It all comes down to this. The best-of-three series between New York City FC and Charlotte FC will be decided in a win-or-go-home Game 3 at 7:00 pm ET on Friday, November 5, at Bank of America Stadium in North Carolina.
New York City couldn’t close Charlotte out at home, and now head back out on the road to try to keep their run through the MLS Cup Playoffs alive and book a trip to Chester, PA, to face the Philadelphia Union in the Eastern Conference Semifinals.
What will it take to get a second straight win at Bank of America Stadium? It won’t be easy, in part because goals have been at a major premium through two games. The simplest route to winning and advancing: Score one more goal than Charlotte, be it in regulation or in a decisive penalty-kick shootout if these teams play to a second straight draw.
The game is simple, but it’s not that simple, which leads us to wonder what needs to happen on NYCFC’s side to get the best of Charlotte and keep the season going. What follows is a few pieces of unsolicited advice for Pascal Jansen as he gets his team ready to play their biggest game of the season (so far).
There’s no guarantee that following these five steps delivers the needed three points, but all these things happening would go a long way toward ensuring New York City’s success on Friday night at Bank of America Stadium.
1. Tweak the personnel
It feels like a change is in order. Pascal Jansen decided to use the same Starting XIs for both Game 1 and Game 2. His team looked strong and comfortable while winning Game 1, then looked tentative and ineffective while going goalless at home in Game 2.
Hannes Wolf needs to start. New York City needs an attacking boost even if they have been the more consistently threatening side in this series, dwarfing Charlotte in expected goals (xG) in each match — 1.46 xG to 0.43 xG in Game 1, then 1.51 xG to 0.69 xG in the scoreless Game 2.
Jansen has been lining his squad up in a 3-2-4-1 formation with Kevin O’Toole and Tayvon Gray pushing forward as true wing-backs, and with Raul Gustavo, Justin Haak, and Thiago Martins as the trio anchoring the defense.
How do you fit Wolf in without sacrificing the defensive solidity that’s kept Charlotte scoreless for 180 straight minutes in this series — and for 270 minutes dating back to their last regular-season meeting? Wolf has past experience serving as a wing-back, so he could come in as a like-for-like change with O’Toole, if Jansen prefers to keep his Raul-Haak-Thiago trio in central defense.
The formation has frequently been fluid under Jansen, so he could also keep O’Toole’s wide defending in the lineup, but then it’s a choice of dropping a midfielder or a different defender. Raul Gustavo would be a defensive option to sit in favor of Wolf, but he’s also started in both recent wins over Charlotte and has looked generally solid since arriving and acclimating after his summer signing.
Would Jansen consider sitting Maxi Moralez for Wolf? It seems highly unlikely, given Moralez started every MLS match this season. Still, his last goal contribution was way back on August 30 vs DC United, and, of late, Jansen has him on a 65-80 minute limit. Maxi last went 90 minutes six matches ago against Inter Miami, and is averaging 73 minutes across his last five played.
The official guess is Jansen swaps out O’Toole for Wolf and asks Raul Gustavo and Perea to make up for any of the defensive drop-off that occurs on the left side of the field. That might be harsh on O’Toole, who was actually tied with Moralez for the most chances created (3) during the 0-0 draw at Yankee Stadium.
2. Give Alonso better looks
While there were chances created by New York City in Game 2, none of them ended in good looks at goal for Alonso Martínez.
That will need to change in Charlotte, because Martínez is the Boy in Blue most frequently inflicting pain on Dean Smith’s team. Martínez scored the winning goals in all three of New York City’s recent wins over Charlotte, dating back to the dramatic 2-1 victory at Yankee Stadium early-ish in the 2024 regular season.
He scored that stunning solo goal to win Game 1, but only put two unthreatening shots on target in Game 2, both in the second half. He only got off a dribbler from an awkward angle in the 51st minute that got scooped up easily by Kristijan Kahlina, then found a pocket of space at the very top of the 18-yard box in the 83rd minute, only to send a looping strike straight at Kahlina for the Charlotte goalkeeper to comfortably catch.
Glenn Crooks
Martínez thrives in space and in transition, and Charlotte mostly took both of those avenues of opportunity away from the Costa Rican in Game 2. In Game 3, New York City need to force more turnovers out of Charlotte in opportune moments and in opportune parts of the spacious Bank of America Stadium pitch. They did it in Game 1, successfully pressing Charlotte and opening up chances to hit them on the counter, like when Andrés Perea hit the crossbar shortly before Martínez’s goal.
That Perea shot came from a move forward that began with a step-in and tackle by Aiden O’Neill, the team’s deepest-lying midfielder. Disruptive and progressive plays forward initiated by O’Neill or Justin Haak have worked for New York City in the past, so they could use another moment or two or three of back-to-front possession winning and counterattack springing.
