Their glass is ‘half’ full
Tweak after break keys NYCFC win
All it took was a bit of tinkering for New York City FC to defeat the Montreal Impact on Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium.
After an anemic first half, head coach Domenec Torrent changed his formation and NYCFC cruised to a 3-0 win. Montreal had won four consecutive games before Wednesday.
“In the first half we played wide and our intention was not to play wide,” Torrent said. “Our intention was to play with three strikers. … We didn’t play well.”
The NYCFC trident of Rodney Wallace, Tommy McNamara and Jesus Medina failed to get in behind the Montreal backline early on, with most of their offense coming from fullback Ben Sweat.
Medina and Maximiliano Moralez were ordered to play centrally in the second period, with McNamara and Wallace pushed out wide. The switch worked. Fifteen minutes into the half, Medina scored his first goal since April — a wonderful strike from the edge of the box — to open the scoring.
Five minutes later, substitute Ronald Matarrita netted an audacious chip over Impact goalie Evan Bush, who was caught off his line in no-man’s-land.
“I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt,” substitute Jonathan Lewis said of the unusual finish. “He was definitely going for it.”
The goals had been com- ing, as New York controlled the ball the entire game, but previously lacked the end product to get on the board.
“In the second half, we played close to the way I like to play,” said Torrent, who praised his team’s ability to keep possession.
The game was wrapped up for good with a Lewis header, as the 21-year-old latched onto a Medina cross to score his first goal of the season.
Lewis now has contributed to a goal in consecutive games, as his assist last weekend helped grab the Hudson River Derby from the Red Bulls.
NYCFC’s stout defensive play was also instrumental to the victory, as it shut out an attack that had scored at least two goals in each of the last four games.
Torrent admitted he was “surprised” with the Impact’s team selection, as Alejandro Silva and Matteo Mancosu started on the bench. Still, the team quieted star man Ignacio Piatti and had to deal with Silva in the second half.
“When I watched the last four games, especially these three players — if you are able to control Piatti, Silva and Mancosu you have a [greater] possibility to win the game.”
NYCFC has now won three of their last four — no small feat considering David Villa is still out injured and they have been coached by Torrent for just a month.
With a good run of health and continued contributions from guys such as Matarrita and Lewis, NYCFC could be scary this postseason.