Position: Central Defender
Age: 29
Key Stat: 91.1% — Percentage of NYCFC’s 2024 MLS minutes played by Thiago, his highest minutes played percentage in three MLS seasons.
Thiago Martins enters 2025 expected to remain a steady, solid presence in the middle of the New York City FC defense, but a few questions hang over what will be the center-back’s fourth season with the team.
As the highest-paid NYCFC player and the second-highest-paid defender in Major League Soccer, expectations are always high for the 29-year-old Brazilian.
He lived up to them during the 2024 season, growing into a leader of this young, rebuilt roster while wearing the captain’s armband for the bulk of NYCFC’s matches (while never, formally, officially, being named Captain).
Last year saw Thiago Martins play his most competitive minutes – 3,600 across all competitions – since the 2018 season, when he was 22 years old and split time with both Palmeiras from his native Brazil, and Yokohama F. Marinos in Japan, the team for which he’s still made the most career appearances (118 with Yokohama, 106 with NYCFC).
His 2024 also included a selection to the MLS All-Star team, a first competitive goal for New York City in a crucial home playoff win, and very few mistakes made either while defending or in possession with the ball at his feet.
In 2025, Thiago turns 30 and is in the final guaranteed year of the Designated Player contract he signed to join NYCFC in February 2022, though there’s an option to extend his stay through 2026.
Is it nearing the end of his time leading the New York City defense, or will he continue to excel in the role of veteran defensive anchor in the middle of the backline in 2025 and beyond?
Excelling in possession
When NYCFC had hold of the ball in 2024, it often involved Thiago Martins and he often was doing something positive with it. He led his team in touches, passes attempted, and pass completion rate, and scored particularly well for his accuracy on long passes, ranking in the 94th percentile of MLS center-backs by completing 73.4% of his attempted passes of over 30 yards in length.
It was a common sight to see him dribbling the team upfield last year, with Thiago ranking sixth out of every single MLS player in 2024 by logging 4,033 yards of progressive carrying distance, meaning the distance he moved the ball toward the opponent’s goal.
Passing accuracy and comfort with progressing the ball now seem to be hallmarks of Thiago Martins’s game, and they’ve become vital parts of NYCFC’s buildup play. His skill can pay off and help unlock an opposing defense as seen below, when Thiago got credited with a “secondary assist” for playing the pass-before-the-assist on this Agustín Ojeda goal.
GOALS GALORE IN THE BX 🤩 pic.twitter.com/vYE7dPSKbF
— New York City FC (@newyorkcityfc) June 29, 2024
Central in a good, not great, defense
While Thiago Martins was healthy and effective for nearly all of last season, it still felt like the entirety of the New York City FC defense didn’t reach its potential in 2024. It’s an imperfect metric, but NYCFC only kept five clean sheets out of the 34 MLS regular season matches played, despite having one of the statistically best goalkeepers in the league in goal in Matt Freese.
The 49 goals the team conceded during MLS play wasn’t a bad number, it was good for a place among the Top 10 stingiest defenses in the league during the last regular season. Thiago Martins wasn’t an obvious culprit in gifting teams goals or making constant mistakes that set opponents up to hurt NYCFC, but he was a constant figure in a defense that had its ups-and-downs and tended to make at least one mistake per game that opened the door to conceding a goal.
What to watch for in 2025
Can he be as healthy and reliable again in 2025 playing at age 30 as he was one season ago? Already there might be some doubts emerging in the early days of preseason, as Thiago Martins curiously didn’t log any starts or seemingly any minutes in either of NYCFC’s two closed-door friendlies played during their recent training camp in Santa Barbara, California.
The hope will be that it’s nothing more than a minor injury to brush off early in training camp, because NYCFC will need Thiago to at minimum maintain his 2024 level or, ideally, improve on it if the team is to improve much in the new season.
He’s the wise veteran and the fiery leader of the back-line, but NYCFC is also entering a new era under a new coach in Pascal Jansen who wasn’t here for the ascent of Thiago Martins from high-priced import to true leadership figure of the new-look NYCFC. He’s been consistent and consistently good during his New York City career to date, and now faces another season of proving he’s worth being a multi-million-dollar Designated Player defender.
in general, the aging doesn’t always seem to factor for a defender as crucial as other positions. as long as he can keep himself at least healthy and/or free of injury. was worried about that in particular during his 1st couple seasons, then he seemed to have settled well in the MLS specifics nicely. and i personally think, most of the central defending woes of NYCFC was coming from in-stability in the partnership with his shotguns—namely Risa, Stanija and Haak—with different reasons respectively. Martins grew in me in long 4 years of his tenure. i do believe that he is one of the most underrated (yet overpriced lol) defenders in MLS. hope he keeps excelling under the new gaffer. if anyone asks me who can be the one player we should not lose to keep the team at this moment, the 1st choice from me is Martins. without him now, NYCFC can be a different team. doesn’t mean it’s either good or bad, but he became one of the epicenters of the play style of this very team, not in a shiny manner but in a solid, stable and reliable fashion.