NYCFC get a Point in Home Away From Home

New York City Football club battled with the Houston Dynamo in East Hartford, Connecticut on Saturday and held onto their spot in the Eastern Conference playoff race. NYCFC currently sit in second ten points behind Toronto and 3 points ahead of Atalanta.
Both NYC and Houston had wasted chances and missed opportunities. Jack Harrison’s shot rattled off the crossbar and Tommy McNamara sent a sitter soaring over a wide open net midway through the first half. Tyler Derek made a world class save to keep David Villa off the scoresheet as well. In the end it was Maxi Moralez who used his five foot three inch frame to head an expertly weighted ball into the back of the net for the NYCFC goal.
Houston would quickly follow with a fast start on a free kick right outside of the box. Vincente Sanchez expertly found Mauro Manotas before NYCFC’s back line even knew play had resumed. Manotas beat Sean Johnson with a well taken shot and the game held tied to the end thanks to some great saves by both team’s keepers.
New signing, Andraz Struna got his first start and played well for most of the game. at times he looked a little out of sink but he found Moralez in the box for the first goal. Patrick Vieira had nothing but praise for the new player. “He just arrived, he had just a few weeks of training with the team and that was his first start so I wasn’t expecting things to be perfect. But I was really happy with the game he had, I think he will really help us a lot.”
The real story going forward is if NYCFC can stave off Atlanta for the second place spot in the East and the first round playoff buy. It seemed to be on Vieira’s mind after the match. ” The result is important., but in order to get the result we want we need to play well and to play at a certain level and it would be important to have all the players back from injuries.”
He went on to talk about the upcoming matches and the playoff hunt. “We are not at the playoffs yet. I think we will have time to think about the playoffs once we are guaranteed in the playoffs. We still have four points to go. We have a really important game on Wednesday and then we have one next saturday. So what is important is for us is to recover and start working tomorrow.”
The next two matches are important indeed. NYCFC face off against Montreal on Wednesday, a team that is hungrily fighting for the last playoff spot and then against Chicago on Saturday. Chicago sit four points behind NYCFC in fourth place thanks to their loss to Philadelphia over the weekend. Only four more games remain and NYCFC face three playoff contenders in their quest for the post season.
Vieira knows his team cannot slip up and that one point in a game is not good enough. He knows his team needs to get healthy and in the right frame of mind. He also knows that the next two games will mean a lot.