crew, Hannes Wolf scored early. Then he did it again five minutes later, and suddenly New York City had room to breathe. By the time Wolf scored his third goal in the 66th minute, completing the 4th open-play hat trick in team history, NYCFC had run far enough ahead of Columbus to secure the three points.

The shots (11 to 9) and xG (1.22 to 1.17) were fairly even across the 90 minutes, suggesting the 3-0 scoreline may flatter the performance. New York City displayed attacking creativity, particularly in an even game state, that had been missing in the loss to D.C. United. It wasn’t the comprehensive performance Jansen demands, but it was a start.

The Pigeons read the Crew defense well, identifying gaps and presenting different looks in the attack when Columbus head coach Henrik Rydström adjusted. Steven Zawadski and Rudy Camacho ostensibly marked the attacking front two of Nico Fernández Mercau and Maxi Moralez, but the Columbus central defenders were indecisive in how far to step off their line. When Zawadski and Camacho left the Argentine attackers to drop into space unmarked, New York City played directly to them from the backline with Dylan Chambost overloaded as the lone defensive midfielder. That combination generated the first goal. If the Crew center backs instead pursued Fernández and Moralez into midfield, NYCFC wingers Agustín Ojeda and Wolf ran into space behind. They offered a verticality that this attack sorely missed.

The hat trick was the headline, but Wolf’s off-ball movement was crucial to how NYCFC opened up those spaces in the attack. Columbus right back Steven Moreira tended to track his Austrian counterpart, and Wolf found opportunistic moments to pull him inside to create space for an attacking run from left back Nico Cavallo, who beat Columbus winger Max Arfsten up the flank regularly. The second goal showed it most clearly: cascading defensive breakdowns from the Crew conceded the channel to Cavallo and left Fernández unmarked on the underlap.

Chances were limited throughout, but even picking apart a defense that ranked 4th in MLS in xGA is a promising sign. The Crew’s possession-heavy style was also convenient for Jansen. It let him simplify the game plan, shore up the defensive structure, and choose when to push numbers forward.

The two early goals afforded Jansen the chance to lean into a counterattacking style. Columbus controlled 64% of possession from the 20th minute until half, but only generated 0.24 xG and 3 shots from it. Henrik Rydström’s team continued its possession binge into the second half, but the Crew’s intricate passing often couldn’t escape NYCFC’s collapsing defensive shape. The Pigeons were at their most vulnerable from 45’-60’, a stretch during which Columbus created 62.4% of their xG. The Pigeons survived the onslaught, though Jansen admitted his team was “lucky with that miss at the back post” on a Max Arfsten chance, the Crew’s biggest of the day and one that would have brought the score to 2-1.

Three days later, against Charlotte, the lineup and the story were the same: an early goal put NYCFC in control and allowed the Pigeons to come away with three points and their second road victory of the season. The key adjustment was pushing Cavallo much higher in possession, which allowed Wolf to tuck inside.

On the lone goal of the evening, Cavallo dragged Charlotte’s Nathan Byrne wide, and Wolf drew attention from right center back Morrison, opening a lane for Moralez to play over the top to Ojeda, who had drifted from the left to make the vertical run in the right channel. Some ball watching by left center back Tim Ream left Wolf unmarked in the middle, who promptly reversed to Fernández Mercau. The Argentine DP, isolated 1v1 against left back David Schnegg, cut inside and finished on his left foot.

Kristijan Kahlina’s handling error gifted Fernández Mercau the goal, but the sequence was still remarkable for the Pigeons. Every single player, fullbacks excluded, contributed to the beautiful 11-pass sequence through the middle of the field for a high-quality scoring opportunity on the doorstep of the goal. More importantly, scoring and gaining the lead before the 10-minute mark let NYCFC, knowing that Charlotte would have to chase, make the game ugly — a huge boon for a team on the road. The two sides barely combined for over 1 xG, and featured just as many yellow cards (9) as shots-on-target.

