NYCFC 2020 Season Review, Pt. 2: Figuring it Out in Orlando

July

By Chris Campbell

MLS is Back was odd. Twenty-six—scratch that, 25—scratch that, 24 teams went to Disney World during a pandemic to play soccer games in front of nobody at nine in the morning. And that was if they were lucky, since the other games took place in the afternoon, swamped by the heat and humidity of Florida in July. Hydration breaks were frequent (sometimes twice in a half!) and subs increased from three to five to keep players from keeling over. Most clubs had just resumed training a week or two before after months of coaching via Zoom. 

There were so many questions. Would the gameplay be worth watching? Would the “good” teams still be good? Would we enjoy fake crowd noise? What was this overhead camera option on ESPN+ and why can’t we get this all the time? 

One hundred and twelve days elapsed from NYCFC’s narrow loss to Tigres in March to their next competitive game to kick things off in Orlando. Ronny Deila took the time to finally watch NYCFC’s 2019 games to gain a better understanding of how his team worked. He also brushed up on his Spanish, something that would hopefully translate (pun definitely intended) to a better understanding between players and coach. Now it was time to turn study into practice.

NYCFC drew a morning slot against Philadelphia for their first bout in the bubble. While New Yorkers were still brewing their first pot of coffee, Deila was scribbling a lineup with James Sands at center back and Taty Castellanos at left wing—the last time either player would start in those positions.

Philly won, 1-0, and would go on to win the Supporters’ Shield, but NYCFC was the better side in the only match these two teams played all season. They built up the wings against the Union’s narrow diamond midfield, controlling the tempo with 60% possession, then looked to switch to the opposite winger or fullback in the final third. NYCFC had 17 shots and 1.6 expected goals to Philadelphia’s 8 and 0.5, but lost when a low-percentage shot from Alejandro Bedoya snuck by Sean Johnson, a rare missed save in the keeper’s career year. It might have been the kind of game Deila could build on, but it was overshadowed by an injury to Maxi Moralez that exposed the biggest weakness on the roster. Could anyone step up as a reliable backup No. 10?

We wouldn’t find out right away, as Deila switched to a 3-5-2 for the second group stage game against a much-improved Orlando. James Sands dropped into the back line, Héber and Taty worked as a striker pair up top, and the midfield triangle put Alex Ring behind an advanced pairing of Gudi Thorarinsson and Jesús Medina.

It was a disaster.

The thought was to have Héber drop into the buildup while Taty occupied Orlando’s back line with runs behind and Rónald Matarrita and Anton Tinnerholm provided attacking width for crosses to the striker pair. But with Maxi hurt and Keaton Parks on the bench after he was pulled early against Philadelphia, there was no central midfielder who could hold possession or play progressive passes. Orlando controlled the midfield and turned two early mistakes into goals, as NYCFC players were dragged out of position in an experimental formation. Maxi’s usually the one organizing the team’s shape, and without him things fell apart, as illustrated in the video below.

Deila tried to remediate these issues at the first water break, going to a flat 4-4-2 with a midfield four of Gudi (who wound up occupying a lot of the same attacking space as Mata on the overlap), Ring, Sands, and Medina. It was too little, too late, and NYCFC lost their fourth straight game to open the MLS season.

Was this already a crisis? The loss to Philadelphia had been stomachable, but the loss to Orlando—a club that had never made the playoffs—was rough. NYCFC just looked bad. Unorganized, uncreative, and never really in it. Worse, the injury list was growing, as last year’s hairless hero, Héber, picked up a knock. The team would need a win and a lot of luck just to make it out of the group stage.

Thank god for expansion teams. Against Inter Miami, Deila returned to a more familiar 4-2-3-1 and scraped out the three points needed to advance, though “scraped” is definitely the right word here. NYCFC’s front four posed problems in the buildup: Taty didn’t drop in to link as effectively as Héber; Alexandru Mitriţǎ and Ismael Tajouri-Shradi weren’t great at creating space on the wings; and Medina, at the No. 10 spot, remained Medina. Miami sized up the situation and decided there was little risk to pressing aggressively in NYCFC’s half.

It almost worked for them. With Miami’s wingers man-marking Tinnerholm and Matarrita, restricting access to the team’s best creators, NYCFC struggled to build from the back and wasn’t having much luck with longballs. What seemed to finally break Miami’s press was less a stroke of tactical genius than the oppressive Orlando heat, which slowed things down in the second half and helped City find their playmakers. The video below shows how Mitri’s eventual game-winning assist to Shradi may have been set up a few minutes earlier, just before a water break.

The soccer wasn’t exactly thrilling, but NYCFC’s first MLS win of the year was enough (after a few fortunate results elsewhere) to put the team in the knockout round, where they would face—who else?—Toronto FC, the team that had knocked them out of the playoffs last year and already beaten them once in the spring.

Though NYCFC had only scored twice through its first five MLS games, Deila decided to focus on the defensive end. Against Toronto, the 4-2-3-1 defended in a 4-4-2 block with Taty and the No. 10 (first Medina, later Maxi) switching off between light ball pressure and screening Michael Bradley. The wingers kept tight on TFC’s fullbacks to force the buildup into central channels, where NYCFC’s defense got aggressive. Sands and Ring were quick to challenge passes into the center and launch counters out to the wings. Behind them, Alexander Callens and Maxime Chanot had license to leave the back line and hassle Alejandro Pozuelo. By ceding possession, NYCFC was able to set midfield pressing traps that held Toronto to just two shots and put them through to the next round, 3-1.  

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Was the squad finally adapting to Deila’s tactics? NYCFC seemed to be finding a groove, but for a quarterfinal opponent they drew Portland, a Western Conference side whose counterattacking style is the polar opposite of Toronto’s possession game. Rather than risk another tactical shakeup, Deila stuck with the 4-2-3-1 that had won twice in a row. But where Toronto had looked to build on the ground, Portland tried to take advantage of NYCFC’s aggressiveness by dropping balls in behind the back line. 

This tactic caused NYCFC a couple problems. One, it didn’t allow them to create the midfield turnovers that had led to fast breaks. Two, Mitri and Gary Mackay-Steven were slow getting back on successful longballs, leaving space for Portland’s midfield and wingers to work in front of NYCFC’s retreating back line. Three, when the longballs failed, Portland was happy to drop back into its block and stay organized. The Timbers’ counter-attacks repeatedly found runners in space while NYCFC struggled to create despite having 61% of the ball.

Deila’s gameplan played right into Portland’s hands and NYCFC was swept out of the tournament, 3-1. It had been a good testing ground for the new coach to figure out how he wanted his side to play, but in the end his unfamiliarity with other MLS teams cost him. Now he had another month to sit and think about how the team would play when the league returned to post-bubble play in the second (third?) stage of a very odd season. ❧

Image: Georges Seurat, The Forest at Pontaubert