New York City FC player ratings are determined by you, the Hudson River Blue readers: Here, the player ratings from NYCFC’s shock 2-1 home loss at the hands of DC United, the team with the worst record in the MLS Eastern Conference.
A strong contender for “worst loss of the season” means these New York City FC player ratings are some of the lowest handed out during the 2025 season.
Losing 2-1 to lowly DC United at Yankee Stadium required a particularly bad performance from New York City, and that’s the takeaway from these ratings: No NYCFC player rated highly and no NYCFC player did enough to help the team secure even one point against a team already eliminated from contention for a spot in the MLS Cup Playoffs.
Mark Radigan
The players to see the field in this losing effort averaged a 4.9 rating, which is rough but not the lowest number of the season – that distinction still goes to the team-wide 4.4 rating coming out of the 3-0 home loss to Gabe Segal and the Houston Dynamo.
The lowest scores weren’t given to the defenders, despite allowing Gabriel Pirani to bag a brace for DC. You were especially harsh on the attacking front three deployed by Pascal Jansen, and on Jansen himself – the Head Coach got his lowest rating of the season for his handling of the DC defeat.
Note: FotMob ratings are in parentheses.
Alonso MartĂnez (6.1) – 4.4
Hannes Wolf, off 77′ (6.9) – 4.5
Nico Fernández (6.3) – 4.6
Maxi Moralez, assist 19′ (8.0) – 5.9
Andrés Perea (6.1) – 4.6
Aiden O’Neill (6.5) – 5.5
Kevin O’Toole, off 82′ (6.2) – 4.9
Tayvon Gray (6.8) – 4.8
Justin Haak, goal 19′ (7.6) – 6.1
Thiago Martins (6.0) – 5.3
Matt Freese (5.8) – 5.3
AgustĂn Ojeda, on 77′ (6.0) – 4.5
Julián Fernández, on 82′ (n/a) – 3.7
Player Spotlight
Maxi Moralez
Moralez got the assist on the lone NYCFC goal, his second straight match with a helper and his fifth assist across his last seven appearances in all competitions.
He was a central part of New York City’s unbeaten run in their previous five MLS matches before the loss to DC, and was rated – by both HRB readers and the FotMob algorithm – as one of the top NYCFC players even in the losing effort at Yankee Stadium. FotMob had Moralez rated at 8.0 while you gave the 38-year-old attacking midfielder a 5.9, which isn’t great, but was also the second-highest rating given out following the unexpected loss.
He created the most chances of any NYCFC player, three, while attempting the second-most passes of any player behind only Justin Haak, per FBref’s match stats. Moralez was the man in the middle of much of what New York City tried to do to break down DC, but the approach didn’t translate to goals beyond the Haak strike in the first half.
Deploying the dual threat of Moralez alongside new Designated Player Nico Fernández didn’t create the kind of consistent attacking danger Pascal Jansen would have liked. Moralez and Fernández weren’t able to play off one another successfully, despite efforts throughout the match to get them into the most advantageous positions, and service to Alonso MartĂnez was limited to almost nonexistent.
Moralez dropped deeper into the central midfield at times to get onto the ball, while Fernández flipped from the right side of the midfield to the left, and at times dropped deeper into the midfield a la Moralez to also get onto the ball sooner. Everything they tried seemed to fail, with NYCFC too often settling for hopeful crosses into the DC box – NYCFC attempted 28 crosses to DC’s 11, despite DC being the team that employed the unbeatable-in-the-air Christian Benteke.
Moralez had one great moment receiving and then laying off a touch pass to Haak to get his assist early in the first half, but otherwise, he and the rest of his teammates couldn’t figure out a way through a DC defense that’s conceded the most goals in the Eastern Conference.
Maxi has rounded into form as a consistent assist-getter, but he needed more support against DC. His 5.9 rating from HRB readers reflects both sides of his performance: It’s one of the highest of the night since he got that assist, but is also well below the kind of number that could have been possible had NYCFC done more with all their possession and all their attempts to break down DC.
