New York City Football Club Head Coach Ronny Deila believes his side showed the ‘perfect example’ of how to win away from home against D.C. United on Wednesday night.
The Boys in Blue traveled to Audi Field seeking their first road win in Major League Soccer this season at the fourth time of asking. Goals from defender Alexander Callens and a well-taken penalty by Taty Castellanos confirmed a 2-0 win for NYCFC with Deila pleased at the team’s overall performance.
“We talked a lot before the game about mentality and this is a different ball game when you play away,” Deila said afterward. “Sometimes you have to dig in, to defend well, and take your chances when you get them. Today was a perfect example of how you have to play when you want to win away. We took their strengths out of the game and we also get our strength in when we start to switch to play more. Then we created in great areas on the pitch and in the end, we had enough chances to win the game.”
The Norwegian tactician also took time to praise defender Callens' goal-scoring contribution. NYCFC have benefitted from nine different goalscorers in MLS this season, just two shy of the 11 different goalscorers they managed during the 2021 Regular Season, and Deila was keen to stress how beneficial it is to see the team scoring in a variety of ways.
“It’s very important to score in many different positions and we showed that today,” Deila said. “We were really adventurous with set plays. We got our goal and we could have had more. We got our penalty also. Sometimes you have to get goals in different ways, and we used our opportunities at set plays. Callens has two goals now. I teased him a lot last year that he hadn’t scored. I think he scored for the first time last year against Atlanta, and he has some penalties that I remember, but it’s good that he has started the season well.”
