Nico Fernández Mercau is the first New York City FC player asked to step in for the injured Alonso Martínez in 2026, but he's not a like-for-like replacement, and the limited evidence shows Nico operating at striker in a very different manner than Alonso.
Fernández Mercau spearheaded the attack against LA Galaxy on Matchday 1, drawing and converting the penalty that earned New York City their draw and their first point of the season.
He put in a strong all-around shift, filling the stat sheet as an attacker and a disruptive pressing defender, but what Nico brought against the Galaxy differs significantly from the body of work left behind by the injured Martínez.
When he's lined up at center-forward, Fernández Mercau still tends to do the most of his attacking work out wide on the right — although Nico's biggest moment against the Galaxy to open 2026 came from a very Martínez-like run in between the LA center-backs.
The reality at this moment is that Pascal Jansen sees value in how Nico plays the No 9 for NYCFC, but when they've got Nico in there as the striker from the start, the club mostly operates without a player who will consistently occupy the furthest-forward spaces in the middle of the pitch, a deficiency that cost New York City a chance to grab all three points in California.
Deep-dropping tendencies
Against LA Galaxy, neither Nico nor the other natural attacking central midfielder out there for NYCFC, Maxi Moralez, offered much of a consistent central threat. As you can see in the above passing network maps for each team, both Nico (labeled as CF) and Moralez (labeled CAM) were busy dropping deep into the New York City central-midfield areas to get onto the ball and try to progress play.
The Fernández Mercau heat map for this game, available via Sofascore, showed him getting the bulk of his 67 touches of the ball in spots outside the 18-yard box, spots more often occupied by a right- or attacking-midfielder. He wants to drop in to have an influence beginning from deep in the build-up, a tendency that works much better when Alonso Martínez or a more direct player like him is out there to run the central channels.
