New York City FC midfielder Jack Harrison bounced a shot past Sporting Kansas City goalkeeper Tim Melia in the 84th minute to erase an earlier botched scoring chance as a starless NYCFC scratched out a 1-0 victory on a wet, miserable Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium.
Harrison, who hadn’t scored in his previous eight games, finally added his ninth goal of the season with a sigh of relief.
“The last few weeks, I’ve been putting too much pressure on myself to create goals and assists for myself,” he said. “It kind of got to me a little bit so I used the international break to reset myself. … It took a lot of weight off my shoulders.”
Head coach Patrick Vieira said he planned on resting Harrison in the coming weeks, but that had to wait after NYCFC was forced to field a patched-up team while numerous starters, including David Villa, missed Wednesday’s match either because of injury or international duties.
But even after Harrison played hero and got NYCFC its three points, Vieira didn’t come away too impressed with his performance.
“I don’t think that was Jack’s best game,” Vieira said. “I think he made a lot of mistakes in the last 30 yards and his decision-making wasn’t the best today.”
With absences galore, NYCFC’s lethal attack turned into the Maxi Moralez and Harrison show. The rest of the team was less of a threat, and at times, a quasi-mess that was more hesitant than aggressive. No moment represented that more than when Sean Ugo Okoli’s certain goal was inadvertently cleared off the Sporting Kansas City goal line by teammate Khiry Shelton in the 65th minute.
Sporting Kansas City deserves credit for keeping NYCFC disorganized. The MLS’s best defensive team, which also has the league’s best goalkeeper in Melia (0.76 goals allowed per game), had an easier assignment, especially in the first half, with Villa and five other NYCFC starters missing.
While NYCFC placed two shots on target in the first half, Sporting Kansas City had none. Fans were resigned to a few moments of exaggerated excitement as a mellow crowd applauded NYCFC midfielder Andera Pirlo (who made a rare start) when he made a rare slide tackle in the middle of the field that looked more painful than graceful.
But no one said it has to always be pretty. Despite being without much of their first team, NYCFC, now at 50 points, kept pace with Eastern Conference leaders Toronto FC, which has 56 points.
“It was an accumulation of hard work and from the team which was why we got that one goal tonight,” Harrison said.