Luck and game state are variables that dramatically swing matches in soccer. New York City was a victim of both during their now-vanquished seven-game winless streak, but was aided by them in both games. Sometimes, those are the nudges teams need to elevate pedestrian performances into impressive results. They are also nudges that New York City should strive to become more resilient to, as their g+ differential ranking drops from 7th to 22nd/20th from even game states to losing/leading game states, respectively. For now, they just take the wins. The Pigeons needed something powerful to wash the sour taste of a nearly two-month winless streak from their mouths, and a pair of clean sheet victories, regardless of how you get there, is as close as you get to a fire hose. ❧

Image: Leonard Rosoman, A House Collapsing on Two Firemen, Shoe Lane, London, EC4

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world

William Butler Yeats

The May 3rd loss against D.C. United was one of the ugliest games that New York City Football Club has ever played. The fact that it happened on home soil made it more unpleasant; a team expected to dominate conceded an early goal and spent the remainder of the game struggling helplessly to overcome a defensive block. D.C. United isn’t a defensive powerhouse either, yet NYCFC created the season’s lowest expected goals (xG) total. This result follows an equally dismal game against CF Montréal, a team whose only other wins had come over rivals Red Bull.

This defeat marks a seven-game winless skid in the league, turning a promising start into a genuine concern. Pascal Jansen’s response has been to institute a game plan focused on controlling games and reducing downside risk, selecting personnel to match. It’s not an uncommon impulse; when each game is an opportunity to stop the bleeding and gain much-needed momentum, the appetite for risk vanishes first. NYCFC dominated possession and field tilt in the last two games in particular, but looked nowhere near creating a reasonable scoring chance.

Controlling games through possession is an established tactic, but it is far more common in Europe. MLS’s relative parity makes ball-dominant play harder to execute successfully. In recent years, many managers have come into the league expressing a desire to play with the ball, but often find that leads to stagnant attacking and killer transition opportunities for their opponents.

Atlanta egregiously followed up Tata Martino’s dominant run to open their time in MLS with the iron grip of Frank De Boer, who promptly led the team to a downfall that continues to this day. San Diego won the hearts of fans with their possession-dominant style in last year’s expansion season, but is falling apart this year as they control games but create few chances. One of the few exceptions to the rule, Wilfried Nancy managed to find that balance and turn a very controlled team into the best in MLS. He did it through the brilliance of Cucho Hernández, as well as some inspired movement out of the back line from players like Steven Moreira, creating danger from places the defense least expected. In doing so, he created cascading risks that required well-choreographed rotations, but his inability to replicate them at Celtic led to his firing.

This approach has led to problems at NYCFC as well. Despite boasting that he’d rather win games 5-4 than 1-0, Ronny Deila’s initial approach was to control the ball rather than take offensive risks. It took a player revolt for him to change his approach, and eventually, NYCFC won a championship by taking a backseat in possession. Nick Cushing never quite found a way out and was fired. There has to be a balance between players who try shit and those who are more consistently reliable, and Jansen has so far failed to find that balance in 2026.

Jansen’s turn toward conservatism and small-mindedness under pressure is most evident in his player selection. He repeatedly selects players who pose less risk to his possession-heavy approach, even though those same players can’t deliver danger when it’s needed. Three of the top-five performers by non-penalty xG per 96 minutes (npxG/96) are players he won’t start.

Chief among these choices is his reluctance to play Talles Magno. Magno came into the season adrift, returning from an extended loan to Corinthians without a clear path to his next career step. His status as a Designated Player meant that rostering Magno came with an opportunity cost. At the same time, the team reiterated its trust in him and stated that he would play a role this season. Despite that statement, Magno has yet to play more than 30 minutes of any league game he’s appeared in. Nonetheless, he’s performed well with two goals and a team-leading npxG/96 without any sort of positional consistency. Even after a U.S. Open Cup hat trick against Westchester SC, Jansen did not give him the start in the next Cup game. It’s clear that Jansen does not trust him, and while Magno earned a start against D.C. before a calf injury pulled him out, Jansen is unlikely to give him further leeway. He does not hustle like Hannes Wolf or Malachi Jones, and he takes far more risks as a dribbler and passer.

Seymour Reid, the only true center forward on the roster, also finds himself on the outside looking in. He has been disappointing over 103 substitute minutes this season, particularly against the Philadelphia Union, where he could not score on two breakaways (and on one, he never even got a shot off). He struggled in the Open Cup game against Westchester SC as well, disappearing for large portions of the game, not factoring aside from an early assist on a cutback pass. At the same time, he can break free at any moment, using his physicality and speed to challenge older and more experienced defenders. For a team that has no striker at all, he can keep back lines somewhat honest. The false 9 approach, which has been yielding diminishing returns, is not an effective substitute. Reid may not be the most polished striker, but he is still an 18-year-old learning to play professionally. He is one of the most promising young attackers in the league, and many MLS teams were willing to open the checkbook to pry him away from NYCFC this offseason. Each chance he receives is an investment in his development that can pay dividends down the road.

