Photo by Adam Hunger/ USA Today Sports
BY MICHAEL PENG
NEW YORK — Building a team from the ground up is no walk in the park, and Jason Kreis knows that, but after watching his club’s winless streak extend to seven matches with a 3-1 loss to the Seattle Sounders on Sunday at Yankee Stadium, the New York City FC head coach is left searching for answers on how to turn this team around.
But perhaps he doesn’t have to look too far to find some inspiration.
“I think there’s a lot of models out there, but Seattle being a team that came from expansion, a team that has a very good fan-following in a fantastic stadium and a fantastic city,” Kreis said after the game. “There’s a lot of things we can model ourselves after them.”
That’s not a bad choice for a paragon by Kreis and NYCFC, as the Sounders have been one of the most successful teams in the MLS since joining the league in 2009, making the playoffs each season while advancing to the conference finals of the MLS Cup twice and winning the U.S. Open Cup four times.
Seattle also got off to a scorching start in its inaugural season, earning victories in its first three contests before going on to claim the U.S. Open Cup and competing in the MLS Cup conference semifinals. Ironically, a Kreis-led Real Salt Lake club took home the trophy that season.
But that was then and this is now, and Seattle head coach Sigi Schmid, who has been with the team since its inception, can certainly relate to what Kreis is currently going through.
“Everybody tries to do the same thing — you want to be successful in your first year,” Schmid told reporters at training leading up to Sunday’s contest. “There are a lot of likenesses like going after a couple of good DPs. We brought in (Fredy) Montero, they brought in (David) Villa. You try to get guys in on discovery; they got Mix Diskerud, we got Kasey Keller.
“You also try to do well in the draft. They have some people who are still around from their expansion draft — the (Chris) Wingerts, the (Ned) Grabavoys. Jason got some guys he’s familiar with which is sort of what we did with (Brad) Evans and (Peter) Vagenas,” Schmid said.
The similarities are certainly there, but Diskerud — who is teammates with Evans and ex-Sounder DeAndre Yedlin on the USMNT — believes NYCFC can mix in its own characters as well in order to be a competitive organization in the league.
“They’re a successful team, so all the good things that they’ve done in the past years, we want to learn,” Diskerud said. “But I think we also have a lot of knowledge in our own team — players and staff who’ve been through a lot and won their own games and championships as well.”
Nobody can write the future for NYCFC, but if having resemblance to an accomplished team like Seattle is a good thing, then perhaps the bests have yet to come for this expansion club.
“You need some confidence, you need some wins, then you go from there,” Schmid said.
Those are certainly some things that could come in handy for a club that has mustered just six points through its first nine games on the season so far.
Kreis wants to be like Seattle? Haha, he’s lost his edge.
Alonso is not underpaid. He’s a DP now.
There are some very good DP-level CDMs available in South America but NYCFC seem to feel they need to have a “big name DP” for every DP spot which means usually “some old guy from Europe”.
Kreis has wanted to be like Seattle ever since his team won MLS Cup here in 2009.
the hate is real in this one not even one season and mls fans are stupid to draw comparison to say chivas USA: I think would reserve judgement for at least 2 years
you dont just drop 100 mil for an mls team plus a stadium but obviously have to see how that comes into fruition or not
In the 3 ways I compared nycfc to chivasusa please let me know how they are wrong
Some similarities, but the most important failings of Chivas are not similar to NYFCs approach. Vergera was and is a complete imbecile. The branding was way more directly tied to a foreign club in name… a club with strong foreign nationalistic requirements. The biggest gaffe- they blatantly, openly marketed themselves in this country to one portion of that nation’s immigrants- even going so far as to sell off superior talent because it didn’t fit the model. lastly- they virtually ignored the club for lengths of time, spent little money or paid little attention to stability in management.
I’m not overly excited about NYFC’s ties to MC, but that fact alone hardly dooms them. If the vast resources behind it are utilized properly and the team marketed properly, it could indeed be an asset. Give Kreis some time and freedom to spend some of that dough on acquisitions and decvelopment- they’ll be alright I suspect..
Well considering they have signed players like villa and soon to come lampard already shows the mentality of the group and how they want to construct a winning team.
You can say the lampard situation was bad and yes hes not coming at the beginning of the season but considering that was more like fake advertising since he never actually signed for the club.
Only thing so far that can be tied like chivas USA is jersey. (Which in my opinion will get changes over the years.
Like i said well see hows things go down with a 3rd dp, and hopefully a SSS (which was always going to be tough in NY) but that will show how much CFG is committed to splash the cash after all money does talk.
Overall its too early and frankly ignorant to compare to chivas usa
I would think the better comparison is ChivasUSA – The owners have their main interest and this something to occupy the off season and get some interest in the big club (if it makes money…. all the better).
Also they are playing their games is some other guys house while at the same time wearing jerseys that look very similar to the big club.
You may say your one of the good guys, but you look an awful like one of the bad ones.
Sigi, intentionally or not, fails to tell the real reason that the Sounders have been at the top for so long. They have Alonso and for most of the time they have won with him ( and lost without ), he has been underpaid.
Finding value in a league where all the teams need value is the key to success. Being able to pay Villa will help, obviously, but finding that value, whether it is Landon in him prime, an undervalued defender, etc. is the key.
