NYCFC concedes stoppage-time winner, extends losing streak

New York City FC suffered its fourth straight defeat across all competitions with a 2-1 loss to FC Cincinnati on Wednesday night at TQL Stadium.

After Cincinnati took an lead early, Luighi leveled things up for New York City with his second goal in two games. The loanee from SE Palmeiras in Brazil could have scored more, if not for Roman Celentano's impressive performance in goal, making seven saves and six coming in the second half to repeatedly deny NYCFC a go-ahead goal.

New York City once again couldn't contain Evander, who scored in second-half stoppage time to give Cincinnati three points, ending his side's five-game winless run against NYCFC. It was also New York City's first loss at TQL Stadium since October 2024 when they fell 1-0 in the MLS Cup Playoffs.

It just had to be Evander for the last-minute game winner 😱 pic.twitter.com/59XVf4Qksy

— Major League Soccer (@MLS) August 20, 2026

Highlights: FC Cincinnati vs New York City FC

Luighi continues goal-scoring form

After going down 1-0, it didn't take long for NYCFC to equalize.

Exactly 10 minutes after Kenji Mboma Dem's opening goal, a nice build-up play between Nico Fernández Mercau and Agustín Ojeda was finished off well by Luighi for his second goal in two games.

The perfect finish from Luighi 🤌🇧🇷 pic.twitter.com/qaNVKgvHpv

— New York City FC (@newyorkcityfc) August 20, 2026

Luighi had several more chances to get on the scoresheet again, but Celentano made two great saves to keep the Brazilian at bay. Still, Luighi became only the club's second player after Ismael Tajouri-Shradi in 2018 to score in each of their first two regular-season starts.

With the club's new Designated Player, Bénie Traoré, struggles to make an impact early in his NYCFC career, Luighi has made a much more significant one despite playing three fewer games than Traoré.

The 20-year-old striker has quickly made a case for New York City to sign him permanently once his loan from SE Palmeiras ends at the end of the year.

Almost kept Evander quiet

With NYCFC struggling defensively — conceding seven goals in the past three games in all competitions — it was not an ideal time to play Cincinnati, the side that had scored the second-most goals in the league (47) going into this round of MLS matches.

To try and stop the bleeding, head coach Pascal Jansen benched Max Murray for the back-from-injury Raul Gustavo, who slotted next to James Sands at center-back for the first time ever. Jansen also dropped Nico Cavallo for Kevin O'Toole at left-back.

The reshuffled backline partially worked, but ultimately, New York City continued its trend of conceding late goals.

Even while New York City held this Cincinnati attack to less than three goals at home for the first time in five games, the visitors couldn't stop star midfielder Evander.

The Cincinnati No 10 scored his fourth career goal against the club and third-ever in stoppage time. Evander is now up to a league-leading 22 goal contributions this season with 12 goals and 10 assists.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that Cincinnati scored late, as it leads the league in stoppage-time goals (nine) and has earned 14 points after the 75th minute this season, second-most in MLS behind 16 for Inter Miami CF.