New York City Football Club suffered a 3-2 defeat to Columbus Crew.
Here are Five Points from a tough night in Ohio.
Great Start
Scoring a goal inside three minutes is never a bad thing.
Malte Amundsen’s cross may have been sprinkled with a bit of good fortune, but the Danish defender showed intent and ambition to get forward so early and try to influence the game.
By not allowing the Crew to settle into their rhythm it caught them on the back foot, and for that reason, the team deserves credit for starting the game so brightly in pursuit of a result.
Learning
It is often said that teams learn more in the wake of defeat than victory.
Nick Cushing echoed those sentiments on Saturday, indicating his team will review the game as they always do and look for the degrees of change required to improve the team.
Hold onto the positives, address the negatives, and move forward. That’s the key to returning to winning ways.
Control
While the result made for frustrating reading, there were elements of the stats column that made for better reading.
NYCFC enjoyed the majority of possession on the night (close to 60%) as they attempted to dictate the play and create chances through their well-established passing soccer.
At the same time, they out-performed Columbus in terms of xG. While that wasn’t reflected in the eventual result, it should give the team some hope that they created chances, caused Columbus problems at home, and overall produced a performance with some notable positives.
Sub In
It is a testament to the team’s depth and quality that NYCFC’s substitutes consistently shift the team up a gear and we don’t see the level diminish.
On Saturday, the arrival of Maxi Moralez, Thiago Andrade, Anton Tinnerholm, and Maxime Chanot not only changed up the attack but also made it so the team wasn’t further exposed as they sought to chase the third goal. That reliability on the depth chart will be important as we move into a busy period and is a large reason why the team manages to maintain such a consistently high level.
The Stretch
Nick Cushing touched on it in his post-match press conference, but this is the beginning of a series of road games for NYCFC, with three of their next four away from New York.
In MLS, road games present a number of challenges for visiting teams and that makes collecting points difficult. To navigate these pitfalls the group will need to show character and unity in abundance. It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it if they can emerge with a good record.
