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New York Cosmos 1, New York City FC 0: Hapless, embarrassing Blues crash out of U.S. Open Cup

OK. That never happened.

By Sam Dunn
Here are two players that actually tried hard to win the game.
Here are two players that actually tried hard to win the game.
Noah K. Murray-USA TODAY Sports

Everyone is fired.

BENCH: Allen, Harrison, Hernandez, Iraola, McNamara, Rawls, Taylor

Uh.

For the second year in a row, NYCFC trotted out in the U.S. Open Cup against an opponent it could have handled, but named a team sheet that didn't include a single designated player. This, of course, came just days after Patrick Vieira told anyone who would listen that his team was taking this competition seriously. That they were in it to win it.

Let's be clear: if New York City FC was actually trying to do anything other than lose to a forgettable team from an irrelevant league -- that's what the Cosmos are, to be honest -- they had a funny way of showing it. Come on: MIX was wearing the armband? Mix! The consensus most-overrated-player in MLS, and quite possibly the league's most overpaid non-DP.

Get this: that blasphemous, pathetic, insulting starting XI has combined for four goals in 2016. Four.

Two of those four goals came on opening day against the Chicago Turnstiles. Er... Fire.

Who did Vieira legitimately expect to be his go-to scorer? His central playmaker? His crosser? The truth is that the only guys who can do those things were on the bench.

And they didn't even see the field.

Yes, it was worth a deep breath seeing Tommy McNamara, RJ Allen, and Andoni Iraola on the bench-- hey, if this XI takes the huge dump I assume they will, T-Mac and a couple of smart, tough fullbacks will come on and bail us out. Well! That didn't happen. And New York City FC lost to the New York Cosmos 1-0 on a late header off a counter-attack.

The scoring player, Danny Szetela, was completely unmarked in the air.

Lights out. Congratulations, NYCFC: you are now 0-6 against the two other professional soccer teams in the New York media market.

Oh and Six.

A few thoughts now:

...

Phun Phact: today is June 16th. New York City FC hasn't won a game since May 16th in Portland.

...

To be fair, Mikey Lopez tried really, really hard, and ought to feel positively about his individual performance. But I can't imagine he's very happy about the result or the overall effort. Nobody should be.

I tweeted that I had never seen such a weak, ineffectual performance from New York City, and the tweethearts were quick to point to the 7-0 Red Bulls disaster. Here's why I said what I said, though:

The NYCFC team that lost 7-0 to the Red Bulls would have soundly, brutally beaten the NYCFC team we watched last night. It really was that bad.

Clearly, Patrick Vieira rolled out a weak team with an eye toward Saturday's league showdown against the best Philadelphia Union side ever. OK, OK. But why not even include a single one of your luxurious DPs in the squad whatsoever? Why let your only creative options -- McNamara and Allen -- rot on the bench while they watched their teammates utterly capitulate?

"We want to compete, we wanted to win it," Vieira said of the hallowed old U.S. Open Cup competition after the match. "I chose a team that I believed could win the game."

Well, that's not what it looked like.

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