3. Capitalize on a set piece
Easier said than done, given that there’s been a grand total of one goal scored across two matches in this series, but New York City’s clearest scoring chances in Game 2 came from set pieces.
Raul Gustavo and Thiago Martins used size to their advantage at Yankee Stadium, though neither Brazilian defender could direct open headers past Kahlina, the Player of the Match in Game 2 for his five regulation saves plus his shootout heroics.
Getting goals past Kahlina — or his NYCFC counterpart Matt Freese – has only happened in one special moment in Game 1, or in the shootout. Yet New York City found advantages from a corner and a free kick in Game 2 thanks to the quality of their dead-ball deliveries and thanks to the size offered by their two central defenders, while also seeming to catch Charlotte out or ill-prepared in both instances.
Matthew Mangam
While we’re focusing on set pieces while recalling those Game 2 near-misses from Thiago and Raul, the bigger thing for New York City might be taking advantage of any lapses in marking or concentration that get presented by Charlotte.
Remember, Martínez’s great goal in Game 1 also involved multiple Charlotte defenders standing still and being glacially slow to react to the NYCFC striker’s run. Adilson Malanda and Tim Ream tightened things up at the back for Charlotte in Game 2, but New York City needs to be switched on for every possible moment in which they can catch Charlotte switching off, whether it’s from a dead ball or at a moment where they’re caught out and unsettled in the run of play.
4. Get under Wilfried Zaha’s skin
The series has been physical and yellow card-filled, yet it’s also been relatively tame in terms of on-field strife between the teams and players. Now that it’s reached this highest-stakes Game 3, expect things to get more testy during this second meeting at Bank of America Stadium. For New York City, that should mean attempting to test the nerve of Charlotte’s emotional and sometimes volatile star, Wilfried Zaha.
Zaha wasn’t available for Game 1 after he earned a completely unnecessary second yellow card in the 90th minute against Philadelphia on Decision Day, resulting in a one-match suspension. He will now be out there in front of his home fans for Game 3, and the former English Premier League star feels like the center of all attention for Charlotte as they look to get their first regulation goal and rally back with a second straight win to advance.
The first New York City objective is minimizing Zaha’s attacking chances, but the second might be pushing him, not just physically, but emotionally and psychologically, to see if he’ll react in a way that costs Charlotte. Zaha saw the second-most yellow cards in MLS this season, when he was cautioned 11 times in 31 appearances. He also drew the most fouls of any player and by a wide margin — often the pushes have, in fact, been physical.
New York City halted Zaha’s three-game scoring streak in the Bronx, but the forward scored goals in back-to-back home matches to close out his regular season, so Zaha returns home with some extra confidence.
While Zaha may take exception to being seen as the be-all, end-all for Charlotte’s attack and for their chances of winning, he’s still going to need to be a focal point for New York City if they hope to emerge the winners on the road again. This is no call to do anything outside the laws of the game, but any edge that there is to be gained over Zaha that NYCFC can exploit could make the difference in Game 3.
5. Stick with Nico
New York City looks better when Nico Fernández Mercau is on the field, and the team’s newest Designated Player should be out there for the entirety of things in Game 3 in Charlotte.
Pascal Jansen has been removing Fernández Mercau in favor of Julián Fernández to close out games. That needs to not happen unless there’s a comfortable New York City lead and it’s a purely clock-related change.
It’s less about Julián’s struggles during his brief cameo at the end of Game 2, which included a shootout attempt that went entirely wide of the frame of goal, than it is about making sure Fernández Mercau is there to maximize not just NYCFC’s scoring chances, but also their chances to control the game in important moments. Nico’s skills as a dribbler and a tackler are vital when they need to win back the ball.
He was the one who whipped in the free kick that Thiago Martins powerfully headed on goal in the 73rd minute of Game 2, in what was NYCFC’s most promising scoring chance of the game. A few minutes later, Fernández Mercau stripped the ball off Charlotte’s Djibril Diani, leading to a shot of his own, another saved by Kahlina, but an indication of the multiple ways the squad’s new DP can influence a game.
Oliver Strand
Trayvon really got under Zaha skin in the last two home games versus Charlotte, he was MOTM for me on Sat night. Agree on Fernandez, who needs to kick a ball against the wall with his right foot 1,000,000 x
this. and seconding for starting Wolf. not just because of all the reasons we discussed, but also we’ve witnessed the synergic potential between Nico & Wolf and what damage the combo can cause to the opponent—pending, when “working out”. they’ll expect another Maxi-orchestrated game. gotta exploit it, IMO. i completely believe Smith knew/expected Jansen would field the same config in the 2nd game…