New York City FC head coach Pascal Jansen shared his frustration following his team’s 1-0 home loss to last place DC United. His club, which has made huge strides in recent weeks by defeating Nashville SC and FC Cincinnati, both teams that are playoff bound in 2025, but have found it difficult to defeat lower competition like CF Montreal and this past week’s opponents.
“We got punished for small errors,” said Jansen after the loss. “The first half was going our way. We were playing well, good goal. We also know that they were looking for moments like when they scored the equalizer. Giving away a throw-in and then defending like we did, especially in the second phase.”
City, who went ahead early thanks to an unlikely goal from defender Justin Haak, looked as if they were cruising to an easy victory. The goal from Gabriel Priani right before the halftime whistle changed everything. Even as NYC were dominating the game in the second half, there were still openings for United to jump back into the game. They took that chance after the 70th minute to find the surprise go-ahead goal.
Jansen also spoke freely about his frustration around his team’s play against competition considered less than in the standings. DC are a perfect example as one of the few teams already eliminated from the MLS Cup Playoffs. There is little for them to play for in 2025 but still push forward in the competition with results against Miami last week and now City yesterday.
“To be honest, I don’t really have the answer,” said Haak about the team’s loss. “We’ve seen it twice this year versus Montreal. They were in last place when we played them and lost both of those games. So, even when we played DC away, it was as similar game a little bit. We dominated the ball but couldn’t really score and, in the end, didn’t get what we needed to take away from these games to finish higher in the standings.”
With the points lost between games against Montreal and DC, the club could have been comfortably hosting a playoff game without having to worry about the wild card play-in game. Now, while they are still in good standing, they’ll have to push harder for results and hope for lapses from teams above and below on the table.
“We wanted three points,” said Alonso Martinez. “Unfortunately, it didn’t happen. Now it’s about thinking about the next games after the break we have and thinking about what we did wrong and what we did right today in this match.”
Next up after the international break is a monumental game against Chicago Fire FC. Chicago is looking to defend Soldier Field and push their way into the tight playoff picture next to NYCFC and New York Red Bulls.”
photo by Jordan Bank