It's one podcast episode, but it's about four different New York City FC matches.
That's the name of the game at this busiest of busy part of the MLS season, though the fixture congestion isn't doing anything to slow down a scorching-hot NYCFC team that's now won three straight matches and climbed way up to 4th Place in the Eastern Conference.
This episode kicks off with hosts Mark Radigan and John Baney and producer Andrew Leigh reviewing the club's two most recent wins, both at Yankee Stadium and both over Eastern Conference playoff rivals, Columbus Crew and Charlotte FC.
We talk about Hannes Wolf's best season ever continuing in the form of another brace, the Columbus win representing his fourth two-goal game of 2025. The at-the-death winner from Julián Fernández and the pair of assists from Agustín Ojeda against the Crew also has us marveling at how much deeper the roster feels now compared to the start of the season.
The good run would continue a few days later when NYCFC beat Charlotte FC 2-0 on Kids' Day in the Bronx, a game partially won by the goalkeeper with a new long-term contract extension, Matt Freese. Our Charlotte review includes talk of Freese's penalty-kick heroics against Wilfried Zaha, the defensive domination of a potent Charlotte attack, and what the win does for New York City FC's chances of finishing even higher up the Eastern Conference and Supporters' Shield tables.
After diving deep on those wins, we shift into preview mode and try to figure out what we'll see across the two matches the team will play this Wednesday and Saturday night. How will the one visit to New York City by Inter Miami this season, for a Wednesday night game in NYCFC's second-choice home venue, compare to the hugely-attended spectacle that occurred at Yankee Stadium late last season when Messi first landed in New York City?
The sheer volume and frequency of matches has us wondering when the lineup rotation from Pascal Jansen will arrive – though at least one of us, Andrew, is adamant that rotation shouldn't be happening during the second and final Hudson River Derby of the regular season. The derby might just be one match, but it also could be the result that pushes the Red Bulls right to the very brink of playoff elimination, a result that might be as close as NYCFC can get to exacting real revenge for the loss to the Red Bulls in the 2024 MLS Cup Playoffs.
There's so much ground covered in this episode, which you can listen to in full below, or on Bleav, Spotify, Apple, or wherever else you get your podcasts.
