NYCFC 2023 Final Grades

New York City FC’s 2023 season is done and dusted. Now it’s time for Andrew Leigh, Raf Noboa y Rivera, and Oliver Strand to hand out final grades for has been, by most accounts, a roundly disappointing year for NYCFC.

Note that there’s no grade inflation here, no easy A’s – what, do you think this is Princeton?

1. Goalkeeping

Raf Noboa y Rivera: Luis Barraza began the season as New York City’s starting goalkeeper. He was demoted in favor of Matt Freese as the season ended, though not through any fault of his own. NYCFC traded for Freese in the off-season, sending $350,000 in General Allocation Money (GAM) to Philadelphia for his services. You don’t spend that much money for a backup keeper. Freese acquitted himself competently, starting the final eight games. I wouldn’t expect them to be starting for a title contender, but at this point in the Pigeons’ rebuild, you could do worse. 
Midterm Grade: B
Final Grade: B

Andrew Leigh: At midterm time, I wrote that Barraza was excelling as the starter and that this position ranked low as an area of concern, but that did not hold true in the second half of the season. Barraza struggled and outright lost the job to Freese, who excelled, but who also played far fewer minutes and only got a limited run as the consistent No 1 goalkeeper at the very end of the season. The position was handled poorly in 2023, though Freese did look promising.
Midterm Grade: B-
Final Grade: C

Oliver Strand: I agree with Andrew’s timeline: Barraza looked pretty good, then he didn’t, and he lost the starting job to Freese. Maybe I’m more bullish on Freese than both Andrew and Raf, but I thought he looked excellent — five clean sheets in 10 starts is no joke. More to the point, we all watched Freese improve over the final eight games of the season, and I think his recent performances lifted the overall grade.
Midterm Grade: B-
Final Grade: B+

2. Defense

AL: Despite lots of personnel changes during the season, most notable among them the shock departure of Maxime Chanot, the back line was one of the 2023 team’s strengths. It counts as a bright spot that in a season of attacking futility, this group was among the MLS elite in terms of goals allowed — although they also had a costly penchant for conceding stoppage-time equalizers.

The new Birk Risa/Thiago Martins center-back partnership looked mostly good, Tayvon Gray enjoyed a strong season, Mitja Ilenič showed promise and probably should have seen more minutes while Gray played center-back, and Justin Haak deputized in as a center-back and held his own during a period of piled-up injuries and international absences. Braian Cufré was generally decent at left back and had three assists, yet also lost his job to close out the season, with Kevin O’Toole continuing to look like a valuable depth option whenever called upon.
Midterm Grade: C+
Final Grade: B-

RNR: When Alex Callens left in the offseason, Chanot became the backline’s focal point. Then he left to play in a worse league during the season. This is how you know things aren’t going well for a team. Regardless, the defense played well down the stretch, delivering three shutouts in September when it looked like New York City might somehow sneak into the playoffs. Thiago Martins will lead the line next season, with Cufré on the left, Gray on the right, and likely Risa pairing with Thiago Martins.
Midterm Grade: B–
Final Grade: B

OS: OK, here’s a big stat. NYCFC allowed just 22 goals in the first 17 games of the season, then a phenomenal 17 goals in the second half. This defense was among the best in MLS — they put up these numbers despite getting hammered for most of the year by teams who pressed hard because they knew they could mostly ignore a weak New York City attack.

That said, there’s room for improvement. I was never convinced by Cufré, and I think it’s no coincidence that the team’s best run of form took place when he was on the bench. His $757,800 in guaranteed compensation puts him #6 on the team – he makes more than Risa, Julián Fernández, or Keaton Parks – but he’s not an elite defender or wingback. If the club land a good left-back NYCFC could have a league-best defense next year.
Midterm Grade: B
Final Grade: A-

3. Midfield

RNR: It’s fitting we’re writing this in October, because the NYCFC midfield was a horror show.

How horrible? So horrible that the Pigeons’ FO felt compelled to bring Maxi Moralez back to see if he could spark it to life.

It didn’t work. Moralez should be gone in the offseason, but there are enough good players here that a competent manager should be able to figure things out. But that’s in theory; in practice, things didn’t work out.
Midterm Grade: C-
Final Grade: C-

OS: Raf is right, the midfield was so poor that the return of the 36-year-old Maxi was seen as a major upgrade. And it was: Maxi brought creativity to a midfield that could be slow and predictable.

Santiago Rodríguez can be a wonder to watch on his best days, but he’s streaky, and he’s more an attacker than a playmaker. The addition of Andrés Perea is promising – let’s hope NYCFC can sign him to a permanent deal – but the team need to bring in more creativity.
Midterm Grade: C
Final Grade: C

AL: Santi, Keaton Parks, and James Sands were NYCFC’s three most consistent performers on the year, but the midfield as a whole was a mixed bag.

Sands went through a rough stretch of injury and shaky performance during and immediately following the Leagues Cup, Richy Ledezma faded after a solid start, Maxi Moralez briefly returned only to blow up his knee, Alfredo Morales was rarely healthy, and Justin Haak provided solid depth and provided one of the season’s few highlights by being the first Homegrown to score a goal. Andrés Perea was solid during his short-term loan, but NYCFC badly missed Parks following his ankle injury in the Hudson River Derby at Yankee Stadium. 
Midterm Grade: B-
Final Grade: C

4. Attack

AL: What a depressing, ugly season for the attacking players NYCFC ran out there. Gabriel Pereira was the only standout, and was the team’s leading scorer despite his last game in New York City colors being back on July 15.

