You speaking to me? Hundreds of New Yorkers—and a few nice people from the Backyard State—will converge on Purple Bull Area Sunday for the first-ever New York derby in Main League Soccer.
BY
Brooke Tunstall
Posted
Could 09, 2015
4:55 PM
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THIS ONE WAS EASY TO CHOOSE.
We did not agonize over our choice for this week’s Main League Soccer recreation of the week since Sunday contains a match that league commissioner Don Garber has coveted for greater than decade: the New York Derby!
So when growth New York Metropolis FC travels south alongside the West Facet Freeway and throughout the Hudson River to tackle the New York Purple Bulls (7pm ET, FoxSports1) it should mark the primary time the 2 Huge Apple groups have met. Regardless of the growth staff’s present type—NYCFC has only one win and Purple Bull is winless in three—this recreation is value watching as a result of the environment needs to be electrical as Purple Bull Area is offered out for one of many few instances because it opened in 2010.
As Garber started the push for a second staff within the New York space, one that might really play in one of many 5 boroughs, many outsiders questioned his logic. In spite of everything, followers reasoned, New York already had an MLS staff and it wasn’t like demand for the Purple Bulls (or MetroStars, as they had been when the thought for a second Huge Apple staff was nonetheless a glimmer in Garber’s eye) was so excessive that there was an apparent want for a second New York staff.
However Garber and lots of different MLS insiders insisted {that a} rivalry, a derby, could be good each for the Purple Bulls and MLS as a complete. Time will inform if he’s right however early indications appear to again this. NYCFC’s attendance, regardless of—or possibly due to—taking part in at Yankee Stadium has been excellent.
By means of 5 dates, the New York newcomers are averaging 27,739, third-highest within the league and about 10,000 extra per recreation than the Purple Bulls are averaging regardless of taking part in in a ravishing soccer-specific stadium that holds 25,000.
The hope from MLS headquarters is that video games like this one can have a carry-over and the rivalry between the 2 groups will generate extra curiosity and assist Purple Bull on the gate. To date, curiosity amongst soccer followers within the space has been excessive with Twitter hashtags like #NYCSoccerWarz and #HudsonRiverDerby inviting loads of good ol’ long-established New York smack discuss.
THE SUBPLOTS
The subplot is the plot and it has as a lot to do with the respective fanbases because the gamers. Most Purple Bulls followers appear to take a look at NYCFC followers as poseurs and Johnny-come-latelies, soccer followers who for 19 years couldn’t be bothered to assist MLS regardless that there was a staff in—or at the very least close to—their metropolis.
They didn’t need to endure the hardships that come from watching MLS from its embryonic phases and clumsy early years and all of the missteps and chaos alongside the best way.
NYCFC followers sneer on the Purple Bulls with their blatantly company house owners who put their product on the jersey, in Jersey, and do not contemplate this underachieving staff a real illustration of the Huge Apple.
So Purple Bull Area will promote out this weekend. However how lots of the followers can be carrying the blue of the guests is the largest query concerning the attendance.
As soon as all of the Twitter banter and inevitable pre-game taunting is finished, an precise soccer recreation can be performed. The Purple Bulls (3-1-4) misplaced for the primary time final week at New England however that adopted a pair of ties.
The Purple Bulls have solely scored one aim per recreation throughout this mini-slide and that’s a trigger for concern, particularly towards a NYCFC protection that has been pretty stout.
Earlier than being undressed by Seattle final week for 3 objectives, NYCFC (1-5-3) had allowed simply seven objectives in eight video games. It’s the opposite finish of the sector the place they’ve struggled, scoring simply six objectives—a giant motive why it hasn’t received since its second recreation.
PLAYERS TO WATCH
If there’s one participant on this recreation who will be anticipated to stay as much as a giant recreation, it’s NYCFC’S David Villa. The Spanish nationwide staff’s all-time main scorer has performed in a couple of classicos and derbies from his days at Barcelona and Atletico Madrid, to not point out a giant recreation or two with Spain, with which he received a European championship and World Cup.
In Metropolis’s first-ever residence recreation, Villa rose to the event and scored a aim and an help. After lacking three video games with a hamstring harm, he got here off the bench final week towards Seattle and seemed full of life. NYCFC didn’t rating within the three video games Villa missed so his presence, expertise, and ability ought to go a good distance towards serving to these scoring woes.
On the opposite aspect of the sector, maintain a watch out for Dax McCarty, the Purple Bulls’ midfield engine who’s taking part in a number of the greatest soccer of his 10-year MLS profession. He’ll be tasked with preserving U.S. worldwide Combine Diskerud from getting Villa in harmful positions whereas additionally linking with attacking midfielder Sacha Kljestan. As goes McCarty, so goes the Purple Bulls.
THE X-FACTOR
You simply know a participant with long-standing ties to the New York space is someway going to play a giant function within the end result of this recreation.
For NYCFC possibly it’s Lengthy Island native and St. John’s alum Chris Wingert or native New Yorker and former Seton Corridor participant Jason Hernandez, who grew up in northern New Jersey.
For the Purple Bulls, possibly it’s Kljestan, a Californian who performed his faculty ball with Hernandez at Seton Corridor or homegrown participant and Jersey boy Matt Miazga, who is predicted to start out within the again line earlier than leaving for obligation with the U.S. U-20 nationwide staff. Or maybe it is going to be Lengthy Island’s Mike Grella, who has been a pleasant addition to the Re Bull assault after returning residence from a number of years in England.
For these guys, this recreation is private.
PREDICTION
It’s laborious to see lots of objectives on this one, given how every staff has scored of late. However Purple Bull is in higher type and taking part in at residence and, seemingly, with a little bit of a chip on its shoulder. It’ll be bodily and intense however Purple Bull ought to claw out a 1-0 win.
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