Later today, New York City FC II returns to action for its third season in MLS NEXT Pro, playing its opening match in Ft. Lauderdale, Fl. against Inter Miami CF II.
Matt Pilkington is back as head coach and will be looking to get the young II squad into the MLS NEXT Pro playoffs for the first time on his third attempt. NYCFC II missed qualifying for the 2023 NEXT Pro playoffs by a mere one point, so a playoff breakthrough has to be on the club’s mind.
Pilkington’s NYCFC II will look different in 2024. The club and entire league’s leading goal-scorer, striker MD Myers, was sold to USL Championship club Charleston Battery during the offseason. Other key contributors in past seasons have also parted with the team this offseason, so there will be a new look to NYCFC II in 2024.
More than ever, following this year’s II squad will mean following the early professional progress made by the recent crop of teenagers NYCFC has signed to Homegrown contracts.
Just how ready is that group of promising teens, and how will this reworked, young roster fare in an increasingly competitive MLS NEXT Pro? Let’s run through some of the big changes, key players, and things to watch as NYCFC II starts its season.
Changes aplenty
Priority No. 1 for NYCFC II in 2024: Replace the talisman who left this winter.
MD Myers, he of the share of MLS NEXT Pro Golden Boot with 19 goals scored in 2023, is now with the Charleston Battery of the USL Championship.
Beyond the goals, Myers also made the most appearances on the 2023 NYCFC II squad, starting all 28 of the team’s games.
He was as vital a cog as there was, and New York City II will need to spread the. goal-scoring around to cover for the Rutgers University alum’s absence.
The club’s second-leading scorer in 2023, forward Jonathan “JJ” Jimenez, was one of a trio of NYCFC Homegrown signings who had his 2024 contract option declined when the First Team announced its end-of-2023 roster moves.
Jimenez, as well as defender Samuel “Kwaku” Owusu, return to New York City’s MLS NEXT Pro squad despite having those first-team contract options declined.
That’s according to a roster shared with Hudson River Blue ahead of NYCFC II’s first match.
This should not be taken as the MLS NEXT Pro team’s final roster, since it was only included in the “game notes” for the first match of the 2024 season against Inter Miami II. The list below has inaccuracies for some players’s contract statuses (i.e., Alex Rando is on a First Team Contract now, while Jimenez and Owusu’s First Team contracts ended in 2023), but it does provide some clues as to the changes to the II team heading into the new season.
Players not set to return: Midfielder Nico Benalcazar, another onetime-Homegrown player who signed with FC Cincinnati 2 this offseason. Also missing will be attacker John Denis, who has put his playing career on pause to receive cancer treatment. (You should consider donating to this GoFundMe the family of John Denis has set up to help cover the exorbitant medical costs set to accompany his treatment.)
David Duque looks poised to progress from the New York City Academy to the NEXT Pro squad, while former Rutgers University left-back Chris Tiao, who was also recently a Red Bulls II player, seems to have moved to NYCFC II for the 2024 season.
SuperDraftees in attack?
Taylor Calheira, the attacker New York City selected from University of Maryland, Baltimore County in the Third Round of the 2024 MLS SuperDraft, now joins NYCFC II to try to offset the loss of MD Myers. Calheira was a prolific scorer in college, collecting 32 goals in 61 appearances for UMBC, but will he be joined by his fellow NYCFC SuperDraftee, Malachi Jones?
Jones is signed to a First Team contract with NYCFC and may not be ticketed for an every-match role with the II squad, but it stands to reason he will get chances to get his feet wet in the professional game when the timing is right. Might Jones and Calheira both end up key players in the NYCFC II attacking front?
Focus on the Homegrowns
Players who you should expect to be key contributors with the IIs in 2024: The youngsters who recently received Homegrown contracts from New York City FC proper.
Goalkeeper Alex Rando, defender Drew Baiera, plus midfielders Jonny Shore and Maximo Carrizo look like sure bets to play regularly in MLS NEXT Pro in 2024.
Rando has featured for the II squad for each of its first two seasons of existence, and while Academy goalkeeper Alex Yagudayev is still listed among the NYCFC II players with the team in Florida for the season-opener, Yagudayev also recently signed a letter of commitment to play for Villanova University.
Baiera, Shore, and Carrizo are some of the brightest talents out of the Academy—as is 17-year-old left-back Christian McFarlane, who seems less like a nailed-on NYCFC II player in 2024, now that he’s been occasionally making the bench of the New York City senior squad and has been openly mentioned as the next Homegrown to break through with Nick Cushing’s senior team.
One player missing from the Homegrowns-in-NEXT-Pro list: Zidane Yañez, the 16-year-old attacker who signed as a Homegrown in December. Yañez has yet to make his professional debut at the NEXT Pro level, but might that also be on the horizon as the II squad’s season unfolds?
A taste of Open Cup magic
The season-opener against Inter Miami CF II will be quickly followed by NYCFC II’s first-ever match played in the US Open Cup, as the Young Pigeons will travel to Montclair, New Jersey to face local semi-pro squad FC Motown in a First Round match-up that pits “Truck Drivers vs Abu Dhabi,” as the Cinderella Motown team likes to put it.
The participating players might be slightly different once NYCFC II shifts back to the Tri-State Area and embarks on its attempted Open Cup Run. Open Cup rules for this year’s tournament now stipulate that up to seven MLS first-team players can be loaned to their NEXT Pro siblings for the tournament.
Might any fringe members of the NYCFC first team–say, Malachi Jones or goalkeeper Tomás Romero—end up on loan to the NEXT Pro affiliate in an effort to log some valuable Open Cup minutes?
However the roster machinations shake out during the NEXT Pro regular season and the team’s Open Cup run, the look of NYCFC II will be different when it takes the field in 2024.
Will the changes translate to more on-field success for the II squad? Does that even matter as a key metric for the II squad, given how it functions as a testing ground for the team’s top young talents?
Playoffs or no playoffs, following NYCFC II this season will provide an enticing glimpse into what the future might hold for New York City FC, and how the team’s young prospects handle another season in NEXT Pro could dictate how soon we see one or more of those youngsters on the biggest MLS stage.