Talles Magno struggled all season and got benched, but he did return as a left winger and looked marginally better at season’s end. Matías Pellegrini earned over a million dollars to mainly commit yellow card-worthy fouls, Andres Jasson wasn’t consistently productive when given minutes at left or right wing, and Gabe Segal scored two clutch goals but only played sparingly before heading to Tel Aviv on loan. The new summer signings, particularly Fernández and Mounsef Bakrar, looked good and offer hope that things will improve for this anemic offense come 2024.
Midterm Grade: D
Final Grade: D-

RNR:  Where to begin?

Aside from feasting on Toronto, the worst team in MLS, New York City’s attack was woeful. Talles Magno is firmly in “flop” territory, with only four goals and three assists in over 1900 minutes. The front office finally brought in a dedicated forward in Mounsef Bakrar during the secondary transfer window. He scored three times in 760 minutes but was often extremely wasteful in front of goal. It’s a bad grade, but at least it’s honestly earned. 
Midterm Grade: D+
Final Grade: D

OS: Both of you are being too generous. This was a historically bad attack: The 35 goals scored not only made the team a bottom-feeder in MLS this year (only two teams scored fewer), it was the lowest output in club history — the 2020 side scored 37 times despite playing only 20 games in the COVID-shortened season. If this attack had scored one more goal the team would have made the playoffs, but this attack was incapable of scoring one more goal.
Midterm Grade: D-
Final Grade: F

5. Bench

OS: Way, way, way back in the Midterms era I thought the bench had potential. The season proved me wrong. The days of Ishmael Tajouri-Shradi coming on with 20minutes left to play and changing the game are long gone.
Midterm Grade: B-
Final Grade: C+

RNR: As I mentioned in my mid-term grades, the bench wasn’t particularly impactful. You have a bench so you can solve problems in-game, among other things. That’s not how head coach Nick Cushing used it. Given that, it’s hard to say the bench could’ve done more here.
Midterm Grade: C
Final Grade: C

AL: Depth was a problem for much of the season thanks to all the roster turnover that began in earnest in 2022, but the club’s busy summer transfer window improved the options on the bench by season’s end. They got very few “high-impact substitute” performances on the season, but got helpful minutes from players like Haak, O’Toole, Jasson.
Midterm Grade: D-
Final Grade: C+

6. Coach

RNR: New York City doesn’t fire managers. But they should fire Nick Cushing.

I said this at midseason, and it’s even truer now: Cushing is utterly devoid of ideas, aside from impossibly stale chestnuts from the English coaching book like self-belief and bravery. This ain’t Dunkirk. It’s a 90-minute game with a round ball. The last time NYCFC missed the playoffs, they fired the coach. The team is rebuilding, but that’s no excuse for listless, unimaginative play. Nick Cushing needs to go.
Midterm Grade: F
Final Grade: F

AL: Cushing didn’t get enough out of the in-flux, at times incomplete NYCFC roster he worked with in 2023. Cushing and his staff stubbornly stuck with things that weren’t working for too long, too many times this season: Talles Magno as a striker; Pellegrini as a heavily-featured squad regular; Barraza as the team’s No 1 keeper. Cushing’s team was too consistently vulnerable on set pieces and too many times squandered leads that could have translated into wins that would have delivered another season of playoff soccer. The roster upheaval and late-arriving new signings didn’t help, but the coach should have been able to coax a few more wins out of this team.
Midterm Grade: D
Final Grade: F

OS: I don’t dispute any of the facts or figures that come from Raf and Andrew, but I don’t put all of the team’s problems at the feet of the head coach. Cushing was dealt a weak hand to begin with – the opening day roster was easily the most inadequate and imbalanced in club history – but he had to answer for the business done by the front office.

Some players improved under Cushing over the year: Freese, Haak, Jasson, Gray, and O’Toole all are demonstrably better players now. New signings Fernández, Perea, and Risa were quickly integrated into the team. But other plays stalled, or even regressed.

Cushing might have been the head coach for the past 16 months, but he has yet to lead a real team for a real season. Because of that, I’m giving an incomplete grade.
Midterm Grade: B
Final Grade: Incomplete

7. Front Office

AL: They set the team too far behind and badly misjudged things by not replacing Taty Castellanos – or even Héber – with an MLS starter-caliber striker until July. MLS rules make it hard to keep a team together for too long, but David Lee and company did not handle the transition and rebuild or revamp or whatever you want to call it particularly well.

They put too many salary dollars into loan signings Ledezma and Cufré, who both disappointed and did not stand out as positives over the full length of the season. This grade goes up from the Midterm F slightly because Fernández looks like a potential gem of a signing, Risa looked promising for the most part at center back, and because if you want to include the non-sporting side of the front office, the Willets Point NYCFC stadium did make it into the public land review process this year.
Midterm Grade: F
Final Grade: D

RNR: On the plus column: Stadium planning is well underway. The roster rebuild is definitely happening, too. They signed an actual forward in Mounsef Bakrar, too! 

On the minus column: Bringing Maxi back was a complete panic move — I get it, but it didn’t work out. Letting Chanot walk to play in a worse league wasn’t good. Talles Magno is a flop, and given how Bakrar struggled to score, you wouldn’t be wrong to wonder if he’s one, too.
Midterm Grade: B
Final Grade: B

OS: I’m just echoing both of you: The stadium dealings are good, but the player signings weren’t (until they were). Average it out and you get a C.
Midterm Grade: C+
Final Grade: C