There’s no personnel decision more baffling than Jansen’s decision to bench Keaton Parks. At first, there were some questions about fitness, considering Parks is returning from surgery. That was put to rest when Parks confirmed to Trey Fillmore that Jansen prefers Kai Trewin and Aiden O’Neill as starters. Andrés Perea’s return and 36th-minute replacement of O’Neill showed Parks has fallen entirely off the holding midfield depth chart. Again, Parks is fundamentally a riskier player than the other options; he is a much riskier passer and dribbler, constantly trying to provoke pressure rather than simply make a safe pass and keep possession moving. His attacking runs do open up space that needs to be covered, and he lacks the pace to get back to help if things go awry.

This tactical cam replay captures Parks at his best, breaking the press with the vision to see spaces few other players see and the creativity to exploit them, all in three passes that end in a goal:

Jansen’s preferred midfield partnership of Trewin and O’Neill is a poor combination. Trewin’s inability to play central defense at an MLS level (where he has made crucial marking and defensive mistakes that have cost goals in multiple games) means that he must play midfield. O’Neill is a Jansen favorite but offers little beyond defensive work and safe possession play. The two create a conservative midfield that struggles to break lines with movement, ball carrying, or passing. While Perea can bring something different — finding space in the box with attacking runs — he cannot replicate Keaton’s exceptional passing and dribbling, nor is he as effective in the air. He covers more ground, appealing to Jansen’s conservative turn. Regardless, it’s not working. Over the last two games, NYCFC has looked incapable of generating quality chances, and it starts with the two below-average midfielders running the pivot.

To be fair, Parks, Magno, and Reid have not been perfect and in some games have not been good at all. At the same time, Jansen holds them to a standard no one else on the team shares. Man management is tricky, but punishing some players for mistakes while ignoring others, and failing to reward genuinely good play, is an approach that has a time limit. If you’re going to play favorites, you need to pick the right ones.

This was supposed to be the easiest stretch of the season, where New York City could build a substantial lead heading into the international break. Two consecutive home losses to struggling sides mean NYCFC is well below where they need to be to secure a home playoff spot. Instead, Pascal Jansen is choking it away. ❧

Image: Harry Clarke, A Descent into the Maelstrom

“You’re playing, and you think everything is going fine. Then one thing goes wrong. And then another. And another. You try to fight back. But the harder you fight, the deeper you sink. Until you can’t move, you can’t breathe, because you’re in over your head. Like quicksand.”

Keanu Reeves’ Shane Falco couldn’t have summarized it better. Psychological spirals just happen in sport sometimes, often randomly and without reason. If New York City Football Club were watching this scene from The Replacements right now, they’d be nodding their heads in understanding because they’re living it.

Through four games, the Pigeons looked like one of the league’s best with three wins and a draw. They’ve stumbled into quicksand since. NYCFC is now winless in six league games after a 1-0 road defeat to CF Montréal and have the 8th-worst expected goal differential (xGD) in Major League Soccer (MLS) during that stretch.

The loss is notable for how much deeper it pushes them into the muck, but by itself is unremarkable. Neither team could get into an offensive rhythm, as NYCFC and Montréal combined for a measly 1.46 expected goals (xG), the sixth-lowest mark of the 2026 MLS season.

Philippe Eullaffroy, Montréal’s interim head coach, tried to throw off New York City’s defense by regularly moving his fullbacks inside and his central midfielders outside. The Pigeon defense maintained its discipline despite the rotations, with one big exception that ultimately decided the game. Midfielder Matty Longstaff found space on the left flank to pick out a cross into the six-yard box towards Prince Owusu. The Ghanaian center forward big-brothered Kai Trewin, sparking Brian White-fueled post-traumatic stress disorder and giving Montréal an early lead that they would not relinquish.

Montréal only generated two shots from inside the box, but New York City’s attack failed to do any better. Montréal wingers pressed inside, freeing fullbacks Kevin O’Toole and Tayvon Gray on the flanks but only if NYCFC could move the ball quickly in and out of the midfield, which was the problem. The Pigeons controlled the game from 30’ to halftime, probing this weakness down the left flank, but overall lacked the connections to translate progressions into chances before Montréal could recover into its narrow defensive shape.

