NYCFC is held scoreless in the 0-0 draw against Chicago Fire FC

On Saturday evening, New York City FC traveled to the Windy City to play against Chicago Fire FC.  The 13th-place side on paper was a team that could be beaten.  However, this was a road match.  Except for the three road games the Pigeons won earlier in the season, anything away from home has not been kind.  There was a reason they only won once on the road in the 2023 season.

While NYCFC was without four players due to injury, Nick Cushing still put out a decent lineup.  Christian McFarlane started his first Major League Soccer game with Kevin O’Toole out, which is something fans wanted.  Unfortunately, Birk Risa did not start, but he was available off the bench, coming on late in the second half.  Strahinja Tanasijević was partnered with Thiago Martins, making the backline susceptible to mistakes.

The third center-back has not had a great start to his NYCFC career, so the pressure was on for him to have his best game in City Blue colors.  At the same time, the Pigeons had to score if they wanted to walk away with all three points.

However, the team from Queens could not find the back of the net.  It ended in a 0-0 draw, with the Fire and NYCFC splitting the spoils.  Defensively they got the job done, but the missing goals were problematic. A point on the road is not bad, but at this rate, it was not a good result.

NYCFC and Chicago’s game ends in a 0-0 draw

Things did not start well for NYCFC since Andrés Perea had to come off early in the first half.  This does not help the recent injury issues.  Cushing made the interesting choice to sub on Justin Haak instead of moving Santiago Rodríguez back into the midfield and bringing a natural winger on.  The Uruguayan did rotate with the central-attacking midfield role though, giving him space to roam the final third.  Subsequently, Haak came on to play as the left midfielder.

Also, NYCFC was constantly switching with a 4-3-3 and 4-2-3-1 lineup.  This allowed the flexibility for Rodríguez, but he could not impact the game in a meaningful way.

Overall, this was not the best offensive match for the Pigeons.  They had eight shots with one on target.  The best chance came in the 64th minute when Mitja Ilenič hit the post and the ball bounced back away from the goal.  Otherwise, the road struggles are officially back on track, which is not a good thing.  Of the four games in the road stretch, the Fire was their best chance at all three points.

There was also a goal that was offside due to the sequence that led to the shot.  Mounsef Bakrar almost had another goal, but sadly Keaton Parks’ header pass to Rodríguez was why the goal was called off.

Meanwhile, it felt like there were multiple missed foul calls by the referee on NYCFC.  It would not matter if he consistently missed ones on Chicago too, but the lack of consistency made the match frustrating.  At the very least, the referee did not miss the more serious ones.

This was not the result NYCFC wanted, especially with the midweek game against Atlanta United FC on the horizon.  The Pigeons will be without James Sands due to yellow card accumulation.  If Perea cannot play and there are no changes to the injury report, then the team will truly be short-staffed.