Hosts Mark Radigan and John Baney and producer Andrew Leigh are officially no worse for wear after hunkering down for the nor'easter, but they've got lots of ground to cover when discussing the latest setback in this New York City FC season of setbacks.
The 2-2 draw against less-than-stellar, less-than-full-strength Atlanta United FC was more of the same, though not in a good way, for NYCFC and for coach Pascal Jansen. Players inexplicably switching off at bad times, individual errors resulting in match-deciding goals, and valuable points dropped from a winning position: These were all there in the Atlanta draw, and they're issues that have cost New York City all season.
The draw talk leads into a bigger-picture discussion about the playoff race in the MLS Eastern Conference. You get the lay of the land around the final few playoff spots, a look at how NYCFC's closest rivals for those spots are faring at this late-season stage, and talk of what it will take from NYCFC's remaining matches for the club to actually get to the playoffs again.
Then it's over to England to touch on the big scandal engulfing NYCFC's sister team Manchester City FC, with the club reported last week by The Athletic's David Ornstein to have been found guilty on nearly all of the 115 charges the club faced over breaking Premier League financial rules. The big takeaway: It's impossible to say, as of now, how any of this will impact the other City Football Group clubs that join Man City in the shared multi-club universe, and what any of this could mean for New York City FC and its soccer business over here in the United States.
Speaking of the United States, it's still an international break for a few more weeks, and the United States men's national team is back playing for the first time since this summer's World Cup, and NYCFC's Matt Freese was still the starting goalkeeper, at least for the first half of the first friendly vs Peru.
While Freese is a World Cup holdover and now the most experienced goalkeeper in this very-young camp, everyone on the pod agrees that the current moment is all about experience and exposure for the next generation of potential USMNT starters and contributors, including those competing to start between the sticks. Highly-touted young goalkeeper Diego Kochen was one of 11 players handed a USMNT debut by Mauricio Pochettino in the first friendly of this new 2030 World Cup cycle, and the initial returns were promising for the next class of USMNT players, with two debutants scoring goals and with none of the youngsters looking out of place.
Listen to the full episode embedded at the top of this post (and apologies in advance for some technical/sound issues we encountered recording this episode), or find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts.