New York City finished with 5 shots, the lowest single-game total in team history. Moments of miscommunication or visible frustration were more common than chances. Head coach Pascal Jansen tried to put a jolt into his team with triple-barreled substitutions in the 65th minute, but any gains quickly short-circuited. Fighting to pull his team out of the quicksand, Gray only made them sink deeper. Two yellow cards within five minutes on Montréal winger Iván Jaime, the second after a misplaced pass of his own, resulted in an early shower for Gray and a man disadvantage that nullified any hope that NYC would get a result.

Desperate for a solution to this nightmare run, Jansen doesn’t seem to think the answer will come from the bench. No manager in MLS has rotated his starting eleven less. New York City’s 10 most common outfield starters have logged more combined starts and minutes than any team in MLS. Newcomer Arnau Farnos only cracked the starting lineup against Montréal due to a Hannes Wolf injury.

Jansen may be forced to go to his bench out of sheer desperation after the best four-game start in team history has collapsed into the worst ten-game start since 2015. Which stretch represents the true quality of NYCFC? The answer likely lies somewhere in between. Ten games into the season, statistics are becoming significant, and we can take stock of where they stand in MLS as the sample size smoothes out the extremes of red cards, penalties, and the like.

Those numbers indicate the Pigeons are fine. They sit somewhere in the middle of the pack in MLS, ranking 16th in npxG and 10th in npxGA. The defensive indicators align with the aggressive ethos NYCFC has pursued since its founding, outpacing the league average in both average defensive action height (how high the line is) and passes per defensive action (how active they are in defending).

Despite the pedestrian attack, New York City has maintained their style of play with the ball as well. The Pigeons sit comfortably in the top ten in possession (57.7%), field tilt, and passes per possession, indicators of extended ball control in the opponent’s half. The engine of that attack has been Nico Fernández Mercau, who ranks 33rd in npxG+xA and 22nd in offensive net goals added (g+) in MLS, according to American Soccer Analysis. Ironically, Fernández Mercau has been so good that he has singlehandedly elevated NYCFC’s “strikers” into the top ten of net g+ (offensive and defensive) within that position group.

Jansen could only hope that he had two Fernández’s. For as surprisingly good as he has been masquerading as a center forward, New York City could use him deeper to facilitate the offense. Instead, Point Maxi lives on, and while Moralez is still capable of moments of magic, he can’t carry this level of attacking burden at 39 years old like he once could. Moralez is trending towards his second consecutive negative season by net g+.

Aside from the attacking midfield group, an examination of net g+ rankings by position group indicates a strong spine. NYC’s center backs and defensive midfielders join the “strikers” (i.e., Fernández) as top ten units. Net g+ for the wide position groups, wingers, and fullbacks, is less optimistic. For a coach like Jansen who likes to concentrate attacks down the flanks, those units are obvious areas for improvement as they try to dig their way out of this rut by any means possible. Or maybe they just have to burn some incense and exorcise the bad spirits via the power of friendship.

Either way, Jansen certainly strives for his team to be better than fine, but he’d take it right now after NYC have taken two points from their last six games. Digging out of this funk is their priority for now. A Hudson River Derby win in the U.S. Open Cup goes a long way in getting New York City back on track, but the Pigeons must now carry those good vibes over into league play. Getting out of quicksand as deep as they’re in takes more than one game. Shane Falco‘s teammate Clifford Franklin said it best, “Aw, shit yeah. Quicksand’s a scary motha, man.” ❧

Image: Salvador Dalí, Remorse, or Sphinx Embedded in the Sand

The 4-4 draw between New York City Football Club and FC Cincinnati was a slap fight. But it was a stupid one. While the scoreline suggests this match may have been a swashbuckling contest between two high-powered attacks, it was actually a duel of defenses where each side slapped itself in the face as hard as it could until both inevitably collapsed.

Roman Celentano slapped first. The Cincinnati goalkeeper fumbled a cross from Aidan O’Neill right into the waiting feet of Nico Fernández Mercau for an easy rebound. But as bad as Celentano’s mistake was, the defenders in front of him responded with “hold my beer”. Head coach Pat Noonan deployed an aggressive man-marking tactic with defensive midfielder Samuel Gidi floating in and out of the backline. Gidi’s position fluctuated depending on the depth of Maxi Moralez and Fernández Mercau, shifting Cincinnati between a back three and a back four. But whatever formation they were in, the backline certainly wasn’t a line.

