This wasn’t just an unusually active summer transfer window for New York City FC, it was the busiest summer transfer window in club history.
The six players added by sporting director David Lee eclipse the total number of summer signings he made during his tenure: Before this year, Lee brought on just one player in the secondary window since taking over late in 2019.
More than that, this was the busiest year for signings full stop: New York City added 13 players this year, one more than the 12 added in 2018.
NYCFC Signings by Year *
Year | Primary | Secondary | Total |
2023 | 7 | 6 | 13 |
2022 | 3 | 1 | 4 |
2021 | 9 | 0 | 9 |
2020 | 4 | 0 | 4 |
2019 | 6 | 2 | 8 |
2018 | 9 | 3 | 12 |
2017 | 10 | 1 | 11 |
2016 | 10 | 1 | 11 |
2015 | N/A | 4 | N/A |
These are simple statements of fact. Now let’s get into what it means.
The NYCFC Parks Kit officially drops
Turning signings into a team
This unprecedented amount of business is good news for a squad that spent the previous 13 months without a striker, and that had a hard time scoring goals in the first 24 games this season.
But it also sets up an unprecedented challenge for head coach Nick Cushing: He is now tasked with integrating six players, four of whom are attackers, in the two-week window that falls between the club crashing out of Leagues Cup competition on August 3 and MLS Matchday 25 on August 20. He needs to turn the signings into a team.
The only summer transfer window that comes close to matching this year’s took place way back in 2015, when Frank Lampard, Andrea Pirlo, Angeliño, and Andoni Iraola joined the squad.
Lampard, Pirlo, and Iraola were seasoned professionals in the twilight of their careers. Then-head coach Jason Kreis probably let them lead training. This year is different. Cushing’s charges include Julián Fernández, a 19-year-old wunderkind from Argentina, Mounsef Bakrar, a 22-year-old striker who played in Croatia, Andrés Perea, a highly-regarded 22-year-old who didn’t break into the Starting XI at Philadelphia Union, and Alonso Martínez, a 24-year-old Costa Rica international who joined from Lommel SK in Belgium’s second division. It’s not so much calling in the cavalry as it is calling in the recruits.
NYCFC 2023 Summer Signings
- Mounsef Bakrar, 22, striker
- Julián Fernandez, 19, right winger
- Alonso Martínez, 24, right winger
- Maxi Moralez, 36, playmaker
- Andrés Perera, 22, defensive midfielder
- Birk Risa, 26, central defender
This group of signings is more in line with what you’d expect to add in the primary transfer window, when you have a full preseason to drill down on tactics and create chemistry.
Fernandez might be valued at $5 million, but he has only 21 senior team appearances under his belt — and five of those were as a substitute in the 87th minute or later. He’s an exciting player, but he’s as green as they come, and you can’t expect him to transform into a game-winning starter after two weeks of training at the Etihad City Football Academy.
Police share details on violence outside Red Bull Arena
10 games left, 6 wins to stay in it
These are the kinds of players you want to sign in the offseason, and develop over the year. Cushing doesn’t have that luxury. After an abysmal run of games that saw the team win just once in their last 15 league matchups, NYCFC are on the cusp of not making the playoffs for the first time since that 2015 season.
As False 9 columnist Corey Clayton explained here at Hudson River Blue, NYCFC need to finish the season with at least 44 points if they are to hope to advance to the postseason, and 47 points if they want to feel secure. Right now, NYCFC have just 26 points with 10 games left. That means the team need to win six games to stay in it, or seven games to close in on that spot. That’s a big ask considering NYCFC have won just five times out of 24 games played so far this season.
There’s no room for error. The team’s signings as a whole need to perform starting on Sunday, and the attack in particular needs to click if NYCFC are to make the playoffs.
What was said in the section above about not expecting Fernández to become a game-winning starter after two weeks of training? Scratch that. This team needs him and the others to do exactly that.
To be honest, Fernández and the other new kids are looking pretty good:
Watch the video above – which is without a soundtrack or narration, more raw feed than packaged highlights – and you see that Fernández is tall and quick, and has that puppy-dog energy. Martínez looks cool and composed, while Perea looks fast and physical. Promising stuff.
NYCFC playoff picture explained
Long-term goals
This brings up the question: Are these signings really intended to carry NYCFC over the line? Or is Lee playing catch-up after a quiet 2022, and a not-good-enough start to 2023?
For better or worse, the NYCFC front office’s corporate culture can make the executives in the Midtown Manhattan offices feel distant, even aloof. It’s a professional organization, and among the best-run in MLS — winning a league title and announcing a stadium project within New York City inside your first decade of existence are incredible accomplishments.
Given all of that, you can understand why they might not acknowledge at the beginning of the season that the team didn’t have the personnel to compete in what is essentially a rebuilding year. They were never going to say, “We’re prepared to lose a lot of games while we sort out transfer fees and new signings, because we won’t have a complete squad until we have ten games left.”
No, it was always going be, “We want to compete for silverware every year, and play attractive soccer for our fans.” The customer is always right.
Really, it’s up to the pundits and the fans to read the tea leaves and try to figure out if these signings are meant to lift NYCFC into playoff contention, or if they’re restocking a bare pantry and setting the team up for better results in 2024.
One place where you can find those tea leaves: This length interview Lee gave to Roberto Abramowitz and Glenn Crooks, two NYCFC radio announcers who just started the Sick Podcast. (Tag line: “The sickest NYCFC podcast!”)
There’s a lot to decode in this conversation. And there will be a lot to see on Sunday, when NYCFC host Minnesota United at Citi Field. Maybe after the final whistle sounds in Queens, we’ll know what these new signings are capable of doing, and what this team might – or might not – accomplish before the end of the season.
Leagues Cup prize money explained
* A quick note: We count a signing against a year when the player first joins the team. For example, Taty Castellanos first joined NYCFC on loan during the secondary transfer window in 2018, then signed with the team ahead of the 2019 season. He is considered a 2018 secondary transfer signing.
At the same time, Maxi Moralez first signed with NYCFC in the 2017 primary transfer window, left in the 2023 primary transfer window to sign with Racing Club de Avelllanda, then returned to sign a new contract in the 2023 secondary transfer window. Because he terminated his contract and left the club, he is considered both a 2017 primary transfer signing and a 2023 secondary transfer signing.
