New York City Takes FC Cincinnati To Game 3 Decider In MLS Playoffs

New York City FC kept its 2024 Major League Soccer season alive on Saturday, winning 3-1 at home to FC Cincinnati.

The result takes this MLS Playoffs Round One series to a third and final game in Cincinnati next weekend.

Alonso Martínez scored his 18th goal of the season in all competitions and Thiago Martins scored his first-ever goal for New York City to give the home team the goals that would ultimately win the game, and a 2-0 lead at halftime.

Every once in a while everything will click for New York City and attacking moves concocted in small spaces will produce something more expansive and lead to quality chances.

That was the case as Mitja Ilenič directed one such move for the goal scored by Martínez. It was an excellent assist from Ilenič who played a neat one-two with Hannes Wolf, and then with Martínez, turning his final pass back from the byline to Martínez who was stationed just inside the area.

The move made it all the more surprising that it was the Slovenian’s first assist of the season.

Martínez finished with an instinctive, accurate first-time shot, showing why he is New York City’s top scorer and why he has been one of the best goal-getters in MLS this year.

Martins’ goal came from a set piece at which FC Cincinnati appeared to invite trouble. The visitors stationed their defensive line so deep that any failed clearance would cause problems, and in the end, a failed clearance fell to Martins at the far post and he headed home from close range.

FC Cincinnati’s defensive line at the free kick from which NYCFC scored (left) vs NYCFC’s line at a set piece in a similar place. https://t.co/jwggl9qiBk pic.twitter.com/kBrZbfIQmK

— James Nalton (@JDNalton) November 2, 2024

As is often the case with New York City this season, there was a heavy reliance on goalkeeper Matt Freese.

Freese made second-half saves with the score at 2-1 to keep City in the lead and prevent FC Cincinnati from capitalising on a period of dominance. It’s not an understatement to say it kept the team in the playoffs.

This is why, despite conceding, Freese still had a respectable FotMob rating of 7.1. The save he made from Alvas Powell also seemed more difficult than the xG-on-target score of just 0.07 would have us believe.

There was also a standout save in the first half from Luca Orellano after which the offside flag went up but no one knew that at the time.

Freese was eventually beaten by an outstanding strike from the boot of Orellano, before a late penalty from New York City’s Santi Rodríguez added some comfort to the final scoreline, even though the second half had been anything but comfortable for the home team.

“We’re a team that wants to play with the ball, but when you’re under pressure against a team that is free and has nothing to lose, you’ve got to make sure that you come up with big moments,” New York City FC coach Nick Cushing said at the end of the game.

“Matt Freese, Justin Haak, Thiago Martins, James Sands, Mitja Ilenič I thought was excellent, Kevin O’Toole was top.

“We spoke about having to absorb pressure in the away game and the home game and I thought for those 15 minutes where they came on top of us, we did that extremely well.”

The win shows how important home advantage can be in these playoffs, especially for an NYCFC team which is generally much stronger at home than on the road.

City had the third-best home record in the Eastern Conference at the end of the 2024 regular season, but only the 10th-best away record.

Despite an ordinary home record of its own in the regular season (eighth-best in the conference), FC Cincinnati will fancy its chances in the third game which will be played at its TQL Stadium home back in Ohio, but NYCFC has shown it has the potential to progress.

“It’s a big confidence boost for us,” said Ilenič. “Now we go back to Ohio, and we need to repeat the performance from tonight and I think we can do it better.

“We want to progress, and we will do everything in our power to do that.”