New York City FC Head Coach Pascal Jansen believes his team has learned lessons as they prepare for their second game in Phase One of Leagues Cup play.
A disappointing 3-0 defeat to Club Puebla was the outcome from New York City’s opening game in the competition, with a game against Club León next on the agenda before a meeting with Toluca. Focused on tomorrow’s test against León, Jansen expressed his view that the team had learned lessons from game one that they will look to take with them next time out.
“Well, the positive was the second half of obviously, when we made a couple of changes and once a few other guys came on pitch, we created a few good looks and a good moments in order to get back into that game,” he said.
“But the biggest lesson were learned in the first half. the way we started our game, conceding from the set piece like we did, and not sticking by our principles, that came back to us, and it hurt us really bad.
“Given the fact that you play games at this level against strong Mexican sides, it's going to be very hard to get back into a game, but we tried that in the second half. We had our moments to get back into the game, but unfortunately, it wasn't enough. So that is, that is the biggest takeaway going into the second game, making sure that we get everything right in order to have a bigger chance of a better result.”
The team now turns quickly toward a must-win second game, a reality that Jansen believes can play to their advantage.
“Like we've done from game number one in this season, we always take our moment to reflect and review, and that's what we've done,” he said. “It's quite clear, if we want to be a bigger part in this or play a bigger part in this tournament, a few things have to be done differently, and if you get the chance to play a next game in a few days that always helps getting the focus right and making sure you go into this next game with that plan.”
He also reflected on the cultural and competitive challenge of teams from Liga MX, something he feels can benefit his squad in the long run.
“That is also one of the interesting aspects of this tournament—you get to experience the Mexican culture, the way they play game,” he said.
“As I mentioned to my players, going into that game it was very clear. It's not a friendly game, it's competition played on the edge of the game. Making sure that everybody is as aggressive as we should have been.”
Elsewhere, defensive structure remains a concern. Jansen highlighted his team’s poor defensive record of late, brought about in part by the absence of captain Thiago Martins. New York City will be without the Brazilian again tomorrow, and it will force a defensive reshuffle.
“That is something that we've been asking ourselves from day one—once we got the information that Thiago would be out of the team, for a while,” he said. “You've seen in the game against Dallas, we started with Tavon Gray in the middle, we finished with Tanasijević in the middle.
“We have multiple options to occupy that position, but the one we must not forget, who was also part of this, the most consistent phase in the season, is Birk Risa. He left as well. We've had a couple of changes in the back four. That is something that we are trying to find the right balance again. That happens on the training pitch, of course, and it happens during the games and unfortunately, we conceded six goals in two games, which is way too much for us and our standards.
“So we've been handling our business in the past two days in order to come out stronger and better in this second game, and hopefully we will present ourselves better than we did in game one.”
