The New York City Football Club came out of the gate like a team possessed on route to a 3-1 win over visiting Nashville SC as the regular season comes to a close, breaking the 50 point mark in a season for the 7th time in their 10 year history. It took literally 17 seconds for the home club to take an early 1-0 lead, as Santiago Rodriguez took a shot from the center of the box to the left side of the net for the 10th fastest goal in MLS history.
17 minutes later Rodriguez picked up his 2nd of the half going left side of the box for a 2-0 lead that would last 3 minutes, as Alonso Martinez picked up his team leading 16th of the year by the 21st minute. These three goals in the first half was the fastest NYCFC picked up 3 since 2021 when they picked up a 3 spot against DC in 11 minutes.
Hany Mukhtar ended up putting Nashville on the board at the 58 minute to avoid the shutout for the team eliminated from playoff contention just a day before. However despite over 20 shots towards the net (the second time this season NYCFC has allowed 20 or more) the final ended at 3-1.
After the match, head coach Nick Cushing talked the match and what the goal was at the beginning of the season, “We didn’t score enough goals last year, so we set a target of scoring 55 goals this season. We believed that if we scored 55 goals, we’d be around fourth place, knowing that last year our defensive record was the second-best in the Eastern Conference. I’m proud that we’ve achieved that target.”
The club has a week off because of an international break and will play it’s final match of the regular season up north in Montreal on October 19 in an attempt to land a 4th place spot in the East and 2 home matches in the best of three series.
5 STATS
1) Since 2022 in MLS play, NYCFC is in fact 5W-1L-0D at Red Bull Arena.
2) This match was the second time this season that NYCFC has allowed 20 shots on goal in a match (as I mentioned). The other time it occurred was against Philadelphia earlier in the year (otherwise known as the Raccoon game):
3) NYCFC is now 6W-0L-0D when scoring at least 3.
4) This is also the 4th time in team history that the club has scored at least 3 in three straight matches. The last time that took place was April 17 – May 1 in 2022 (6 against Real Salt Lake, 5 against Toronto followed by 3 vs San Jose)
5) This was also the second time that Santiago Rodriguez has scored 2 in a match, previously doing it back in April of 2023 against Dallas. Additionally at 12 goals this season, he has doubled his previous best season in goals when he had 6 goals in 2019 while playing in Uruguay for Nacional.
About the author – Scott Churchson is the head honcho and occasional toilet cleaner for Stream Punk Entertainment. He’s also been an actor in every way for the past 14 years, from BG to stand in to stunts and principal, a sports writer for the past 4 and is one of the people that created Stream Punk Entertainment. He’s married to a veterinarian, has a cat with three working legs and is just a simple man trying to make his way in the universe.