This episode of The Soccer Journal Podcast kicks off with discussion of a positive result in what's still a negative moment for New York City FC, as host John Baney and producer Andrew Leigh weigh the mixed bag that was a 0-0 draw at home with league leaders Nashville SC.
The good: It was a clean sheet, the first NYCFC kept in months, so there's praise for the defensive work and talk of the importance of Thiago Martins, who was healthy and out there for all 90 minutes against Nashville even after limping out of the previous match in Toronto.
The bad: Another match and another failure to get a win, now seven played without one. It's hard to see the positive side, NYCFC unbeaten in three straight, when it's been so long between wins, and when it was a hang-on-for-dear-life variety of a scoreless draw with Nashville.
There were, however, undeniable positives in the return to the squad of both Aiden O'Neill and Alonso Martínez, with O'Neill looking as smooth as ever in the midfield over the final 20 minutes of the Nashville draw in his first action since the summer's FIFA World Cup. There's also the symbolic return to the bench, with no intention of actually playing according to Pascal Jansen, for Alonso Martínez, who made the squad but still awaits his on-field return.
With the storylines coming out of the Nashville game put to bed, it's on to the close of the MLS transfer window, and the final moves made by NYCFC this summer: Loaning out Seymour Reid to Sporting Kansas City, and picking up a draft pick and some allocation money for an international slot. Most of the talk is focused on Seymour Reid reuniting with former sporting director of NYCFC, David Lee, out in the midwest, as we wonder how Reid will fare stepping into more minutes on a team in full rebuild mode. Transfer talk also includes some money supposedly coming New York City's way with Santi Rodríguez returning to MLS and joining Columbus Crew, though with the $6 million fee paid by the Crew diverted from Botafogo instead to the teams Botafogo owes money to in MLS, namely NYCFC and Atlanta United. It's complicated.
There's also an update on the state of the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup, which in 2027 will welcome back all 27 MLS clubs based in the United States, with the full slate of teams eligible set to return to the tournament for the first time since 2023, after MLS reduced the number of first teams to participate in the 2024, 2025, and 2026 editions. There's universal praise for the league's full return to the Open Cup, as well as for the tweaks to the schedule, though we continue to wonder how Leagues Cup and Open Cup will fit together in the new summer-to-spring MLS calendar, once it debuts next July.
The episode wraps up with a double-preview of the week's two crucial NYCFC matches, first the home meeting with Jack Harrison's New England Revolution, then the quick turnaround trip to the mountains in Utah to face Real Salt Lake on Saturday night. This kicks off an important stretch for NYCFC and the consensus is the club should be targeting a minimum of four points collected from these two games, but John and Andrew fill you in on what to expect from the Revs and RSL and make their own predictions for this week's points totals.
Listen to the full episode embedded at the top of this post, or find it or find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts.
