NYCFC broke their 11 game winless streak on Saturday night as we ousted Philly 2-1.

Wait, What?

We won? Really?

Yes, turns out we got 3 points. Frankly I still haven’t really accepted that as fact because it’s just been so long since it’s happened, I don’t know how to react.

While the hype-machine PR douchebags who run most of NYCFC’s website will herald this win as a massive stepping point, we’d like to put things in perspective before everyone gets their panties in a bunch.

Nothing Changed

The sad truth of that match was that we got very lucky. This was no tactical marvel, no newfound spark from the team, and not even the hardest fought game. There was very little we can point to that contributed to our first win in ages.

David Villa still dribbles too much and overthinks every move he makes, our defense gets caught making stupid tackles, and we struggle to get players wide. Our passing and movement off the ball are poor. We just didn’t play a good game.

If anything, we owe that win more to Philly than ourselves. The amount of chances they wasted and mistakes they made almost looked as bad as us. We would not have even been able to compete in that game had the Union not been so bad themselves.

Yet aside from all this brutal cynicism, there was a positive to take from this game.

Shay Facey

My man. I’ve always been excited about Shay, from the first day the young English lad got subbed on at right back in Yankee stadium. To me it was simple: would I rather have a young American player who’s been playing at college level, or a young Brit who was raised through the Man City youth system? No matter what, he’s going to know things that it will take years for his counterparts to learn, that’s just the reality of the gulf  between youth development in Europe and the States.

Much to my chagrin, however, Facey has had a rough start to life in the MLS. In his first start for the club he managed a red card in the first half and he’s had some really shaky defending. But after getting a rare start at center back against the Houston Dynamo, Facey has impressed, even being named man of the match against Philly.

Facey looked like vintage fuckin’ Vincent Kompany against Philly. He just had that beautiful intangible aurora about him where you just knew he wasn’t going to lose the game. Every cross into the box he managed to clear, he ran tirelessly, his positioning was spot on, and his high field pressing would force mistakes from the opposition attackers.

Though he did have some “training wheels” moments, most notably when his poor excuse for a cross fell invitingly at the feet of a Union player only for him to fuck up. But, as the case was, Philly made us look good. And Facey looked good.

If Facey can keep up this run of form he could be the rock in the back we thought Hernandez would be early in the season.

On To The Next One

At the end of the day, we did win. Which is pretty big. I’ve never played professional footie (…yet) but I believe that this win could have the power to instill real self-belief within our players. And that’ll be important considering the run of games we have coming up.

Looking ahead, we’ve got El Clasico versus the Red Bulls on June 28th. If we can maybe get another win between now and then we might have a real shot of competing. But that’s looking ahead and asking a lot.

For next week we’ve got the Montreal Impact at Yankee Stadium. Montreal are an eclectic team to say the least. They made it to the CONCACAF Champions League final all the while coming in dead last in the league. Anything can happen with those guys, but they’ve been playing some fairly good footie lately. Let’s hope we build on progress and don’t regress.

On to the next one….