Photo by Andy Marlin/USA TODAY Sports
By MICHAEL PENG
NEW YORK — The roar of the crowd was already thunderous, then it became deafening.
After more than a year of connection with New York City FC, former Chelsea star and England legend Frank Lampard made his MLS debut at last.
The moment came seconds after David Villa, the club’s captain and first-ever player, had just converted a penalty in the 68th minute to cut into what was a 2-0 deficit to the Montreal Impact, and Lampard jogged onto the pitch at Yankee Stadium to a standing ovation of 27,645 in the Bronx.
“I think every player, if they are honest with you, would like to feel the crowd and to feel the crowd’s support and I’ve sensed that,” Lampard said after the game. “I’ve seen it in the games, particular last week, it was a fantastic atmosphere, [Andrea] Pirlo came on and got an amazing reception. I think the fans, the support was seen fantastically, it’s up to me now to repay that by playing well.”
He didn’t get a chance to return that favor right away on Saturday, as he was limited to just 25 minutes in what was an eventual 3-2 loss by NYCFC. Nevertheless, Lampard was excited to make his first appearance in front of the home fans after a calf injury delayed his debut.
“It’s been a difficult few weeks for me because when you’re frustrated and desperate to make your debut, the weeks feel longer,” Lampard said. “It felt like a long time for me.”
Lampard trained just two days with the club this week leading up to the match and head coach Jason Kreis said the team needed to manage Lampard’s minutes wisely on Saturday.
“We needed to limit Frank to under 30 minutes,” Kreis said. “I think if my training staff had their way, it would’ve been under 20, but we made a negotiation and we wanted to get Frank on there for as long as we could, so 25 was the answer. I think it was a great timing because we had just scored a goal and I thought it would give us another emotional push.”
The timing of Lampard’s entrance might have been great, but the circumstance wasn’t so much, as NYCFC was still down a goal with not much time remaining. Lampard said it would’ve been ideal to enjoy his 20-something minutes during his debut rather than “trying to make things happen too quick.”
“It’s always difficult to come in when you’re chasing a game because you need to get straight into it,” Lampard said. “We were trying to force things because you need to score goals and you sometimes play forward quickly and stuff like that, the usual difficulties.”
During his time on the pitch, Lampard got 16 touches on the ball and connected on 61.5 percent of his passes while creating one scoring chance. Kreis said Lampard had “good moments and bad moments” and hoped more training time with the team would lead to better results in the future.
“It’s a transition period,” Kreis said. “He looked a little bit rusty and that’s how it’s going to be. He hasn’t played a competitive match since May and we’ve been going through a little bit of a catching-up for so many weeks, so we’ll hopefully get a full training with him this week and improve his performance moving forward.”
NYCFC won’t play again until next Sunday when the club travels to Harrison, N.J. to take on the New York Red Bulls for the third and final time this season, so Lampard has a bit of time to heal his calf and get his fitness up in order to — in his own words — “contribute quickly” in an ongoing season with the hopes of making the playoffs.
“Personally I would like to get fitter,” Lampard said. “Andrea Pirlo just turned up and played in two weeks, which isn’t a long time. David Villa socring goals and the team is coming together. I think it’s small tweaks that we can make that will amke us a real strong team and then you can look to win a few games back-to-back and then we are going to have a real shot at getting into the playoffs.”
NYCFC currently sits below the playoff cut line with 24 points and when asked if he believes the turnaround can happen in time, Lampard said “of course,” but that it’s all up to the team.
“I’m not going to stand here and say we certainly will, I know the tools are here in the dressing room,” Lampard said. “We’ve got all the ability in players to do stuff. So that’s up to us, say as much as you want but it doesn’t matter until we put those wins together.”
Lampard’s presence now completes the final piece to NYCFC’s roster puzzle, and while it last only about 25 minutes on Saturday, fans got their first chance to watch all three of NYCFC’s Designated Players take the pitch at the same time.
For Lampard, the chance to play alongside Villa and Pirlo, two players who were often opponents of his during their respective careers in Europe, was a “pleasure.”
“I think time will make us link up even better,” Lampard said. “I think when you’re dealing with top players and playing with the likes of David, you know with the runs he makes, you know what you can create.
“Andrea is the same. He’s a very particular player. I don’t think there’s many like him, I think he is a one-off. He has a certain amount of time on the ball that rest of us don’t seem to have and the quality to deliver the pass so I think it will be great to have a good week of training together now and then we can start hopefully getting those link-up between us.”