At the end of Saturday’s 3-1 win against the visiting Chicago Fire the loudspeaker blared the song “Back in the New York Groove” to an empty stadium. Fans at home may not have heard the song on the TV but they were certainly wondering if NYCFC were back to their winning ways.
NYCFC gave their most complete performance since the restart and saw the return of assist leader Maxi Moralez in the second half. New York looked like the team from last season that was runner up in the the supporter’s shield race. They played with style and scored some beautiful goals. They scored more than once. These are accolades that were a given last year but that have been hard fought in the 2020 campaign.
In the seventeenth minute the aftermath of a botched corner gave Alexandru Mitrita the ball on the right side of the pitch. He slotted a beautiful pass connecting to a well timed run by Keaton Parks. Parks received the ball in the box and deftly sent it into the back of the net on the far side. It was nice soccer. It was fun to watch. It was creative an aggressive, but it was not to last.
New York lost the possession battle in the first half and allowed Chicago to dictate the last 15 minutes of the half. when Mauricio Pineda equalized right before the end of the half off a corner kick it seemed like it was a goal destined to happen. Chicago had come close numerous times and NYCFC looked a bit tired.
After half it was a completely different story as Maxi Moralez saw his first action on the pitch since the MLS is Back tournament. With Moralez in the line up everything seemed to work better for NYCFC and in the fifty third minute he did what he does best. Receiving the ball at the top of the box he held up long enough to collapse the defense and find the open man on the far side. Anton Tinnerholm was wide open and put City up again with a great shot on target. NYCFC was in control from there out and would score again in the seventy fifth minute as Tinnerholm crossed the ball to a streaking Alex Ring and Ring slotted it home. Ring had received some flack for “shushing” an empty stadium after he scored last game but with this new return to form he may earn the right to shush all he wants.
Tinnerholm hoped this recent set of wins would propel the team forward. “We had a rough start, there’s no doubt about it. We had a lot of meetings and things got better. But in the end we have to show it on the pitch. It is easy to talk but harder to perform out there. We showed it today and we showed it against Columbus that we can do it. I think the second half we were dominating the game; the Chicago players were so exhausted in the final 15 minutes that they can’t even press us. It reminds me of some games from last season, so we have to keep on doing what we did in the second half here. Now we have some confidence, you can see it in the guys. It’s fun to come in a play some games again, now we have to keep on the momentum that we have started.”
With this win against Chicago the team gained confidence to be sure but so did the fans who hope to keep the groove going in New England this next week
