The Arsenal legend’s debut campaign in MLS saw his side secure their first-ever playoff appearance with a second-place finish in the Eastern Conference, but their subsequent collapse against Toronto FC showed why there is plenty of work ahead.
New York City FC’s first taste of the MLS Cup Playoffs came to a humiliating end on Sunday night as they suffered a 5-0 thrashing at home to Toronto FC to lose their Eastern Conference semi-final series 7-0 on aggregate.
For head coach Patrick Vieira, the result was an embarrassing way to finish his first season in charge at Yankee Stadium, but at the same time it should not take away from the fact that his side did make some considerable and largely unexpected progress over the course of the 2016 campaign.
When Vieira was first announced as Jason Kreis’ successor back in November 2015, the reaction to his appointment was considerably sceptical. As highly respected as he is in the game, the Frenchman’s only previous coaching experience had come during a two-and-a-half-year stint as coach of Manchester City’s Elite Development Squad, while his knowledge of MLS was self-admittedly poor at best. Foreign managers have traditionally struggled to adjust to the league’s unique rules and roster regulations, as well as the demanding travel schedule, while the former Arsenal midfielder had also inherited an unbalanced squad that slumped to an eighth-place finish in the East in their inaugural season.
While the club boasted arguably the best striker in the league in David Villa and a bevy of midfield talent, their porous defence had conceded 58 goals in 2015 (the joint-most in MLS) and the only reinforcements brought in over the winter were relatively unknown commodities. To make matters worse, the sacked Kreis had also found it near impossible to fit both Frank Lampard and Andrea Pirlo into the same line-up without their ageing legs proving a huge hindrance on the backline, and there was little reason to believe Vieira would find it any easier given how much the pair had underperformed over the second half of the previous term. After all, if one of the league’s most highly-regarded coaches could not make things work, what hope was there for an MLS novice in his first senior managerial role? To give a former MLS Cup-winning coach just one season in charge of an expansion team was bad enough, but the fact that his replacement seemed so unqualified for the job only served to heighten the concern surrounding City Football Group’s handling of their American arm. Many critics had already given NYCFC the derogatory “feeder team” label due to their sister club relationship with Manchester City, and the decision to appoint a man who had been working at the Etihad Stadium for several years did little to suggest that the New York outfit was in any way authentic. From the outside looking in, it simply appeared as though CFG had no clue about how to build a formula for MLS success and were leaving the inexperienced Vieira on a hiding to nothing.
However, while there may have been plenty of teething problems along the way, Vieira can certainly look back at his first season in the States and feel a sense of pride at what his side was able to achieve. Despite experimenting with everything from a standard 4-3-3 to an old-fashioned W-M formation, the former World Cup winner stuck steadfastly with an attack-minded mentality that helped keep NYCFC competing at the top of the standings throughout the year. His unwillingness to compromise his desire to play out of the back did cause some ugly situations at times, including a disastrous 7-0 home defeat to the New York Red Bulls, but scoring an MLS-leading 62 goals proved enough to compensate for their obvious defensive deficiencies as the team went on to secure a second-place finish in the East.
Club captain Villa was the obvious star of the side, netting 23 times in 33 appearances to earn a spot on the three-man shortlist for the MVP award, but lesser-recognised players within the squad like fan favourite midfielder Tommy McNamara and full-back R.J. Allen also established themselves as valuable contributors from the outset. Frank Lampard managed to repay some of his hefty salary as well despite missing 15 games through injury, chipping in with 12 goals, while Costa Rican newcomer Ronald Matarrita provided some Best XI-calibre performances on the left flank. Andrea Pirlo, meanwhile, remained a somewhat polarising figure due to his perceived lack of defensive effort, but the 37-year-old Italian still registered a team-high 11 assists and even recorded the second-most tackles on the team with 73.
Arguably the most significant development of 2016, though, was the emergence of rookie winger Jack Harrison. The 19-year-old Englishman, who was acquired from the Chicago Fire immediately after being selected with the first-overall pick of the SuperDraft, proved a veritable sensation once he recovered from a pelvic injury that kept him out of action for the early stages of the season, breaking his way into the starting line-up with his creativity, pace and mature decision-making. With four goals and seven assists in 21 games, he proved a more than worthy finalist for the Rookie of the Year award and should be an indispensable building block for Vieira’s men going forward – at least until European suitors come calling.
All things considered, Vieira deserves enormous credit for the work he has done with NYCFC thus far, but his coaching performance in the playoffs did show that he still has a lot to learn. For the first leg in Toronto, his side surprisingly abandoned their principled approach of possession-based football, opting instead to “park the bus” with a defence that gave up 57 regular-season goals. After holding out for the majority of the match, the strategy eventually backfired as they conceded twice in the final 10 minutes, leaving them with an almost impossible task to turn the tie around after going 1-0 down within the first six minutes of the reverse fixture. Essentially, they tried to play like somebody else and suffered significantly as a result. It was a bizarre move by a manager who had previously been so stubborn about his ideology and, according to a report by Big Apple Soccer, left several players “livid”.
If anything, that series highlighted how important it will be for Vieira to improve the balance of his squad over the winter. With Lampard out of contract, the front office will have to decide whether it’s worth offering the former Chelsea star an extension given his injury problems, while it remains to be seen whether Pirlo intends to see out the final year of his deal. The team are certainly desperate for some salary cap relief to strengthen their leaky backline, upgrade the goalkeeper position and bring in a true holding midfielder, but signing a big name or some leading MLS veterans like Toronto pulled off with Clint Irwin, Steven Beitashour, Drew Moor and Will Johnson last winter will require some savvy budgeting. Finding a suitor for the out-of-favour Mix Diskerud would obviously help matters, but it’s critical that the decision-makers don’t let this past season’s overachievement make them think they are only a few moves away from building a genuine MLS Cup contender. After going from 58 goals allowed to just 39 in 2016, Toronto with their Sebastian Giovinco-led attack are currently providing a blueprint for the second-year club to follow, but it will be hard for them to finish in the East’s top two again next term unless they can uncover some more Matarrita-like talents rather than waste resources on middling European imports like Frederic Brillant and Maxime Chanot.
With Vieira seemingly proving himself an exception to the rule that foreign coaches are doomed to fail in the US top-flight, NYCFC fans can feel a lot more positive about their team’s future than this time last year, but there are plenty of transactions to be done and big decisions to be made over the coming weeks and months before we can legitimately assess their MLS Cup credentials for 2017.
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