I saw the best soccer players of my generation frustrated by youngsters, arguing, missing passes, furious, dragging themselves through the Red Bull Arena at dusk, looking for an angry win.
I talked to police officers after the game who said the day had been, um, interesting. I saw video of fans emulating on Market Street the less admirable aspects of our soccer cousins abroad. I heard stories of NYCFC fans being beaten up after the game. I saw fans of both teams standing in lonely tow lots paying out large sums to retrieve their cars in the darkness on the edge of Harrison. I saw play on the pitch that became more physical as time wore on, and I saw banners and tifo that picked up the threads from the previous match.
I saw, in short, that anyone who thinks that the Hudson River Derby is not a real derby should please have their head examined.
And even though the Citizens were shut out, even though the Red Bulls swept the first Hudson River Derby series, even though we’re now nearly as close to the bottom of the table as our New Jersey brothers are to the top, even though Andrea Pirlo and Frank Lampard are still struggling, if you’re a fan of NYCFC you can’t have been disappointed by Sunday’s match.
Now, I realize some will call that claim outrageous. Because I know that it seems inconceivable – and is certainly beyond the ken of many who yell their opinions at me on social media and in the parking lots of matches – that three players of the magnitude of Villa, Pirlo and Lampard could not figure out how to dominate any team. Three players that, arguably (and, of course, “soccer” is a word that literally means “arguably”; indeed, I think fans sometimes find the games an annoying distraction from their real entertainment – the arguments) could be named to a starting XI of the greatest of the era. Of course they can play together – they’re geniuses! That’s what geniuses do!
Well, no, actually, they don’t. If they did, then George Best would have more World Cup trophies than Pele. Because it takes a team, a team that knows each others’ minds almost as well as they know their own. Who can anticipate. Who have chemistry. An uncanny intuition. We saw some of that on the pitch on Sunday. Unfortunately it tended to be done by the gentlemen with the large angry bovines on their jerseys.
Yes there were glimpses and flashes on our side too. In spite of the loss, there was a level of coordination, overlapping and communication by the back line we’d not consistently seen before. A lovely corner from Pirlo onto the noggin of McNamara. And speaking of Tommy Mac, his feed to Angelino who made a beautiful pass right onto the foot of Diskerud in the seventh minute which Mix one-timed at Robles was really, a thing of beauty that spanned the length and breadth of Red Bull Arena. (By the way, have I mentioned how great this kid Angelino is? Have I mentioned that you should watch him live NOW while you can because I’m absolutely convinced Pelligrini will have him on the first plane out of New York within seconds of NYCFC’s final whistle?).
Here’s what I did not see, as I stood in the cinderblock corridors under the stands of Red Bull Arena after the third Hudson River Derby. As I talked to Tommy MacNamara, Josh Saunders, and Angelino as I watched Pirlo and Poku and Mix and Kreis head out of the locker room and back to New York. I did not see a beaten team. I did not see a team that had given up hope, that had lost its spirit, that was demoralized. Yes, they were tired. Yes they were frustrated. Who among us was not? Who among us wants to lose three times to any team, let alone our Hudson River Derby rivals?
But as I pointed out in an earlier essay, it should be no surprise that this team is still not clicking; nearly half the squad are new to the roster. For all intents and purposes, NYCFC are a Gameweek 2 side; unfortunately, they’re facing teams in mid-season form.
No, NYCFC are not there yet, and that was the painful lesson of the third Hudson River Derby. And yet, as I walked a mile of kingdom past the mansions of fear and past the mansions of pain in the hot New Jersey night to retrieve my car (of course I got towed; how could I not have?), as the bicycles went by in twos and threes, I still had faith we would get there. As I still do. Come on, NYCFC. Come on and rise up.
