New York City FC fall 1-0 to CF Montreal
Courtesy: New York City FC
By Chris Tsakonas
NEW YORK - New York City FC suffered its second home defeat of the season after falling 1-0 to CF Montreal at Yankee Stadium tonight. Prince Owusu scored the only goal of the match in the 48th minute.
Here are three observations from tonight’s match.
First half momentum shift
Through the first 20 minutes of the match, New York City appeared to have the upper hand with a 3-1 edge in total shots. One of those was a breakaway chance for Alonso Martinez in the 11th minute, where Martinez had his angle for the shot cut off and was ultimately unable to get his shot on target.
At the midway point of the first half, the momentum swung the other way and Montreal managed to regularly create chances. Dawid Bugaj whipped in a cross from the right side to set up a point-blank header from Giacomo Vrioni in the 22nd minute, but Matt Freese reacted to make the save. Montreal went into the halftime break with an 11-4 edge in total shots, but the match remained scoreless.
City’s resistance breaks after halftime
Less than three minutes into the second half, Montreal finally broke through. Prince Owusu took the ball on the right side of the box and fired a shot that curled into the upper left corner to beat Matt Freese and open the scoring.
It was the first time all season that Montreal led at any point during a match, and it ultimately made the difference tonight.
New York City unable to finish, capitalize on the counter
While Montreal controlled much of the run of play and created most of the chances, New York City did generate several quality chances - especially on the counterattack. The best of those chances came in the 72nd minute, when Alonso Martinez found himself in behind the defense with only goalkeeper Jonathan Sirois to beat - only for Sirois to make the save.
Martinez had six of New York City’s nine shots tonight, but only two of them were on target.
“Alonso is going to bounce back - I have no worries about that,” Pascal Jansen said after the match. “He'll bounce back. He's a quality player. Of course, missing two penalties in the first 12 games is something that keeps everybody busy, so it'll keep Alonso busy as well.”
Next Up
New York City FC will have a short turnaround for a road trip to Washington to take on DC United on Wednesday night. DC is 12th in the Eastern Conference on 12 points after falling 2-0 to Toronto FC earlier today.
Live radio commentary with Glenn Crooks and Matty Lawrence will get underway at 7:15 P.M. at newyorkcityfc.com/radio and the Apple TV home radio feature.