Photo by Brad Penner/USA Today Sports
BY MICHAEL PENG
NEW YORK — Dairon Asprilla found a good time to score the first goal of his MLS career as his score in the 79th minute helped the Portland Timbers defeat New York City FC, 1-0, on Sunday night at Yankee Stadium.
Asprilla’s shot from just inside the box was deflected by NYCFC centerback Kwame Watson-Siriboe and bounced past goalkeeper Josh Saunders into the net. The Timbers’ defense proceeded to hold up and spoiled several equalizing opportunities for the home team in the final 15 minutes to make the result hold up.
“I hate saying this, but I’m going to say it, I think we are getting quite unfortunate and really unlucky,” NYCFC head coach Jason Kreis said after the match.
The Timbers, who came in on the heels of a 2-0 loss to Orlando City, did not generate much offense for most of the match but made the most of their opportunities when it counted. Portland had three shots on target in 12 tries and Fanendo Adi and Ishmael Yartey led the way with four and three attempts, respectively.
NYCFC, meanwhile, had to play without several of its regular starters as the likes of Jason Hernandez, Josh Williams, Mix Diskerud and star forward David Villa were all forced to sit due to injuries.
“We had five players who were unavailable today due to injuries and that’s a lot,” Kreis said, “but the players that were called upon tonight to put in a performance showed what they are about and the morale today was especially high. They were willing and able to do anything for each other and that’s encouraging as well.”
Patrick Mullins and Tony Taylor started up top for NYCFC instead but the home team could not get the ball past Portland’s Adam Kwarasey in 21 tries — five of which came on goal.
“I thought I created chances, and I thought I helped others create,” said Mullins, who took five shots. “Except that we couldn’t find the final piece of the puzzle, which is to finish off.”
To make matters worse for NYCFC, Taylor was stretchered off the pitch after rolling his ankle without any contact in the 33rd minute. Kreis described Taylor’s injury as “not good” and he fears possible damage to a ligament tendon.
The loss for NYCFC now stretches the club’s winless streak to five matches. The expansion team’s last victory came in its home opener against New England Revolution on March 15.
“The most critical to me is to make sure that we don’t let these results turn into really negative stuff around here,” Kreis said. “It’s the only thing that can really break us right now is if we stop believing in each other and stop willing and able to work for each other.”
NYCFC will get another chance to get back on track when the club visits the Chicago Fire on Friday. Portland, meanwhile, will travel to take to the Seattle Sounders on Sunday.
I’ve seen suggestions about the Cosmos buying out RBNY, but wouldn’t it make more sense for them to buy the Mankees and continue the tradition of playing at Yankee Sradium?
What a junk show! The field dimensions and playing surface hinder both teams. NYFC will have to play two different styles at home and on the road. How can you establish a system when your home stadium is a bathtub with grass reaching the bottom of your shins? With no width, tall grass, the game turns into body on body football. NYFC game plans well with the middle clogged up with the numbers no one with speed can turn the corner and run wide with no space.
Feel bad for the dude who’s foot stuck in the outfield grass!
Oh and thanks FoxSports! NASCAR has a lot of interest and pull on the west coast!
NYC played well considering the injuries. They are starting to move the ball really well, but when Villa is out, they have no finishers. Shelton missed 2-3 golden opportunities, though the kid put in a great shift overall and is showing great potential. He just can’t finish on this level yet. Brovsky is also worse than useless on the attack. He’s a good defender but seems completely incapable of making a positive play on the attack and, unfortunately, the system Kreis is employing right now relies on fullbacks getting forward and contributing because they provide the width.
Oh look, the RBNY defector. Hope you’re enjoying the baseball stadium. And the losses.
Heh.
I don’t hate nycfc, that’d imply some kind of love for them. Maybe at worst I’m embarrassed for ny’ers and at most I’m amused by their whole setup (from fo to fans, all suffering from delusions of grandeur). Unlucky? Seriously? No your team sucked & the other team scored via the best player on the field, straight up.
Asprilla was not the best player on the field.
It’s hard watching games on that field. MLS has come too far with SSSs to allow a franchise to play on a field for high school games.
The field is so tiny because MLS didn’t want to disturb the Yankee Stadium groundskeepers. Apparently the pitchers mound is too much work for them.
In an overhead shot of the stadium you can see that there is still plenty of room to expand the field so it must be a groundskeeping issue.
Too bad the game moved from FS1 to FS2 (which hardly anyone has).
Not for me, let us Uverse customers who are normally blacked out watch it.
What a joke. I turned the game on saw that it had been preempted show FS1 could show cars driving around in a circle. Xfinity doesn’t offer FS2 so no game for me, or anyone else who has xfinity, last night.
Nycfc play like if opponents are afraid of them but they gotta realize everybody wants to beat them at Yankee stadium.
Kinda like when timbers, sounders, skc open their stadium and they thought it would be their fortress but not really, because opponents love to play in crazy atmospheres and fun environment.
Another thing, nycfc is the galaxy of the east and everybody wants to beat them and I actually think nycfc is the most hated team in MLS, given that nycfc will have dps,money and connections.
And before I get attack, I know they were missing villa but they Lampard asap and another forward.
Why not get tevez or the mexican sensation Javier.
Find it funny as a fan that we are hated. The team is its in first year and already every MLS fans fell threatened. We talk about having MLS team being strong as possible for the sake of the league yet those are the most hated teams because they might not get the same support for their team or w.e. Contradicting. Team is still a work in progress obviously its pathetic many think we are some juggernaut as we got to our 7th mls match
juggernaut because of resources to clarify
Hated already? Come on. Your team just put on uniforms and your fans just learned that we have soccer here. Who can hate the infants of MLS and their newbie fans.
I can’t wait for your games vs RBNY.
People I know in the city act like MLS was just invented because of NYCFC. Meanwhile they’ve had a team for twenty years just as close to most people in the city with a great SSS to boot.
People hate Mansour and the despicable fools who pay him their money while pretending it’s no different than any other team.
Does anyone know the attendance numbers for NYCFC?… I cant never get a feel for how the atmosphere is on TV… its hard to tell if there a lots of ppl at a game or just the bullpen section is packed.
Judging by the size of the field,…I would guess the average attendance for a Yankee game. 😉
Yankees are averaging 40k so far this season so I think it’s quite a bit less.
NYCFC website says 27K for the KC game, 20K on Thursday and 22K (rounding) on Sunday. As any Red Bulls fan can tell you, paid attendance and actual show-ups can be different by quite a bit. I’d call the numbers respectable so far — better weather and a full squad (inlucding Lampard) should life the numbers more.
Third best team in town