Team Building Insights from David Lee

NYCFC Sporting Director David Lee sat down with Justin Egan and other media to discuss player recruitment strategies, Hannes Wolf's impact, and the SuperDraft's crucial role in team building.

Editor’s Note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

The Outfield: Soccer is a very simple game. In order to be successful, you need to score more goals than you allow. The guys at American Soccer Analysis, have talked about how the focus of player personnel decisions should be framed around their expected impact on goals scored, goals conceded. Is that something you agree with? If not, how do you frame your player personnel and roster building decisions?

David Lee: I think it is something I agree with. Ultimately, as we're making any player decision of a retention or a signing, we're trying to predict what impact that player will have on our team's success. And, as you say, success comes from winning more games than you lose. And to win more games than you lose, you need to score more goals than you concede. We're definitely trying to make decisions through that lens and try to improve our team.

The other additional caveat is we want to play a certain style of football. And so, players that we recruit need to be able to play in our style and the style that we want to see, or if we're trying to add something to our game. We really wanted to improve our ability out of possession this year. We wanted to press higher and wanted to be better in transitions. We felt like we didn't have as many opportunities last season in that regard, and somebody like Hannes Wolff coming into the team, that was a real strength of his and one of the reasons why we brought him in because we felt like he would add that to the team, as well as Nick and the coaching staff obviously working heavily on that through pre-season.

Ultimately, yes, I agree with that. It is a simple game. It is complex trying to assign players within all the rules that we have and making those decisions. But yes, we want to try and assign players that are going to help us score more goals than we concede, and that's what we're trying to do.

TO: Can you talk a little more about Hannes Wolf? He's been a really important player for New York City this season and you invested a lot of resources in him- close to a [maximum Targeted Allocation Money (TAM)] contract. The analytics love him. He already has 10 goal contributions, but there was some risk involved in his signing. In his last season with [Borussia Mönchengladbach], he played less than 500 minutes and he has an injury history. Could you give us an inside look at what his recruitment looked like and how you assessed the risk of offering him that big TAM contract? 

DL: Hannes has been one of our most important acquisitions in the offseason, knowing we didn't have any available [Designated Player (DP)] spots to be able to sign a player. So, when Hannes became available, you know, we were definitely looking. We knew we had [Julián Fernández] as a right winger. We knew [Maxi Moralez] was injured. We wanted to find a player who could be versatile to play inside or on the wings.

We were in discussions with a number of players when Hannes became available. Hannes was in a good situation at Mönchengladbach. He was under contract. He had interest from a number of clubs in Europe. I think as we did more and more work on watching him play. He was in a difficult situation in Gladbach from a personal standpoint. He wasn't playing. I think the club were looking to try to exit him.

But as we look back and we saw his loan spell at Swansea in a different position, we saw he played really consistently at Swansea and did a really good job. The references we had from that loan spell were outstanding. We spent a lot of time, both Nick and I and our scouting team, getting to know Hannes over a period of time. I think what was really interesting for us is he was just as interested in a move to MLS as we were interested in acquiring him.

It is unusual to get a player who's moved for 20 million in transfer fees at the age of 24 that wants to come to MLS on a non-DP contract. We probably spent more in that position than we had originally planned in the offseason. But we felt like Hannes was a really important piece of what we wanted to do. He would add versatility and competition across all of the front line. He can play on the right or the left or inside. He's also played as a second striker. And so we felt like that was a worthy investment and, as you said, the analytics rate him really highly. His chance creation numbers are excellent. He probably should have a few more assists than he does this season, but he's been an outstanding addition for us.

He's also a player that I think can grow and improve. This is his first six or eight months in a while of playing really consistent football. I think he's only going to get better and better and better as he continues to develop and play. I think, in speaking with him, he's enjoyed his experience so far in New York and with MLS. We're looking to continue to take the next steps together in his career and get him continually performing at the highest level he possibly can.

TO: One of the decisions you made this offseason was to not bring in veteran competition for Kevin O'Toole at left back. which is intriguing from a team-building standpoint because you don't really see too many Super Draft picks drafted outside the first round lockdown starting spots like Kevin has. How did you make the determination that Kevin was your guy? And can you also talk a little bit about where the Super Draft fits into how New York City builds its roster? 

DL: It was a conscious decision in the offseason. As we look at how we had to allocate our resources, we had a number of senior roster spots with an amount of money that we had available to spend. We wanted to focus on the positions that we added.

I think Kevin had proven and performed at a really high level. If we go back to 2022, he came into the season late as a left wing-back. We all felt like he performed outstandingly well in that role. Then, as we moved to play a back four last season, it took him a while to get adjusted to the position to play in the back four. We had Braian Cufré in that role. But I think Kevin performed so well in training, he took that spot at the end of the season. It was a belief that we felt he was going to be a high-level left-back that could play consistently across the season and help a team that wants to go and win MLS Cup, and we felt like Kevin was able to do that. Kevin's been a really very good performer for us…

…We also have a huge amount of belief in Christian McFarlane. One of my challenges is I have to build a team that is competitive to achieve our targets right now while also providing pathways and opportunities for some of our young talent. If we want to convince some of our highest-potential young players from our academy to sign, like Christian absolutely is, then we have to show him that there's an opportunity to earn minutes. If you continually block a young player's pathway, it makes it really hard for them to get into the team and show how good they are. I think it was a combination of our belief in Kevin and his ability to step up and be sort of a regular starter in our first team, and then a huge amount of belief in Christian and his potential of what he is able to do.

In terms of the Superdraft, it might be recency bias with [Malachi Jones] and what a fantastic addition we felt he is to our team. The Superdraft has a huge role in building a really successful MLS team. If you look at the most successful MLS teams, they will have players that they have either produced from their academy, grown with them, and played in their team, or they've acquired players from the Superdraft that are able to be consistent players for them over five, six, seven, eight years. I'm thinking of somebody like a Christian Roldan for Seattle, for example.

For us, maybe the only silver lining of the season that we had at the end of last year was that we ended up with a high draft pick, and that allowed us the possibility to hopefully acquire Malachi. And then that obviously turned into reality, and we were able to actually select him and then convince him that he should leave school to sign with us.

I think the Superdraft will continue to be a critical avenue. I think teams that do really good scouting, it's hard scouting, there's a huge amount of competition, a huge number of players all in a very condensed time period. So it takes a huge, really heavy lift to be able to scout that effectively, but I believe there are a number of players that come from college that make an impact.

When I look at our team or our squad, we've got players that we've acquired via trades, we've acquired from international markets, we've acquired from the Superdraft. We've really tried to maximize as many avenues as we can to be able to build as competitive of a roster as possible. ❧

Image: Claude Monet, Cliff Walk at Pourville