New York City FC head coach Pascal Jansen understands the demands of the MLS schedule as his team will play their third game in seven days with hopes of taking six out of nine points available. To do so they’ll have to improve their woeful road form against a Sporting KC team that is always dangerous despite their dismal record in 2025.
“We know it’s part of MLS,” said Jansen when asked about how the travel and schedule affect his team’s preparation. “We have to deal with it. I have to give a lot of credit to the rest of my staff, my performance staff in particular. They’ve been preparing our players for these circumstances well before we went into this sequence. We hope to benefit from that and make sure we have a big chance of performing as well as we can.”
City have not had an easy summer. Starting goalkeeper Matt Freese missed significant time while playing internationally for the US Men’s national team. Team’s leading scorer Alonso Martinez also missed time while midfielder Keaton Parks has battled injuries for most of the first half of the season. Jansen has been able to rotate to keep his club in the playoff miss with this Wednesday big win over Orlando City seeing them leap over rivals New York Red Bulls.
The final game in this packed schedule will have the team deal with yet another major loss as dynamic winger Hannes Wolf is expected to miss Saturday’s fixture. This will put extra pressure on Agustin Ojeda and Julian Fernandez, who have shown flashes of brilliance but yet to imprint themselves as reliable starters.
“We’re looking beyond that,” said Jansen when speaking about the confidence from the team’s most recent result. “We want to get better at our away games because that’s been an issue in several conversations. Going into this Kansas City game, being an away game as well, we want to make sure that our stretch goes further than just the game against Orlando.”
A win for NYC could see the club hop even further into a solid playoff position. Currently sitting in seventh place, the Pigeons could rise as high as sixth, leaping over Orlando City and continuing to put pressure on on Inter Miami, who they only trail by four points.
photo from NYCFC