Pascal Jansen – 2.9
The fingers got pointed firmly in Jansen’s direction when assigning blame for the DC loss, with the NYCFC Head Coach getting his lowest rating of the season. What a difference one match makes: Jansen was named MLS Coach of the Matchday as part of the league’s official Team of the Matchday following the team’s 1-0 away win over FC Cincinnati.
The easiest thing to second-guess from the DC game has to be Jansen’s hesitance to turn to his bench in the second half when things weren’t going the way New York City would have hoped. Despite having all of the ball and passing it around at their leisure, things continued to fall apart in the final third, but Jansen waited until the 77th minute to make a switch. He only used two of his five available substitutions, and neither AgustĂn Ojeda nor Julián Fernández brought much new or useful to the party off the bench.
Jansen has whittled down his group of “trusted players” late in the season, but his talk of every match being like a Cup Final feels at odds with how he managed during the second half at Yankee Stadium. He didn’t move with the decisiveness of a manager who absolutely needed to win this game, instead stubbornly sticking with the lineup that had failed to really threaten a worst-in-the-conference defense. Maybe you can argue changing personnel or tweaking more in-game than Jansen did wouldn’t have mattered, but our readers didn’t appreciate the lack of urgency.
Alexis Da Silva – 4.0
DC’s David Schnegg easily could have seen two yellow cards from Da Silva in the first half. Schnegg picked up a reckless early yellow in the 18th minute, then pulled back an NYCFC attacker in the 34th minute and was whistled for an infraction that could easily have warranted a caution from the ref. It was the kind of obstruction of an attacking player that results in yellow cards coming out in plenty of other instances, but Da Silva showed Schnegg mercy, at a cost to NYCFC. It’s a judgment call from Da Silva, but it could have swung the match significantly in favor of the home team if they got to play with a man advantage for the final 60 minutes and change of the match. Instead, DC stayed at 11 players and went on to win, and I wonder if that decision influenced the 4.0 rating handed out by our readers.
Player of the Match
Justin Haak
The second Player of the Match win for Justin Haak this season and both of them came in NYCFC losses, so both likely taste bittersweet. Haak continued his season operating as the Advance Man, the center-back given the liberty to dribble upfield and serve as an extra midfielder when New York City is in possession.
Oliver Strand
Haak’s comfort making late runs into the 18-yard-box paid off, and his finish past former teammate Luis Barraza was a perfect bit of finesse that seemed to get New York City off and running toward a fourth straight win in the 19th minute. Instead, it was the lone highlight of the night, a night that turned into one to forget even for Haak by the end of the night.
His 6.1 rating from our readers is significantly lower than the 7.6 he earned from FotMob, but that 6.1 was still the highest number assigned to any NYCFC player. Haak was rated as the least-bad performer on a night that will be remembered as a collectively bad performance for New York City.
The goal was his biggest highlight but Haak was also NYCFC’s most accurate and most involved passer, completing 98 of his 107 pass attempts (91.6%) according to FBref’s match stats. He added three interceptions and two tackles, so Haak did his part, but the duo of Haak and Thiago Martins didn’t handle Christian Benteke particularly well in this game.
Haak and Thiago went a combined 0-for-7 in their attempted aerial duels, while Benteke won 13 of the 16 aerial duels he was involved in, further cementing his status as the most dominant striker in the air in MLS at the moment. Benteke didn’t score but he was heavily involved in all that went right for DC, and he got the assist on Gabriel Pirani’s match-winning strike late in the second half.
Haak came under some criticism for his positioning on Pirani’s late breakaway, but the entire NYCFC defense was gambling and pushing way up field while the team searched for a late winner at home. DC took advantage of New York City’s risk-taking, and Haak likely lost plenty of proverbial points in the eyes of our readers for getting split to decide the match. Still, Haak felt like the least central of New York City’s problems in this game.
He’s still the only player to get a goal past ex-NYCFC goalkeeper Luis Barraza this season, though Barraza still gets ultimate bragging rights of going unbeaten in meetings with his former team. Haak tried to change that but didn’t get enough support from the rest of his current teammates, resulting in a slightly hollow Player of the Match honor for the Homegrown from Brooklyn.
