New York City FC ended their Leagues Cup run by suffering a 1-2 loss to Deportivo Toluca FC at Yankee Stadium.
Pascal Jansen's team needed to pull an upset over Toluca and hope for lots of results to break their way elsewhere in Leagues Cup matches. Instead, Toluca stormed back after Alonso Martínez gave New York City an early lead, and New York City fell behind and never recovered, sealing their elimination from Leagues Cup at the close of their three Phase One matches played.
It was an eventful evening in the Bronx between the Boys in Blue and Los Diablos in red, and here are 4 Thoughts at the final whistle as NYCFC's Leagues Cup journey comes to an end.
1. Early hope courtesy of Alonso Martínez
New York City needed a big win over Toluca to have any dream of advancing to the Leagues Cup Quarterfinals, and they got off to a promising enough start thanks to their star striker. Alonso Martínez found the back of the net in the 10th minute to put wind in NYCFC’s sails and offer a glimmer of hope that a big win could be in the cards for the team that usually calls Yankee Stadium home.
The match did not play out that way, but Martínez did his part to provide his team a fast start. He’s got six goals in his last six appearances for New York City across both MLS and Leagues Cup, and his importance to the team’s attack remains at all-time highs even after the arrival of new Designated Player Nico Fernández, who had a very quiet night against Toluca.
It’s fair to wonder now that Leagues Cup begins to recede from memory for NYCFC: If Alonso Martínez didn’t rest against Puebla, would this group have played out the same exact way? Martínez can’t be expected to start every single game when the games come as frequently as they have this summer, but he was just finding the form that sees him hang with the MLS Golden Boot leaders when the team’s Leagues Cup opener arrived.
That loss probably had more to do with a defensive letdown and a makeshift back line than it did with Martínez being on the bench, but the difference for New York City between Alonso in the lineup and Alonso out of the lineup was stark.
2. Diablos flip early script
Toluca is one of the top teams in Mexico’s Liga MX, winners of the Clausura in 2025 and the highest-ranked of the three clubs from Mexico to face NYCFC during this Phase One of Leagues Cup. The opening goal from Martínez seemed to wake the red-clad giants of Liga MX from their early-match slumber, as they took control of the game after Martínez scored and didn’t let up until halftime.
They held 55% of the possession in the first half, putting five shots on target for Matt Freese to deal with – the field was tilting heavily in Toluca’s favor to close out the opening 45 minutes and they got two late goals just before the 40th minute to grab control of the scoreline, to pair with their control of the ball and the pace of the game. All the Toluca success was appreciated by the decidedly pro-Toluca crowd that gathered in Yankee Stadium – there were red jerseys galore gathered throughout the grandstand.
There was also a clear gap evident between the teams on the field. New York City’s centerbacks couldn’t cope with the dual central threat of prolific Portuguese striker Paulinho, as well as Toluca’s central playmaker, Jesús Angulo, both those players involved in the goals in the first half. The wide threats of Helinho and Alexis Vega troubled NYCFC from out to in, as well, not helped by the fact that Tayvon Gray had to leave this game after 30 minutes with a muscle injury.
Toluca were in must-win mode for this match, as they needed a win to give themselves a prime opportunity to finish near the top of the Liga MX table and advance to the tournament’s Quarterfinals as one of the top four Mexican teams. They seemed to brush off the early adversity of the Martínez goal and leaned on their experienced, veteran players to pull them back into the driver’s seat, a position they never really relinquished even in the second half while NYCFC chased the game.
3. Officiating issues
The first half ended with multiple controversial moments involving officiating decisions. The most significant was the VAR intervening to award Toluca’s second goal, overruling the on-field call that Paulinho was offside when he slid his shot past Matt Freese in the 39th minute. The video review dragged on for many minutes and the angles showed on the AppleTV broadcast didn’t seem definitive in showing that the on-field linesmen had erred in raising his flag for offside – Paulinho looked a step beyond the next-to-last defender, but also, attempting to decipher the offside line on the trapezoidal-shaped Yankee Soccer Stadium pitch requires real skill.
The game also went a bit off the rails right before halftime when a giant skirmish broke out between teams following a foul on Maxi Moralez by a Toluca player. Four players, two from each team, earned yellow cards for their roles amidst all the pushing and shoving. Referee Pierre-Luc Lauziere, a veteran of PRO Referees and MLS, didn't seem like he had great control of the game as the first half wound down. Things looked ready to boil over between the two teams, and NYCFC was left somewhat aggrieved when Paulinho's goal was given against them despite a possible legit offside shout. Not too many NYCFC matches have been marred by refereeing controversy this season, but the offside decision – and nobody getting a red card despite some rough behavior from players wearing red jerseys – were questionable calls from Lauziere and his crew of assistants.
4. Leagues Cup lessons for NYCFC
This New York City FC team wasn’t put in a position to make noise during Leagues Cup. Rest and rotation took priority for the team’s opening match against Club Puebla and that became a backbreaking 3-0 defeat that Pascal Jansen’s side could never recover from. It wasn’t enough to steady things and beat León 2-0, because this match with Toluca loomed, the biggest test, from a quality-of-opponent perspective, that NYCFC would get during Leagues Cup.
The loss to Toluca confirmed that this NYCFC team isn’t deep enough to go toe-to-toe with the top teams from Liga MX, nor are they consistent enough to put the results together that they’d need to thrive in a tournament formatted like the new version of Leagues Cup.
New York City can’t string multiple wins together, a trend that continued with this loss at Yankee Stadium. The team is winless in its last six matches played (0W-1D-5L) immediately following a victory, and their overall record this season in games after Ws now stands at a meager 3W-2D-7L with a -9 goal differential. Whatever positivity the team draws from winning a match doesn’t carry over into the next match very often, a concerning trend as the season now approaches its final 10 MLS matches, and with NYCFC hoping to squeeze into the MLS Cup Playoffs and put a postseason run together.
Leagues Cup wasn’t the avenue for the team to earn its next trophy, but it continued to teach us some valuable lessons about this year’s New York City team. They can make noise but they aren’t quite ready to slay the giants of Liga MX, and they aren’t yet consistent enough to make a real knockout tournament run.
