CHESTER, Pa. — New York City FC went from its first loss to its first losing streak. And it’s hard to picture a loss that will hurt more than this, a 2-1 extra-time defeat to the previously winless Philadelphia Union Saturday at PPL Park.
NYCFC coach Jason Kreis said his team’s gutted roster was no alibi for their shutout loss at Yankee Stadium in their prior game, but there was no excuse for this one. First they gave away the first half — again — and then after a David Villa equalizer, gave away Vincent Nogueira’s winner two minutes into extra time.
Now, after suffering a humbling defeat at the hands of what had been the league’s worst team, NYCFC (1-2-2, 5 points) will bring a two-game losing streak back home for games Thursday and Sunday at Yankee Stadium, trying to right the ship.
“We’ve got to come back together and use this adversity to power us on,’’ defender Jason Hernandez said, acknowledging this is NYCFC’s first adversity. “Yeah, absolutely. Any time you have more than one loss in a row, it takes a group of men to look at each other and say how are we going to get out of this, fix this.’’
They had some issues to fix, when they had a lapse that cost them. After getting a 55th-minute equalizer from Villa to snap NYCFC’s 241-minute scoreless drought and erase Eric Auyk’s goal, they let a long goal kick bounce deep in their half with Javier Calle making a late effort to give chase.
From there, Andrew Wenger beat Calle out wide, Jeb Brovsky didn’t close out, and Wenger sent in a cross. Goalkeeper Josh Saunders, who had kept NYCFC in the game during a terrible first half, punched it out, but it fell to Vincent Nogueira, who buried it and NYCFC.
“A long, lofted ball, that’s in the air a long time … and then bounced. It bounces probably 35 yards from our goal, within the width of the penalty box. You should never see that. Never,’’ NYCFC coach Jason Kreis said. “We need to look at that and figure out how in the world the ball’s allowed to bounce the way it did; from there, it’s going to be a comedy of errors.’’
Except there was nothing funny about it.
“We were pushing to get the win, but at the same time, you have to be mindful of getting a result,’’ said Saunders. “We allowed the ball to bounce in our half, and then a two vs. one, we didn’t get enough pressure to the guy serving the ball. It took a deflection, a scramble. Give them credit, because they wanted it.’’
Philly clearly wanted it, coming in 0-3-2 and playing before a sellout crowd of 18,603. But the gaffe on the late goal was micro. The macro issue is NYCFC getting outplayed in the first half for the fourth time in five games, failing to win any of those.
“Another match where we wasted 45 minutes. For whatever reason — I don’t know the answer to it, I’m not sure anyone has the answer yet, but we have to find it pretty quickly — we can’t seem to start a match the right way,’’ said Kreis, who saw his team outshot 6-1 in the first half. Villa declined comment but it was the topic du jour.
“We look like two teams in every match,’’ said Hernandez. “The first half we look like we’re sleepwalking, the second half we play more of our style and look like ourselves.’’