I was chastised by an avid New York City FC fan on Twitter a few months ago. A friend and I had been at a quarter-empty baseball stadium to watch the Bronx blues batter a broken Columbus Crew side. Brazilian import Thiago (not Silva or Alcantara) scored twice and assisted another — looking every bit destined for the hasty “he’s far too good for this league and shall soon be playing at Ajax” talk.
You see, the 100 or so NYCFC ultras — if you’d call them that — appeared to be chanting “chicken nuggets.” I, with an admitted footballing superiority complex, tweeted a shameless quip at the Americanness of their clamor.
Turns out, they were chanting “chicken bucket”, an ironic reference to a large box of chicken tenders and fries that can be purchased at the stadium for the reasonable price of $20 (a far better topic for a chant, indeed.) And a fan made it rather clear to me that I had done his club a massive injustice for incorrectly hearing their frankly childish chide.
Perhaps I deserved it — the boys in blue were thrashing the reigning MLS champs. But my cynicism, if not rudeness, didn’t exactly come out of left field (plus five for the use of an Americanism.) There are the obvious quips to be made about soccer in the States in general, but NYCFC fandom in general is, well, puzzling.
NYCFC have only been around for eight years, and have had something of a rocky tenure in America’s professional league. They’ve consistently been among the better teams in the eastern conference, but have struggled come playoff time. And despite importing stars such as David Villa, Andrea Pirlo, Frank Lampard, and legendary Aberdeen winger Gary Mackay-Steven, they have never made it past the eastern conference finals.
This underperformance runs counter to expectations, of course. When the not-at-all-oil-backed City Group announced the club back in 2013, the hype was admittedly real. Sweeping promises of a state-of-the-art training facility and brand new stadium were made. Glorious stock images of trophies and packed stands were displayed. What’s happened instead is a half-full baseball ground, significant front office sexual harassment scandal, and series of penalty shootout losses.
But that image might just be slightly altered this year. Promises might just be kept. On Tuesday night, the fourth-seeded NYCFC knocked out the top-ranked and presumptive title favorite New England Revolution in a dramatic 5-3 penalty shootout win.
NYCFC opened the score after just two minutes with a tidy finish from a flagrantly unmarked Santiago Rodriguez. The Revolution struck back soon after, though — knotting the game at 1-1 after 10 minutes.
And it all got a bit MLS from there.
Lots of tackles, lots of running, but little true action. The two sides sort of poked each other from afar for 90 minutes, not so much a chess match as a weary duel between two very old, tired jousters.
Extra time changed things, though. MLS top scorer Taty Castellanos took the lead for NYCFC, leaping above his defender and thumping a header into the back of the net. Two minutes later, though, he was shown red for a mind-numbingly idiotic slide tackle — serving as a reminder that this is, well, Major League Soccer.
And the Revolution seized on the advantage, nicking an equalizer in the 118th minute thanks to a well-placed volley from an unmarked Tajon Buchanan off a lovely floated cross.
But then, in penalties, something amazing happened for NYCFC. Morales went left as the keeper dived right. Thiago found the bottom corner. Tajouri-Shradi whacked one low and right. Moralez — misser of the losing penalty in last year’s playoffs — lashed his down the middle. Alexander Callens did the same.
All it took was one Sean Johnson save off a poorly struck spot kick, and the upset was done.
What happens from here is unclear. Castellanos, NYCFC’s main, and arguably only, threat is suspended for the semifinal matchup against Philadelphia. And the Union are, on paper, a far better squad. But it appears that some jitters may have been cleared, some ghosts exorcised, some mishaps dispelled, cast into the chasm of footballing memory.
In other words, those “chicken bucket” chanting fans can dream.
At the risk of making this all about myself, I sat through that shootout nervously, truly, sincerely, actively caring about the outcome.
You see, there’s something quite likable about this whole thing, this absurd team. Yes, the quality of football is sometimes infuriatingly low, but there’s a charm to the effort, some fun to be found in the sheer absurdity of mediocre football trying to stretch for global relevance.
And for $30 and a short subway ride, that Yankee Stadium view becomes a little more palatable. Those outlandish chants become a bit funnier.
So, I’ll say this:
I was wrong, random NYCFC fan on Twitter.
The next chicken bucket is on me.
I shall be doing some album of the year content shortly. Stay tuned, if you care.
Cheers.
Beautifully written empathetic piece Thomas. However in the light of Prof Hindle’s disastrous book draft due to the erroneous use of an American spell check app (why does that even exist), may I upbraid you on the use of the word (and spelling) “clamor”. WTAF? Is it a verb, a noun or an adjective? Desist. Immediately. Love Uncle Guy