New York City FC 2-0 Santos de Guápiles: CONCACAF Champions League
On Tuesday, New York City FC faced Santos de Guápiles in their first competitive match of the season. The Pigeons traveled to Costa Rica to face their opponent in the CONCACAF Champions League, and already had an advantage going into the fixture. Unfortunately for Santos, FOX Sports said three of their international players, Javon East, Everardo Rubio, and Luis Paradela, were not available for the match due to visa issues over the past week. Additionally, the Costa Rican side only had five substitutes available.
For NYCFC, multiple starters from 2021 were in the starting XI, including Valentín Castellanos. His future is still up in air, but the 2021 Golden Boot winner had another productive game, and was consistently an attacking threat. Keaton Parks was finally available again off the bench, but Alfredo Morales was unfortunately not available due to testing positive for COVID-19.
Despite the player advantage, winning was not a guarantee, and this was proven throughout the fixture. There were times where the Pigeons looked messy and unsure of themselves. Then, there were concerning giveaways and missed clear-cut opportunities too.
At the same time, NYCFC had the attacking advantage, for they led with 15 shots and six on target compared to Santos’ 11 shots with just one on target. For the most part, the opposing team was barely a threat for Sean Johnson. This lack of attack led the Pigeons to beat the Costa Rican side, scraping by to a 2-0 win.
Valentín Castellanos led New York City FC to a 2-0 win over Santos de Guápiles F.C.
It did not take long for New York City FC to get their first competitive goal of the season. In the 5th minute, Santos defender Michael Barquero was called for a handball in the box. Of course, the Pigeons were awarded a penalty and Castellanos, as expected, stepped up to take it. When the whistle blew, the Argentine took his shot to the left side of the goal. The goalkeeper, Kevin Ruíz, went in the right direction, and even got a finger or two on the ball, but Castellanos’ shot was too powerful, and he put his team up 1-0.
That was not the last goal though for the forward. In the 30th minute, Malte Amundsen put the ball into the box, and Santos players attempted to clear, but they could not do their job, and the ball fell right to Castellanos. With one touch, he swept the ball into the top right corner of the back of the net, and doubled the lead. In total he had five shots, with three on target, during his 89 minutes of play.
While the team was unable to score another goal, they still continued to attack throughout the match. At least, that was the case before Ronny Deila had to change to a more defensive tactic, for the momentum changed in the 69th minute. Unfortunately, Santiago Rodríguez was shown a red card after stepping hard on the foot of Erson Méndez while going after the ball.
In most cases, that foul would have been deserving of a yellow card, and it is bewildering to how the referee thought it was a red. It was not like Rodríguez saw Méndez and deliberately stepped on his foot. He did not have any poor intentions, nor was he careless with fouls throughout the fixture. The red card is puzzling, but fans would say that is just CONCACAF.
This led to a defensive effort for the final 20 plus minutes of the game. Clearly, NYCFC was not perfect in the defensive third, for there were multiple mistakes and givaways. Luckily, Santos struggled in the attack, and most of their offensive efforts came from outside the box, and often went high or wide. Plus, NYCFC was more compact and alert when defending in the box. They were able to keep Santos out of goal, even when they were down to ten men.
Some more points
Yes, the match was not perfect. Sometimes it looked like New York City FC was playing a preseason fixture. In some sense, the team is still in preseason mode, so it is not surprising it was rough waters instead of smooth sailing for 90 minutes. More importantly, fans cannot forget that the Pigeons do tend to start seasons sluggishly, especially in the defensive third. At this point, there is nothing that is alarming, and fans should not worry.
And rather than focus on the negative aspects of the match, it is good to look at the positive ones too. To begin, there were some promising moments from Talles Magno. He made some decent runs for scoring opportunities, and worked hard in the midfield to win the ball back from Santos. He also had three shots, and one on target, so he was heavily involved in the attack.
Meanwhile, Amundsen had a decent game for himself. The biggest critique about the left-back from 2021 was his difficulty with getting into the attacking third and being productive. In this first leg of this CONCACAF Champions League Round of 16, the defender provided goal scoring opportunities. He did well to get into the attack, and made some timely runs. Hopefully this is a sign that he will continue to improve throughout 2022.
The win was not perfect. As mentioned, it was messy at times, and the team was lucky to scrape by with a 2-0 win. Yet, a win is a win, and now New York City FC will return to the United States with a two goal advantage heading into the second leg.