NEW YORK — Seven minutes into New York City FC’s second meeting with Orlando City SC at Yankee Stadium this season, those in attendance may well have felt deja-vu all over again.
The seventh minute in the first meeting between the sophomore clubs in Major League Soccer was the mark of the only goal of the game following a massive mistake from NYCFC goalkeeper Josh Saunders.
With the ball curling into the box from the right flank, Saunders came out to clear the cross, only to deflect the ball right onto Orlando City striker Cyle Larin’s head and into the back of the empty net. The goal was enough for the visitors as they left the Bronx with a 1-0 win, handing New York its first loss of the season.
Sunday afternoon, more than two months later, the same situation unfolded as a cross whipped in from the right flank seven minutes in found Larin wide open once again. This time, however, Saunders stayed on his line and made a great reaction save, diving to his left to save both the initial header and the rebound.
From that point on, NYCFC dictated play and controlled a majority of the possession just as it had in the first meeting, further pushing the similarity with the previous matchup.
But this time, things were different — or so it seemed. After Saunders avenged his error from the last contest, the home side reversed its wastefulness from the last meeting with Orlando, taking a 2-0 lead in the 66th minute.
Three minutes later, the Blues were given a penalty.
With Major League Soccer’s leading goalscorer David Villa, who scored NYCFC’s second goal minutes earlier, stepping up to take the shot, it appeared NYCFC was headed towards a comfortable win, a huge step in recovering from the embarrassing 7-0 loss to rivals New York Red Bulls eight days earlier.
From that point on, the 25,039 in attendance witnessed a scene they’ve become all too familiar with.
Orlando stormed New York with two goals in the final 20 minutes — one from Julio Baptista three minutes after the penalty and one in the final minute of stoppage time by Kevin Molino — as a match NYCFC seemed sure to win ended in a 2-2 draw in another late-collapse.
“Obviously, we are disappointed in not winning the three points,” Villa said. “We played a good game. We played good when we had the ball, we fight good when we don’t have the ball, but concede, again goals, in the last minute, we are a bit unlucky … We deserve more. We put in the pitch more than the rival but we need improve the last minutes.”
The Blues seemed well on their way to beginning to turnaround their struggles at home, where they are now 1-2-5 at home on the season.
Controlling the match for most of the first half, they were well positioned to take the lead.
Three minutes before the whistle blew to signal halftime, NYCFC cashed in on its dominance.
Having already missed a golden opportunity in the 25th minute when he headed a ball just over the crossbar of Joseph Bendik’s goal, Frederic Brillant didn’t make the same mistake twice as he put the ball past Bendik.
The play began with a cross from Andrea Pirlo finding a wide open RJ Allen on the far end of the penalty area. The defender, playing at left-back for the first time this season, controlled the pass and whipped in a cross that found the Frenchman’s head, who made up for his earlier mishap by giving the home side a 1-0 lead.
The assist was the most notable contribution from Allen, but certainly not the only. The Old Bridge, New Jersey, native was everywhere for NYCFC in the final third, linking play and creating multiple chances for his teammates.
After taking an ambitious strike from the left corner of the box, which curled wide of Bendik’s goal, in the 10th minute, Allen combined with Tommy McNamara on a corner five minutes later. McNamara had space and struck the ball near post, clanging it off the outside of the woodwork and out for a goal kick.
Allen wouldn’t reveal if the corner was prepared ahead of time or was just spontaneous chemistry. The defender, who admitted he could play on either flank at full-back, said his team must forget Sunday’s result and look ahead to Thursday’s game against Real Salt Lake.
“I could play left-back, right-back … I could play either side,” he said. “Just learn from (the match), look forward and correct everything we can.”
Shortly after Brillant missed what was NYCFC’s best chance at that point, Allen found Villa making a run through midfield and put him through with a cutting ball, but the Spaniard couldn’t finish as his strike went wide.
Sandwiched in between the miss from Allen’s pass and the penalty miss that was the beginning of the end for his side was Villa’s MLS leading 9th goal of the season — and what a beauty it was.
On the counter following an Orlando corner, Pirlo received the ball in midfield and found Villa making a run towards the box. The Italian stroked a ball onto Villa’s chest before the striker controlled it and chipped it over Bendik, who had rushed off his line.
“The secret of the goal was the very good ball of Andrea and the control was good,” Villa said. “I say always the same — when you make a good control, it’s more easy.”
Had Villa finished as cooly from the penalty spot, where he said his left leg slipped as he took his shot, Orlando would be all but done for with a three goal deficit with 20 minutes to play and all the momentum in the home side’s favor.
Instead, Villa missed and Baptista converted on the other end all in the matter of five minutes, a sequence which completely shifted the momentum of the match.
Down a goal with 18 minutes of regulation to play, the team with the most goals after the 90th minute in MLS had hope against the club with the least amount of points earned at home in the league this season.
As the seconds ticked away, Orlando appeared to be inching closer and closer to knotting the game up at two goals. In its last chance of the match, the hope paid off.
“They just keep going and that’s the one thing they do — they don’t quit and they keep going,” Orlando City head coach Adrian Heath said of his team. “Human nature is that you try to protect what you’ve got when you’re ahead, so you don’t realize you end up putting more pressure on yourself. The more men we put forward, we got the ball in their box, I said to the guys on the bench, ‘I think we’ll get one more chance,’ and we did.”
After Villa attempted one last shot from the center circle following the restart, the final whistle blew.
In the end, the points were split evenly — one to each side — after both clubs ended the game in their typical fashion. But the point Orlando is returning home certainly felt sweeter than the one earned by its opponent.
“Of course we are disappointed,” said NYCFC head coach Patrick Vieira. “When you look at the game, the way we started, the situation and the game we played, just taking one point from that game is unbelievable. We had a situation where we should have killed the game. Score that third goal and the game would be finished and we didn’t do it. We gave them the chance to get back into the game and to concede the goal the way we conceded it in the last second is really frustrating.”
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