New York City FC suffered the fate of a club that lacked a winning mentality, unable to take advantage of their opportunities at home against Columbus Crew SC. New York City FC now looks like they’ll miss out on the playoffs, failing to take any points from a match in which they desperately needed all three.
Normally the scene of matches that take time to flourish, Yankee Stadium provided a backdrop for what was a wide open game from the start. Both sides created scoring chances in the opening minutes, and while New York City FC’s central midfield trio of Andrew Jacobson, Andrea Pirlo, and Frank Lampard gave Columbus opportunities to counter, but the Sky Blues’ back four was able to snuff out much of the danger in the early going.
NYCFC enjoyed a spell of early possession once the match settled down, and David Villa almost opened the scoring in the eighth minute, putting a header just over the bar off a Pirlo free kick.
Shortly after, Columbus scored on a corner that occurred after some emergency defending from Jefferson Mena denied Federico Higuain a chance on an open net. It was Higuain who took the chance, this time taking advantage of poor marking by Pirlo and making no mistake with a header to the far corner.
The next big chance fell to New York City FC in the sixteenth minute, but nobody was able to get on the end of a low cross sent along the six-yard box by Lampard.
A back and forth affair with chances at both ends defined the first half hour, with NYCFC reliant on emergency defending to make up for sloppy marking from their midfielders. Crew SC were equally susceptible, giving up great shooting opportunities that New York City were unable to take advantage of.
New York City FC leveled the match with a 30-yard rocket of a strike from Andrew Jacobson. The midfielder latched onto a header won by Patrick Mullins and fired into the bottom corner. Jacobson did well throughout the match to link up play between the NYCFC back line and front three, and having a well-struck volley blocked in the 32nd minute.
Just before half, Mix Diskerud nearly gave NYCFC the lead with a sensational overhead kick that flew just over the bar.
Much like the first half, both sides traded chances but failed to find the back of the net in the opening portion of the second half.
Fan favorite Kwadwo Poku entered the match for NYCFC in the 60th minute, replacing a tidy but quiet Lampard, but failed to make much of an impact himself.
Columbus retook the lead in the 83rd minute via Justin Meram off an assist from Higuain. Meram finally restored the Crew’s advantage after Kei Kamara twice failed to put the ball in the net with his head, hitting the bar on one attempt and being caught offside on the next.
New York City’s inability to capitalize on their chance creating ultimately spelled their doom as they continued to put shots over or just wide of the net time and time again.
At the post-match press conference, head coach Jason Kreis highlighted the need to win out the rest of the way to preserve a chance of making the playoffs.
“Seven games left, twenty-one points available, I think there still has to be a glimmer of hope. But at the moment, it’s tough to see it.”
Going into a bye week, Kreis also made a point of talking about the team’s mentality issues, which he realizes have to be remedied soon.
“I think we… need to take a mental step back and collect ourselves for what is, I think, going to be pretty clear, that we need to win every game that we play”, said Kreis, “… and the players need to show that they want to be here and that they want to be a part of this… and I’m not so sure that all the players do.”
With their backs against the wall, New York City FC will need to find out quickly who they can rely on.
