Stuck in First Gear
Pigeons grind out a point in LA, but the attack offers little encouragement.
Nothing says MLS is back like New York City Football Club laying an egg in the season opener. Coming out of the gates with a whimper has become a pastime for the Pigeons. Their 1-1 draw at the Los Angeles Galaxy brings their all-time season opener record to 2-4-6. LA and NYCFC made a case for Matchday 1’s dullest match, combining for a measly 1.21 non-penalty expected goals (npxG).
The bright side is that NYCFC conceded just 0.36 npxG, best of opening weekend — though aided by 30-plus minutes of playing up a man after Emiro Garces’s red card in the 65th minute. The defense bounced back after sleepwalking through kickoff and surrendering a goal to João Klauss within 90 seconds, when both defensive midfielders, Aidan O’Neill and Kai Trewin, had lapses that led to the score.
However, without a striker, the attack was flaccid. Set up in a 4-2-3-1, Kevin O’Toole deployed in his familiar advanced fullback role and Tayvon Gray in his elbow back. LA head coach Greg Vanney combated O’Toole’s advancement by dropping right winger Gabriel Pec alongside him, functionally reshaping his defense into a 5-3-2.
Dropping Pec gave Los Angeles right back Miki Yamane the ability to stay tight and protected the backline from being stretched. The Galaxy instituted a “no turn policy,” regularly forcing the Pigeons into a backwards first touch and undercutting O’Neill and Trewin’s comfort receiving on the half-turn1, even when space was available. Unable to progress through the double pivot, New York City struggled to penetrate LA’s defensive interior, reinforcing their 19th ranking in MLS central attacking tendency in 2025, per futi.
Vanney’s wide-attacker marking scheme offered NYCFC head coach Pascal Jansen an opening he attempted to exploit later in the first half. The space Pec vacated while tracking O’Toole was ripe for the taking. Flashing a midfielder into that void failed to disrupt the backline — Reus followed from the frontline — but rotating attackers there forced Pec and Yamane to shift their marks, temporarily creating openings for attacks.
Rotations by Maxi Moralez, Hannes Wolf, and O’Toole forced Pec into the defensive action and challenged Yamane’s determination to stay tight to center back Jacob Glesnes. New York City’s best chances came from right-side reversals before the Galaxy could shift their defense. Left center back Raul Gustavo pressed the advantage on these reversals, but his limited passing range and vision negated some potential final third entries. When the Pigeons did advance with overloads, they routinely lacked the quickness to capitalize.
Jansen opened the second half with a revised approach, testing similar rotations on the right. Wolf and Agustín Ojeda swapped wings, and Gray pushed further forward, pulling Galaxy left winger Joseph Paintsil with him and opening up space on the opposite flank. NYCFC equalized from a right-sided attack where Gray found space to thread a through ball that met Nico Fernandez’s diagonal run to the near post. Goalside of Garces, Fernandez drew a foul, earning the red card and the game-tying penalty.
In the final half hour, the man advantage and introduction of Keaton Parks gave the attack a boost — 0.65 of their 0.85 npxG occurred from the 65th minute onward — but the Pigeons never found an offensive rhythm. The absence of a true center forward defined this performance. Fernandez and Moralez spent more time dropping into the halfspaces to coordinate play rather than playing off the center back’s shoulder, letting the Galaxy’s defense stay on the front foot.
A 1-1 draw on the road to start the campaign is not a bad result. The performance behind it, however, carries warning signs. One game, especially a season opener on the road, is too small a sample to diagnose a problem. Still, Jansen faces a real challenge in aggregating a central attacking threat without a striker. ❧
Image: Winslow Homer, The Veteran in a New Field
Trewin and O’Neill ranked 35th and 29th in distance per pass, respectively, among 36 starting DMs in Matchday 1.