Yesterday, we ran a post titled "Hudson River Blue's Top 10 Stories of 2025," and it was exactly as advertised: We wrapped up the year's Top 10 stories by readership, a countdown decided by Hudson River Blue page views. Today, we're following up with the editor's picks for our favorite stories and features of 2025, the ones we feel represent the depth and breadth of the coverage here at HRB. They're arranged chronologically, starting with the beginning of the year.
This is where you'll find the kind of analysis that might not reach the same global readership as, say, a post about Donald Trump keeping the original 2025 FIFA World Cup Trophy for himself, but that addresses our core audience, namely the subscribers who view soccer through a New York City lens.
Happy New Year — here's to a prosperous, peaceful, and super groovy 2026.
Open Cup Digest
By Michael Battista
February 1, 2025 – October 31, 2025
When they write the history of the US Open Cup, they will devote a chapter to the Open Cup Digest, the column/newsletter that Senior Writer Michael Battista writes ahead of each stage of the oldest soccerball tournament in this country. Taken together, his Digest is an epic prose poem on the scale of the Iliad: You will read about former internationals now competing in the third tier of the American soccer pyramid, the amateur players itching for the chance to challenge the professionals who make a living from the sport, and the blue-collar clubs that were formed to represent the workplaces and heritages that make this country great.
The Open Cup Digest was launched in 2024, and is now up to 21 installments. This past year, Battista authored 10, starting with #11. Naturally, the Digest will return in 2026.
Michael Battista
Oppo Research
By Matthew Mangam
February 21, 2025 - November 28, 2025
Our gameday coverage always begins with Oppo Research, in which Senior Writer Matthew Mangam talks to a member of the press corps that closely follows the opposing team to learn what's actually going on in that squad. As any journalist knows, there's an art to asking the right question, and Mangam is among the best at getting his colleagues to let us know what they're really thinking.
Matthew Mangam
How We Voted
By Andrew Leigh
February 25, 2025 - October 21, 2025
Before the start of the season, Executive Editor Andrew Leigh proposed a column in which he explained the reasoning behind his official media vote for MLS Player of the Matchday. Eight months and 34 posts later, we have a real-time chronicle of the 2025 league season.
Notably, Leigh never allowed his over-familiarity with New York City influence his decisions. He cast just two votes for NYCFC players, first selecting Hannes Wolf in June for his three goal contributions in the 4-0 win over Atlanta United on Matchday 18, then voting in for Alonso Martínez in July after the striker put three past FC Dallas in Matchday 24.
All 34 editions of the column are worth reading, or re-reading.
Andrew Leigh
Minnesota United a sign of changing times for analytics in MLS
By Andrew Leigh
April 9, 2025
Earlier this spring, Minnesota United announced that they partnered with American Soccer Analysis, a soccer analytics-focused website founded in 2013. It felt like a watershed moment to Leigh: ASA, which has long been a valuable resource to MLS journalists and superfans, now had a consulting arm that was capable of providing value to a club that already had access to professional-grade data. Leigh spoke with Kieran Doyle-Davis of the non-consulting, soccer website side of ASA, to try to accurately describe the current state of data and analytics adoption across MLS, and how much it's changed as the league and its teams have evolved.
Andrew Leigh
Contending or Rebuilding: What is NYCFC trying to achieve?
By John Baney
May 8, 2025
We all know that New York City's season ended on a high note, with the team making an unexpectedly deep run in the MLS Cup Playoffs by knocking out top-ranked Philadelphia Union on the road. But cast your mind back to May, when Aiden O'Neill was still awaiting his visa and Nico Fernández Mercau had just helped Elche CF gain promotion to La Liga, it was hard to get a line on the club's ambitions for 2025.
Was New York City contending? Rebuilding? Or just floundering? Senior Writer John Baney attempted to puzzle that out.
If you recall, NYCFC was bounced out of the US Open Cup by the second-division Pittsburgh Riverhounds the night before Baney's story ran. He was working on it well before then, but timing is everything.
John Baney
HRB Podcast Episode 42: Ronny Deila joins us ahead of his Yankee Stadium return
By John Baney, Andrew Leigh, and Mark Radigan
June 11, 2025
A big year for The Hudson River Blue Podcast, as they recorded 52 episodes, grew listenership, and featured this particularly memorable guest spot from Ronny Deila, the now-former coach of Atlanta United FC, before he returned to the Bronx to face NYCFC for the first time in New York City since leaving the club in 2022.
Hudson River Blue Staff
Fooled Around and Fell in Love: Why we're so into the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup
By Michael Battista, Matthew Mangam, and Mark Radigan
July 7, 2025
We'll admit that we were deeply skeptical of the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup: It felt both rushed and crass, a cash-grab played out in NFL stadiums with grass combovers. But the HRB crew covered every game at MetLife Stadium, including Chelsea FC's surprising 3-0 win over Paris-Saint Germain in the final, and we were won over by the quality, the competitiveness, and the crowds. In this roundtable, Battista, Mangam, and Senior Writer Mark Radigan compare notes on why they were crushing so hard on the tournament.
Michael Battista
What to know about Raul Gustavo, new New York City FC defender
By Abe Shire
August 15, 2025
Shire was new to HRB this year and one of his early pieces for the site was this informative and enlightening look into the background and play style of New York City FC's last big signing of the 2025 season, Brazilian center-back Raul Gustavo. This was the third and final installment of an unofficial series we embarked on at HRB this year: Diving deep into each of the team's new signings as they arrived, like Andrew Leigh's piece from April 25 on what to know about new midfielder Aiden O'Neill, and John Baney's attempt to answer the big questions around NYCFC's biggest 2025 signing, Who is Nico Fernández?