The Pigeons pulled Noonan’s defense apart as Cincinnati struggled to handle the simplest of rotations, but Cincinnati’s defensive woes were as much about personnel as system. Despite a decimated defense without Miles Robinson, Matt Miazga, and Nick Hagglund, Noonan pushed forward man-marking without all of his top three center backs. Noonan’s predicament worsened when the fourth center back on his depth chart, Teenage Hadebe, went off injured in the 24th minute.

Noonan had no choice but to wake up Alvis Powell from his nap to fill in. Like anyone disturbed from a deep slumber, the left defender made his head coach regret the audacity. Powell barely broke a jog. The culprit of several Cincinnati defensive breakdowns, Powell didn’t make it to the second half, substituted off after 23 minutes of apathetic play. The rest of Noonan’s defense were more willing participants in his man-marking scheme. They just did a bad job of it.

Eager to press forward, Cincinnati’s central defenders kept forgetting the other half of man-marking: tracking back. New York City got in behind the backline with ease, completing a season-high 14 passes into the final third from their own half, sixth-best in MLS this season. Before it was all said and done, Noonan tried four different iterations of a backline, but each provided a slap to the face of Cincinnati’s defense.

Where Cincinnati’s defensive woes were chronic, New York City’s were acute. Throughout the run of play, the Pigeons limited Cincinnati’s chances, holding the visitors to a pedestrian 11 shots and 0.98 non-penalty expected goals. But head coach Pascal Jansen’s team once again displayed their habit for mind-numbing defensive gaffes.

Rather than being the culmination of sustained attacking pressure, Cincinnati’s goals came from nowhere. The first came within seconds of a Cincinnati throw-in. With left back Kevin O’Toole out of position from the previous possession, right midfielder Ender Echenique fired a cross immediately into the box. Tom Barlow, the worst half of Cincinnati’s front two, had gotten goalside of defensive midfielder Kai Trewin and attracted central defender Thiago Martins. That left Kevin Denkey, the better half, completely unmarked for a simple volley.

Aidan O’Neill’s unnecessary foul on Evander handed them the second. New York City compounded his error by letting the subsequent free kick fall to the feet of Denkey. Andrei Chirila scored an absolute screamer for the third. But a makeshift lineup that receded in protection of a two-goal lead afforded Chirilla the space to do so, as the Pigeons conceded 63% of possession from 70’ onward. Kevin O’Toole then landed the knockout self slap. An innocuous sequence quickly escalated to an Evander nutmeg and a desperate lunge for redemption from the NYCFC fullback. Instead, O’Toole clumsily took out Evander from behind to give Cincinnati the equalizing penalty.

While NYCFC concedes xG in second-half stoppage time at a league-average rate, they’ve allowed the 3rd-best shot quality after the 90th minute in MLS. Giving away high-quality chances late in games can turn comfortable performances into dropped points, which the Pigeons have now done for the third consecutive home game. Two stoppage-time goals make this one worse than the draw versus St. Louis and the loss to Charlotte. For the 13th time in team history and only the 6th time at home, NYCFC conceded at least four goals. They have quality, but lurk on the edge of disaster at any minute. ❧

Image: Francisco Goya, Children Fighting Over Chestnuts

New York City Football Club has a box problem. Of the couple of thousand on-ball actions in every soccer game, it’s the ones closest to the goal that settle the score. The Pigeons are struggling to find an advantage in either box in 2026. Despite dominating shots and possession, New York City’s 2–1 home loss to Charlotte FC continued a trend that goes beyond mere fluctuations in finishing and shot-stopping.

The Pigeons are generating their worst goals-added (g+) differential in the penalty areas since 2015. They would post only their third negative in-box g+ differential in team history if the season were to end today. In-box g+ differential is less predictive than expected goals differential (xGD) or full-field g+ differential, but its relationship to points is steeper. Actions near the goal have an outsized impact on the outcome. Squandering opportunities in either the attacking or defending penalty area is a surefire way to pollute an otherwise strong performance. That is exactly what NYCFC did against Charlotte.

