Santi Rodriguez looks for position. @NYCFC. |
New York City Football Club lost a heartbreaker in the opening game of the 2024 MLS Cup Playoffs Round One, 1-0, at FC Cincinnati.
The first half was scoreless, and what turned into the winning goal came in the 51st minute from Cincinnati's Yamil Asad. He buried a header from the center of the box, off a feed from Luciano Acosta.
FC Cincinnati poured in 21 shots, six of which were on target. NYCFC had six shots, two on net, and Cincinnati goalkeeper Roman Celentano turned both of them away for the shutout.
Tayvon Gray took a red card for NYCFC in the 97th minute after a clash with Acosta, and that dashed any hopes of a late-second comeback.
Game 2 of this best-of-three series will be Saturday evening at Citi Field at 5:00 p.m.
COACH'S COMMENTS: NYCFC Head Coach Nick Cushing addressed the media after the game:
On how NYCFC can take this experience and use it for Saturday: "I'll take the experience of using the fact that this game was tight, the game was even, and we came to a difficult place and fell on the wrong side of a result. Ultimately, we know what we have to do now. We know we have to win at home, and we're going back to a place where we know we're going to have all our people behind us. Every guy in there knows their job, and we're ready to push on and make sure that we swing it back our way."
On what needs to be done differently on Saturday: "If we play this same game tonight at home [on Saturday], and we execute in the moment, we can definitely win it. But it's a tight game. It's playoff football. This is a team that finished third, that won the Supporter's Shield last year. As you go through these playoff games, there is no easy game...It's about playing winning football, and we fought right to the end. We had many moments. We have to execute in the moments better. For us, it's not about dwelling on this game. It's about moving on now...We have to win at home in front of our crowd, in front of our people, to take this to a third game."
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