Abe Shire
Brad Sims: 'Every day, it's good news'
By Hudson River Blue Staff
September 17, 2025
A few times per year, the media that cover New York City are summoned to the club's headquarters in Midtown Manhattan to speak with President and CEO Brad Sims. It's usually a roundtable discussion, with the assembled journalists politely asking questions when it's their turn.
Here's the twist: Sims is unusually open in interviews, and will give long, thoughtful answers that are remarkably candid and revealing. The setting might be as corporate as you could possibly find on this planet, but the responses from Sims are truly insightful, and give you a good idea about what's happening in the executive boardrooms at NYCFC, MLS, and beyond.
Hudson River Blue Staff
The Best Defender in the Attack: Why Hannes Wolf is so important to NYCFC
By Mark Radigan
September 19, 2025
A good analysis piece will tell you something you vaguely felt but didn't firmly understand, using empirical evidence to reveal what is so unusual about a player, or a coach, or a team. Case in point: Radigan's September post on Hannes Wolf, which detailed how the winger's defensive contributions were so vital to New York City's performances even as his goal involvement dropped off.
Radigan's piece shows how Wolf wasn't much of a dribbler (no, really, the numbers are not good), but he was among the league elite when it came to recoveries, interceptions, and winning possession in the final third.
Mark Radigan
Zohran Mamdani: A soccer sicko in City Hall?
By Oliver Strand
October 21, 2025
We were tracking the soccer-ness of Zohran Mamdani long before the newly-inaugurated 112th Mayor of New York City had his Arsenal fandom become a meme. When HRB Publisher Oliver Strand trekked down to Coney Island on a brisk fall day for the "Cost of Living Classic," a five-a-side tournament that felt more like a day-long kickaround than a campaign event, he found the candidate to be authentically attuned to sport, and completely at ease on the damp turf fields that define New York City's pickup soccer scene — what else would you expect from the former defender for the Talking Headers, a team that competed in one of NYC Footy's coed leagues?
Oliver Strand
Matt Freese: 'I don't like being average'
By Matthew Mangam
October 30, 2025
Mangam first started tracking Matt Freese from his arrival at New York City, when he was an unexpected but intriguing signing brought in to compete with Luis Barraza for the starting goalkeeper position. Fast-forward to this year, and Mangam had the chance to head up to the Etihad City Football Academy in Rockland County to sit down with the presumed No 1 for the United States men's national team for an exclusive interview.
Matthew Mangam
Playing With House Money: NYCFC are ahead no matter what happens in Philly
By John Baney
November 14, 2025
Jump ahead six months, and Baney is looking back at an unexpectedly thrilling end to the season. New York City had just beaten Charlotte FC in Round One of the 2025 MLS Cup Playoffs, defying the odds to triumph twice on the road — and getting the first wins at Bank of America Stadium in club history.
Baney wrote this analysis piece before NYCFC's upset win over #1 seed Philadelphia Union, when the mood in New York Cityland was bright and joyful. After all, the team was playing with house money.
John Baney
Dr GarberLove, Or: How MLS owners learned to stop worrying and love the Euro calendar
By Corey Clayton
November 17, 2025
False 9 Columnist Corey Clayton made a single cameo appearance in 2025 when he wrote this 2,552-word reflection on the league's annual end-of-season meeting, when it was announced that MLS will change the playing schedule, wedge a mini 17-game season into the first half of 2027, eliminate conferences, add divisions, and make games available to all Apple TV subscribers.
There was a lot of ground to cover, and Clayton didn't hold back (as to be expected).
Corey Clayton
GOTHAM FC WIN 2025 NWSL CHAMPIONSHIP
By Megha Gupta
November 22, 2025
Our Gotham FC coverage leveled up this year with the addition of Senior Writer Megha Gupta, a journalism student in the graduate program at Columbia University who already has the resume of a seasoned pro. She faithfully covered the Bats for HRB, including their title-winning game in November – and that was just her second trophy-clinching piece for us, given Gupta also wrote about Gotham's Concacaf W Champions Cup win in May.
Megha Gupta
Tough Choices: New York City FC's 2026 roster decisions begin now
By John Baney
November 30, 2025
An immovable rule of professional sports: The season ends the day a team exits the playoffs. We all feel the whiplash of closely watching 90 minutes of soccer one day, then reading about contract decisions the next morning. Baney wrote this comprehensive overview of the New York City roster while the playoffs still raged, but his analysis remains timely and insightful.
John Baney
Scouting Report: A first look at New York City FC's 2026 MLS SuperDraft picks
By Raf Noboa y Rivera
December 19, 2025
When Raf Noboa y Rivera founded HRB in 2014, New York City had yet to play a game — or even sign a player. He has since moved on from day-to-day coverage of the sport, but Noboa y Rivera will parachute in every once in a while to author something like this extensive scouting report of NYCFC's four collegiate picks from the 2026 MLS SuperDraft.
Raf Noboa y Rivera
Brooklyn FC Coach Marlon LeBlanc: 'I will work tirelessly to give Brooklyn our best product'
By Tyrese Alleyne-Davis
December 23, 2025
Contributing Writer Tyrese Alleyne-Davis joined the HRB team in September, and since then has provided extensive coverage of Brooklyn FC, the ever-expanding club that plays at Maimonides Park in Coney Island. Right now, Brooklyn's women's team are halfway through their second season in the USL Gainbridge Super League. But the men's team is set to debut in the second-tier USL Championship this coming March — Alleyne-Davis sat down with newly-hired Head Coach Marlon LeBlanc to discuss the club's ambitions, and how you build a squad from scratch.
Tyrese Alleyne-Davis