This game appeared firmly in NYCFC’s control, with Pascal Jansen quickly identifying the soft spot in Charlotte head coach Dean Smith’s 4-2-4 mid-block defensive shape. The space behind the wingers, particularly Wilfried Zaha, served as an avenue to build up through with Charlotte center backs Tim Ream and Morrison Agyemang reluctant to come off their line, allowing Nico Fernández Mercau and Maxi Moralez to drop into those wide midfield areas unmarked to receive directly from the backline. In contrast, Jansen’s wingers occupied Smith’s fullbacks. Smith eventually tasked central midfielders Brandt Bronico and Lee Westwood to track NYCFC’s attackers as they dropped wide, but that just opened up Jansen’s midfield pair of Aidan O’Neill or Kai Trewin to receive from the backline with room to turn upfield.

That recipe progressed the Pigeons into the final third with regularity, but the end product was more quantity than quality once they got there. New York City’s 22 shots are the 2nd-largest total under Pascal Jansen, but Smith’s compact and disciplined defensive shape limited those shots to less dangerous positions. At 0.075 xG/shot, NYCFC’s shot quality finished considerably below the league average of 0.124 xG/shot for the past two games.

Jansen’s defense similarly controlled the game during Charlotte’s possession. Like Smith, Jansen kept central defenders Raul Gustavo and Thiago Martins at home as Charlotte’s danger men, Pep Biel and Wilfried Zaha, dropped into midfield. NYCFC diligently rotated their marking to either put left back Kevin O’Toole in pursuit or sag one of Trewin or O’Neill, leaving Westwood unmarked as Charlotte’s deepest-lying midfielder. Slow to turn upfield and vulnerable to back pressure from New York City’s front two, Westwood was enough of a threat that Jansen ultimately dropped Moralez into midfield to deal with these overloads. Jansen deployed this tactic against Vancouver as well, but saw greater success in shutting down the midfield against Charlotte.

New York City dominated defensively in the first half, preventing a single shot from Charlotte. While Charlotte generated only seven shots in the second half, the Pigeons’ first-half supremacy faltered late, and momentary lapses allowed chances from high-quality positions to arise. New York City conceded their highest xG/shot of any game in 2026, two of which decided the game.

Tweaking Moralez’s defensive posture afforded Charlotte’s center backs more time on the ball. Agyemang used that time in the 54th minute to chip a ball toward striker Idan Toklamoti at the halfway line. Biel pulled Trewin up into the midfield overload and left NYCFC out of position for the second ball, easily collected by Zaha. The possession moved wide but quickly came back inside to Zaha, who beat three Pigeons as Toffolo and Toklomati got in behind Ojeda and Gustavo, respectively. Two passes later, and Toklomati, goalside of Gustavo, gave Charlotte the lead.

Zaha was at the center of Charlotte’s second goal too, this time mesmerizing O’Neill and right back Tayvon Gray to neither step to the Ivorian nor track Biel’s run between them. That lapse opened up a simple through ball into the box, and a low cross from Biel reached Kerwin Vargas on the opposite side of the penalty area. The right winger calmly dribbled inside fellow substitute Talles Magno and picked out the side netting.

Jansen’s desperation to chase a goal played a part in the breakdown. Pulling Gustavo left New York City with a single central defender for the final 15 minutes. But this play echoes a 63rd-minute sequence, when the Pigeons still had a full backline, in which Zaha again distracted the NYCFC defense as Toffolo advanced to his left. An early, low cross from Toffolo managed to reach right winger Rodolfo Aloko on the other side for the same cut-in-and-shoot.

Regardless of the circumstances, teams will punish defensive mistakes like these in and around the box when they happen often enough. New York City, 20th in g+ conceded in their own penalty area, is leaving itself exposed for punishment. On the other end, Jansen’s team ranks 23rd in g+ generated in the attacking box and is struggling to create gaps to punish themselves.

Only the Red Bulls have a larger discrepancy between g+ differential inside vs. outside the penalty areas, a reminder that whatever the quality NYCFC shows across the pitch, they capitulate near the goal. Enough ink has been and will continue to be spilled on the teams’ lack of a true center forward, and addressing that roster hole may mitigate half of this problem. But with the winless streak now at four games, Jansen doesn’t have time to wait for a striker to save the day. Nor would that striker resolve the concerns in the other penalty area. ❧

Image: John William Waterhouse, Pandora

With Thiago Martins, New York City Football Club has a defense. Without him, the Vancouver Whitecaps had a field day. The 2-0 road defeat continued a humbling stretch for the Pigeons while serving as a stark reminder of Martins’ impact. New York City concedes 14.9% more expected goals (xG) per 96 minutes without their captain on the pitch.

