The New York City FC season is over, and the team's loss in the Eastern Conference Semifinals brings with it the natural tendency to dissect all that went right and wrong across the long 2024 campaign.
One talking point has emerged among the early 2024 NYCFC postmortem attempts: The team's crop of new talent failed to deliver, or more precisely, failed to do enough to help the team achieve more in what was an improved but ultimately middle-of-the-road season.
Matt Doyle, analyst for the MLS website, has been hammering this point for longer than most, writing back in late September that NYCFC was looking at "an 0-for-4" as it related to their recent signings of attackers Mounsef Bakrar, Julián Fernández, Jovan Mijatović, and Agustín Ojeda.
Those four players cost the team over $20 million in combined transfer fees but collectively produced just nine goals (four of them from Bakrar) and two assists in 82 combined appearances across the MLS regular season and playoffs.
In the wake of the team's Hudson River Derby elimination, Doyle has again written about the weak return on investment New York City got from recent incoming transfers. This time Doyle adds the loaned-out Brazilian duo Talles Magno and Thiago Andrade to the equation while saying "...We’re over $30 million worth of transfer spend on guys who, for whatever reason (it’s not lack of talent), have not moved the needle."
Coach's decisions
Why does the needle remain unmoved? On one hand, there's Head Coach Nick Cushing, who rotated almost all of his newest signings in and out of his Starting XIs this season and then settled on a more veteran late-season rotation that excluded youngsters Fernández, Ojeda, and Mijatović.
In the seven games NYCFC played in October and November, the tail-end of the regular season and the entirety of the MLS Cup Playoffs, Ojeda made one appearance and played eight minutes, Mijatović made one appearance and played three minutes, and Fernández led the class by making four appearances but only totaled 37 minutes of action in those four appearances.
Cushing did give those players opportunities during the regular season but not with much consistency, and not for long durations. Ojeda was on the field for 30.2% of NYCFC's total MLS minutes played in 2024, Fernández for 22%, and Mijatović for just 8.9%, all according to FBref.com. Mijatović was an unused substitute 18 times, Fernández unused in 12 MLS matches, and Ojeda was stuck on the bench for 11 MLS matches this season.
Mounsef Bakrar was the fourth player mentioned by Matt Doyle as a burgeoning NYCFC transfer flop, but he got the most chances from Nick Cushing throughout the season of any of these players. Bakrar's 35 appearances and 15 starts made across all competitions this season were the most of any of the attackers acquired via transfer fee.
His problem was that his finishing in front of goal was so bad at times this season that he had people organizing claps of solidarity to try to get him through what looked like a case of the yips.
Transfer strategy stagnating?
Cushing deploys the players he thinks will give him the best chances to win the games he has to win, but he's not the one ultimately responsible for bringing those players into the team.
Sporting Director David Lee has chosen to spend NYCFC's transfer budget on increasingly young, unproven, but hyped-up and promising players. The hit rate with those players since Lee brought them to New York City has thus far not been great, with Gabriel Pereira the one big success in terms of the team's ability to parlay his MLS play into a lucrative sale to Al-Rayyan in Qatar.
Shouldn't questions get asked about the type of player NYCFC and Lee have decided to prioritize in the transfer market? The likes of Fernández, Ojeda, and Mijatović are projects and unrealized potential more than they are players ready to help you win now. Bakrar was signed from a lesser league and without any double-digit goal seasons on his career resumé during a period of desperation when the team had only Talles Magno and Gabe Segal to choose from at striker.
MLS and its roster rules encourage teams to spend on and invest in youth and promising professionals from less-heralded international leagues, and Lee's New York City has done that, but they've not supplemented those signings with enough proven talent that can provide cover as, say, a group of under-21-year-old internationals try to acclimatize to MLS.
Lee's work as Sporting Director looks a lot better when you pay less attention to who he has been spending transfer fees on and focus more on who he's been able to pick up on free transfers and in the MLS SuperDraft.
Hannes Wolf and Alonso Martínez were each integral to the team's attacking improvement in 2024 and cost nothing in transfer fees, signed as free agents while out of contract. Their success with New York City doesn't align with the potential narrative that the team's recruitment is broken, as Martínez led the team in scoring and Wolf was at times a creative force on the right-wing (before his goal and assist production disappeared in the second half of the season).
The standout new 2024 addition to the roster might have actually been Malachi Jones, the least-heralded arrival who came to NYCFC through the MLS SuperDraft after playing collegiately at Lipscomb. Jones was badly missed and was never properly replaced in the squad after he broke his leg in the win over Orlando City SC at Yankee Stadium earlier this summer.
The team has had recent success with its free agents, SuperDraft picks, and trading for contributors who were little-used by their previous MLS teams – like Matt Freese and Andrés Perea). Now they need to see improvement from the players they've spent significant transfer sums on.
Will 2025 bring improvement?
Change has been a constant for the NYCFC roster since early 2023, and now that the offseason is here again, it's fair to wonder if this full group of underperforming and/or underutilized recent acquisitions will return in 2025.
Already there's been a rumor about Palmeiras in Brazil's Série A holding interest in signing Julián Fernández for a $6 million transfer fee. We've also seen NYCFC loan out Talles Magno and Thiago Andrade when they've still been under contract but no longer fit into the team's plans – could that happen with any of their other recent transfer acquisitions?
Ojeda and Fernández showed glimpses of their potential but have yet to unlock it with any consistency here in the United States. Fernández gets into promising positions – this season he was in the 97th percentile among MLS wingers and attacking midfielders with 6.94 touches in the attacking penalty area per 90 minutes – and has a lethal left foot, but two goals and two assists in 674 MLS minutes is light production.
"Trapito" Ojeda at times looked like a great ball progressor, tidy passer, and competent finisher in front of the opposing goal. He ranked in the 93rd percentile of MLS wingers and attacking midfielders with 4.48 progressive carries per 90 in 2024, in the 87th percentile with 9.83 progressive passes received per 90, and in the 84th percentile with 0.38 non-penalty goals scored per 90 minutes.
Mijatović, the youngest of the group, looked roughest around the edges and struggled to make much impact even when dropping down to NYCFC II to play US Open Cup matches. He did score a beauty of a goal against FC Cincinnati in Leagues Cup, but only got 271 minutes of action in the league in 2024.
That trio of attackers was expensive and carried big expectations with them as they began their careers in New York City. The questions NYCFC will now have to answer about these players this offseason: Is Cushing the right coach to get the talent to show itself more regularly next season? And are these players in the right place, with NYCFC in MLS, to make the next leaps in their development?
New York City FC wants to be a team that succeeds on the pitch while simultaneously developing and then selling young players off for profits. It worked wonderfully with Taty Castellanos, and even to some extent with Gabriel Pereira.
To pull it off again, 2025 will have to be a year of improvement and breakout for some or all underperforming members of the team's recent incoming transfer classes.
