Since 2023, New York City FC's two young national team-caliber right-backs – Mitja Ilenič and Tayvon Gray – competed through each season for the bigger or biggest share of playing time at right-back.
No position on the roster featured the kind of consistent head-to-head, Player A or Player B selection dilemma posed by Ilenič and Gray. Gray enjoyed the single-best season of either player in 2024, but Ilenič started and finished the season in the team's Starting XI. The 20-year-old Slovenian is now off to a very strong start in 2025 while playing all but eight of the available right-back minutes while Gray deals with injuries.
Neither player ever emerged as a clear "winner" in this positional battle under previous New York City coach Nick Cushing. He never settled on one starter since Ilenič joined in early January 2023, but did say at certain times that one of the two "had the jersey," his words, while giving them more time than the other.
Cushing is gone and Pascal Jansen is now five games into his tenure. As Gray gets back to health, who will Jansen settle on as the preferred right-back? Or will he stay consistent with the previous approach and not settle on one at all?
Let's run through where things stand with both Ilenič and Gray, then attempt to figure out how Jansen might handle things once both players are available to him on Matchdays.
Mitja's progression
Following NYCFC's 0-0 draw in Columbus, Mitja Ilenič earned a deserved shoutout in an article on the MLS website by Ari Liljenwall that spotlighted the league's top-performing young players on MLS Matchday 5. Liljenwall praised Mitja for going the full 90 in a road clean sheet and praised his high pass completion rate (86% of 50 attempted per FBref.com) vs. the Crew.
Those attributes were all rarities for Ilenič in his two previous MLS seasons. Across his 45 MLS appearances in 2023 and 2024, Mitja only completed a full match 11 times, 24% if you want it in percentage form. Clean sheets haven't been common, either, with Ilenič in the Starting XI for two MLS regular season shutouts in 2023 and three in 2024. Ilenič started and went the full 90 in the last MLS clean sheet kept by New York City, which came 15 matches ago, the 0-0 draw at Soldier Field with Chicago Fire FC on July 13, 2024.
His passing is generally crisper so far this season, too, not just in Columbus. Ilenič's pass completion percentage was 76.1% in 2023 and 73.4% in 2024 per FBRef, but he's up right near 83% so far in 2025 – and while attempting the most passes per-90-minutes of his NYCFC career, 55.9 attempts per-90 in his five games this season.
Ilenič has gone the full possible distance in every appearance made this season, has an early start on keeping more clean sheets, and is doing one thing Pascal Jansen has said he wants his team to do: Take better care of the ball. Jansen also already has Ilenič playing differently in some other ways, with the fullback's number of progressive passes received down sharply compared to his 2023 and 2024 seasons. In 2023 under Cushing, Ilenič would bomb up the right-wing and make himself available for progressive passes as NYCFC looked to overload teams out wide.
A season ago he recorded 7.42 progressive passes received per-90-minutes, meaning passes that move the ball at least 10 yards toward the opponent's goal. This year through five nearly complete matches played, Ilenič is only recording 3.27 progressive passes received per-90 – which could be a sign of Mitja doing more stay-at-home defensive work, and also a sign that Jansen prefers to build his team's attacking movements in different ways than his predecessor.
Mitja's game has progressed in 2025, and to the eye test, he looks different out there. He seems bigger and stronger, which might be a natural side effect of maturation, since he arrived in New York City at just 18 years old and has since spent a few seasons in the United States and adjusting to the physical demands of Major League Soccer.
He also looks more composed and calm in possession, which might bear itself out in the improved passing, but also looks to be the case as he tries to navigate around danger when teams press NYCFC high. He also scored an excellent set-play goal on Matchday 1 in Miami and kicked off a whole firestorm of Messi vs. Ronaldo Internet drama, so he gets bonus points for that to start 2025 as well.
Gray's comeback trail
Tayvon Gray broke out as an attacking fullback in 2024, scoring his first professional goal while also picking up seven assists, numbers not seen for a NYCFC fullback since Anton Tinnerholm's peak. His 2024 hot streak meant Ilenič didn't maintain a hold on the starting spot he seemed to earn at the beginning of the season.
He can't shake injuries, though, as Gray was forced to limp out of the team's final 2025 preseason match, which ruled him out for the season-opener against Inter Miami CF. Gray returned for Matchday 2 and started vs. LAFC, but then came off after just eight minutes, injured again. He's not played in the three games since and Pascal Jansen sounded unsure of his health status when directly asked about it prior to the New England game.
Fast forward two weeks and it appears Gray is further along on the road to recovery than it might have seemed. The fullback played the first half of New York City FC II's win over Carolina Core at Belson Stadium in Queens on March 24, his first competitive minutes since the aborted start vs. LAFC on March 1.
Good to see Tayvon Gray back in action tonight for NYCFC II, recovering from the leg injury that’s kept him out since going off injured after 8 minutes against LAFC on March 1 (also: what a week for Seymour Reid, contract details confirmed Weds., MLS debut Saturday, starts for Next Pro side Monday)
— Hudson River Blue (@hudsonriverblue.com) March 24, 2025 at 7:34 PM
[image or embed]
Gray played a big part in NYCFC's 2024 success and has always more than held his own while playing right-back, dating back to his late-2021 breakthrough while replacing Tinnerholm all through NYCFC's run to and triumph in MLS Cup. His strong performances in 2023 and 2024 earned him a breakthrough with the Jamaica national team, and he's made nine senior international appearances for the Reggae Boyz since his September 2023 debut.
The now-veteran 22-year-old NYCFC Homegrown is an asset to the team's defense, in that he's also got positional flexibility thanks to a comfort playing as a center-back, or possibly a left-back in a pinch. Jansen handed him that start on Matchday 2 vs. LAFC, so there is clearly trust under the new Head Coach, but the first step for Gray is making himself healthy and available to play. His cameo in MLS Next Pro seems to confirm that he's close.
Jansen's choices
The New York City FC bench is in desperate need of some experienced options, considering it was full of untested teenagers for the trip to Columbus. Gray returning to health solves that problem first and foremost for Pascal Jansen, but it returns him to the other, persistent problem of choosing a starter between Ilenič and Gray.
Ilenič looks like he might be making a developmental leap early in this season, but it's only five games. Gray has the experience and the tests of high-stakes MLS Cup Playoff and Concacaf matches on his side, though Ilenič didn't look out of place while starting and winning penalty-kick shootouts during the 2024 MLS Cup Playoffs.
Gray's attacking play seemed to step forward in 2024 and he's long been solid on the defensive side of things while playing right-back. Ilenič has shown a willingness to adapt his game to the new coach's preferences in the early going, and Jansen has shown a willingness to start both Ilenič and Gray – which he did between Matchday 1 and Matchday 2.
Jansen has bristled when asked by members of the local soccer media about players "owning" positions in his squad. That played out following the win over New England Revolution, as Jansen denied that Julián Fernández had taken ownership of the right-wing role, with the coach saying "He's like any other player in my squad. We have very high standards, and they have to fight to get game time, to convince us and make sure they are the ones who should be playing from the start."
Mitja Ilenič is used to fighting with Tayvon Gray for minutes, and vice-versa, with both players never wanting to call it a competition when asked and always putting the team first when discussing going in and out of the lineup. Yet for a third straight season, the NYCFC Head Coach has to pick someone to start at right-back while having two deserving candidates. Jansen has leaned on Mitja Ilenič early, but Tayvon Gray's impending return should tell us a lot about how NYCFC’s new leader sizes up his young fullbacks.