On-off metrics are not the most reliable statistics in soccer. They’re noisy. The game has too many variables to distill a player’s impact from performance when he is on vs. off the field. Finding a signal in all that noise requires a large sample size, and perhaps a bit of intuition.

In this instance, everyone already knows NYCFC’s defense is significantly better with Martins in central defense. Putting a number on how much better is the hard part. But anyone who watched NYCFC play the Vancouver Whitecaps would feel justified in saying that 14.9% increase underestimates his positive impact.

And if you recalculated that metric after the loss to Vancouver, they would be right. Martins’ xGA on/off statistic jumped all the way up to 20.7% – remember that thing we said about sample size?– after manager Jesper Sørensen’s attack curbstomped Pascal Jansen’s defense to the tune of 3.36 xG in his absence. The designated player (DP) center back missed the game with a leg injury, and the ensuing defensive performance will go down in the annals of NYCFC history as the 7th-worst all-time by conceded xG.

The Whitecaps’ attacking rotations ultimately proved too much for the Pigeons to handle. With New York City fullbacks Kevin O’Toole and Tayvon Gray occupied by Vancouver’s wide attackers, usually left winger Cheikh Sabaly and right back Édier Ocampo, defensive midfielder Aidan O’Neill, and the central defense partnership of Kai Trewin and Raul Gustavo were supposed to shield the middle. Emphasis on the supposed to.

Midfielder Jeevan Badwal pushed up into the frontline and brought O’Neill along with him, regularly turning Jansen’s intended 4-1-3-2 high block into a 5-oh my god no one is in midfield-3-2 defensive shape. Trewin and Gustavo had inklings to track the Whitecaps’ attacking duo of Thomas Müller and Brian White between the lines, but made a habit of dropping off upon the first pass that broke pressure.

With space in between the lines ripe for the taking, Vancouver confused New York City’s marking further by rotating attackers left to right, up and down, and vice versa. Jansen ultimately dropped Maxi Moralez out of the defensive front two and sat him alongside Keaton Parks, making it more difficult for the Whitecaps to play into their defensive midfield combination of Sebastian Berhalter and Andrés Cubas. That tactical tweak, along with a renewed pressing aggression coming out of halftime, gave the Pigeons their steadiest 20 minutes of the game.

However, Sørensen nullified any prospect of a return to respectability when he brought on wingers Emmanuel Sabbi and Bruno Caicedo in the 64th minute. Fresh pace on the flanks gave NYCFC a new danger to worry about. Defensive lapses are rare for Gray, but Caicedo found space behind and beat him on a cutback before crossing in for White’s 87th-minute goal after setting it up with a dribble to the endline on the possession prior.

White scoring the goal that secured the Whitecaps’ victory is poetic justice. The primary antagonist to New York City’s defense all game, he also earned the foul that led to Laborda’s set-piece goal from Sebastian Berhalter’s delivery right before halftime. The American striker generated 12 shots and a breathtaking 2.22 xG, far and away more than any other player against NYC in a single game and 8th-most in the history of the American Soccer Analysis database1. Despite the nuance of Sørensen’s attack, White didn’t need much finesse to exploit the New York City central defense. Bludgeoning them worked just fine, and White had his way in 1v1s, particularly picking on Trewin throughout the game.

Having Martins on the field would not have been enough to turn this game into a good defensive performance, but it’s fair to say he would have handled these critical 1v1s with White better. Martins leads all Major League Soccer center backs in cumulative goals subtracted (g-), a methodology that allocates team goals added (g+) to individuals, since he joined the team in 2022 and is 5th in defensive net g+. He cleans up messes in the back and gives his team a puncher’s chance even when the defense struggles.

Luckily, Jansen still had goalkeeper Matt Freese on the pitch, and he’s another one of those guys who can singlehandedly keep New York City in a game. Freese did so again vs. Vancouver, making 8 saves to keep it a one-goal game until White finally had enough. Even the best security blankets are permeable when battered like Freese was, and clean strikes from within 5 yards of goal will make shrapnel of any keeper.

Preventative medicine is the best medicine after all, and this game is a reminder of the obvious — NYCFC are way better at preventing chances with their captain shepherding the backline. We may just have been underestimating Martins’ impact. For a player whose DP contract designation often gets more discussion than his defense, New York City is lucky to have him at any price. ❧

Image: Joseph Mallard William Turner, Whalers