NYC have NOT done that. Especially on the defensive side. They are not good.
Alonso is not underpaid. He’s a DP now.
There are some very good DP-level CDMs available in South America but NYCFC seem to feel they need to have a “big name DP” for every DP spot which means usually “some old guy from Europe”.
Even if Seattle WAS an appropriate comparison (their history/fanbase makes it an instant non-starter) it’s kind of too late for this: Seattle literally won on Day 1.
There’s still time to raise their expansion-aspiration sights to Chicago though. Maybe David Villa starts every USOC match?
LOL.
Except for one things. Seattle dominates the USOC. They only other win they really had was SS, after 6 years.
you do a lot of “LOL”ing
are you really criticizing someone for laughing often??… LOL…… LOL…..lol
laughter is the body’s natural medicine…
He said “literally” won on day 1, so I take that to mean Seattle won its very first MLS match. Anyway, the general point remains: Seattle has been mostly good throughout its MLS tenure. Being good almost always helps a team gain and maintain fans. NYCFC just needs time and better players.
And beating Monterrey in Mexico, and knocking Tigres out of the CCL….
Those are as big as an MLS Cup win in my book as the were both better teams than the LA Galaxy.
Certainly there is much to learn from Seattle as they did and do much right. That said, not only is it impossible, but it is unrealistic and misguided to attempt to exactly duplicate every aspect of their model. It’s tantamount to this who’d like MLS to carbon copy every minute detail of a century old league played in essentially what is a one sport market in a shoe-box of a country into our sprawling nation. NY v SEA…two very distinct cities and soccer/sporting cultures and economies. Seattle Sounders were a club with previous history plugged into a downtown long-term home/stadium from day one. As well… MLS is different, the quality improved in the short time since SEA’s introduction. Be humble enough to learn from/take the good concepts that apply to your own situation but be smart enough to know where you need to be creative and brave enough to invent your own model that fits your own unique conditions. That a few splashy DPs and Co. don’t spell immediate success is a good thing. And…. there’s certainly no need to panic for NYFC. Few wins… Lampard shows up and suddenly the tone seems much different. Stadium deal sure wouldn’t hurt.
1.) They were “promoted” with a pre-existing fan base.
2.) They were not a subsidiary of any other team of “football group”
3.) They don’t execute homosexuals, mutilate genitals, or enslave indians
4.) They won early and often
Boom.
Not sure about no 1 there. Only a very small percentage of current Sounders fans ever went to USL Sounders’ games.
While only a small percentage of current Sounders (and for that matter, Whitecaps and Timbers) fans went to USL games just about anyone who was interested in the sport (which is probably around 75% of people in all three cities) had taken in at least one USL match.
Couple that with the history from the NASL (Cascadian MLS teams enjoy a multigenerational support, spanning 40+ years) and yes, Seattle, Vancouver and Portland were more like promoted teams than expansion ones.
All three teams got local print, radio and TV coverage in their USL days so they were already relevant to their cities. That battle for relevance is one which both New York MLS teams have had to wage which Cascadian teams haven’t.
Watching NYCFC’s defense sometimes feels like having ones genitals mutilated.
“one’s”
Kinda funny. Seattle had a built-in fan base from the old NASL days, a grass-roots following starved for top-tier soccer, a stadium people liked, and committed local ownership. NYCFC was planted like an alien spaceship in an existing MLS market by an English football club looking to increase the size of its sky-blue footprint to play in a baseball stadium.
Exactly, they were both “expansion” clubs. The comparisons stop there. Of course everyone wants to model their success after seatlle. Doesn’t mean it’ll happen. Seattle has something that you can’t just duplicate, a counter culture mentality, that was the main ingredient.
yeah, so many of us soccer mom and dads are counter culture.
LOL.
Ever been to Cascadia? Even the soccer moms and dads are counter culture here. 😀 Just look at the crowd.
In all seriousness, MLSsnob. ( That can really be typed MLSnob, easily ).
No. They had a huge drawing in the NASL days, because they were good most of the time. Now they have a big following, because people fell in love with the team. In NY, they drew well in NASL, but they fell in love with HUGE names who won. The Metrostars/Redbulls have had a much harder time in a parity with small names.
The passage of time — well over a decade after the glory days — and MLS’s refusal or inability (depending on how much blame you want to lay on Pepe Pinto, who held the rights to the Cosmos brand) to fold the Cosmos legacy into MLS was always goibng to make it very difficult to build on that legacy. And unlike Seattle and a lot of other old NASL clubs, the Cosmos were never really “of” the NYC region. It was a largely imported collection of stars that almost accidentally “landed” in NY/NJ. The methods and people that made the old Cosmos so successful and popular could not really translate to MLS.
I don’t understand this comment. The Cosmos got 12,500 people for their home opener this year, they spend money, Pele shows up to games and promotes the team, and they remain an iconic brand. Get them a first class stadium, and I don’t see why they’d have difficulty drawing MLS fans anymore than Red Bulls or most MLS teams do. They might not achieve the cultural significance they once had, but that’s not the bar necessary to be successful.
I didn’t mean the Cosmos couldn’t survive. I just meant that it would have been unrealistic to expect them to be as popular as they were in their heyday when MLS came along. Also, be real: they average 4000 to 5000 in attendance.