Starts: 15
Minutes: 1638
Age: 21
Key Stat: Just 41 minutes played across five substitute appearances in the playoffs
Julián Fernández by no means had a perfect season.
The winger registered only three goals and five assists in 39 appearances across all competitions, which works out to just one goal involvement every 234 minutes. That’s better than the numbers put up by the 38-year-old
Maxi Moralez, whose three goals and nine assists across all competitions give him one goal involvement every 261 minutes, but Fernández is in a different position. The 21-year-old Fernández is on the upside of his career, and should be one of the biggest goal-scoring threats in Major League Soccer.
Instead, Fernández’s inconsistency pushed him to the bench, with his last league start coming on July 19 in the 1-1 draw with Sporting Kansas City. Most telling, the winger that Transfermarkt values at €4 million (down from the €4.5 million valuation in August 2023, when he joined New York City FC), played just 41 minutes in the postseason, coming off the bench five times and failing to make an impact in any of those games.
Slow season, two big games
Fernández had a promising start to the season, scoring one goal and adding two assists in his first six appearances, registering one goal involvement per 104 minutes. But then his production fell off a cliff, with just one goal and one assist in the following 15 league games. This came despite earning 10 starts that run of games: Head Coach Pascal Jansen gave Fernández ample chances to make a spot in the Starting XI his, but the Argentine just couldn’t get it done. Fernández would make just one more start in the final 14 league and five playoff games this season.
But the winger had his moments. There was the long-range shot to score early in the 1-0 win against FC Cincinnati on a rainy day at Citi Field in May. It was his first game-winning goal of the season.
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Julián Fernández scores early against FC Cincinnati | Courtesy MLS and Apple TV
Then there was the electric stoppage-time goal he scored in the 3-2 win over Columbus Crew at Yankee Stadium in September. He was composed enough to wave an onrushing Seymour Reid off the ball, then fire a world past Columbus keeper Patrick Schulte.
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Julián Fernández scores a game-winner in stoppage time | Courtesy MLS and Apple TV
Despite these two spectacular goals, you can’t call the season a success. Certain expectations are placed on Fernández because of his age, and his position on the field, and he simply hasn’t met them as he has fallen down the depth chart.
Julián Fernández’s season, wrapped
Let’s look at Fernández’s season stats to get a sense of the kind of season he had in the regular season and playoffs, per FBref. It’s Julián’s season, wrapped:
- Featured in MLS Team of the Matchday 0 times.
- Entered as a substitute in 24 out of 39 games
- Finished the season with a 26.3% shot accuracy
- Scored 2 game-winning goals
- Created 4.66 chances per game
- Registered a 8% goal conversion rate
- 5 shots taken with the right foot
- Scored 1 goal with the right foot
- 32 shots taken with the left foot
- Scored 2 goals with the left foot
These numbers don’t tell Fernández’s entire story. But you can see the good and the bad, and the holes that plagued the 21-year-old’s 2025 season.
Playing up to his market value?
It’s not easy to assess a player’s market value. There are the figures from Transfermarkt, which we used at the start of this post, but those can be arbitrary. But in the case of Fernández, we can compare his season with that of teammate Agustín Ojeda. Both are young Argentine wingers with high ceilings that NYCFC brought in to develop and sell, and we’ll look at Ojeda’s season as the benchmark.
In 2025 league games, Fernández has three goals on the season while Ojeda has none; both Fernández and Ojeda have five assists; Fernández completed 72.9% of passes to Ojeda’s 79.0%; Fernández created 73 chances to Ojeda’s 50; and Fernández won 36.4% of tackles to Ojeda’s 52.4%.
In this head-to-head, Fernández should be rated more highly than Ojeda.
But Ojeda has earned more of Jansen’s trust. Ojeda is just one of two players to appear in every one of 43 of NYCFC’s games across all competitions (Justin Haak is the other), and who started in the Eastern Conference Semifinal and Eastern Conference Final. Fernández is better going forward and can create more chances, but Ojeda has an x-factor. The two make different kinds of impact, but they have had relatively similar seasons in terms of direct contributions. However good fans may feel about Ojeda, Fernández isn’t far off, but both of them may very well end their NYCFC career as transfer misses.
Fernández’s season has had a few highlights, but nobody would look at it as a success. Regardless, he’ll be looking to build on it next year, and hopefully turn into the player we think he can be.
