In the 54th minute of the Hudson River Derby at Yankee Stadium last Saturday, Alex Muyl came off the bench for the New York Red Bulls against New York City FC. Two minutes later, Bradley Wright-Phillips teed him up inside the box and the 20-year-old rifled home his first Major League Soccer goal and his side's fifth of the afternoon. Born and raised in Manhattan's Lower East Side, Muyl started in the Red Bulls' academy at 15, and, as a local lad breaking through, neatly encapsulates what the MLS should look like after two decades in existence.
Shortly after going five-down, New York City FC introduced Frank Lampard for his first appearance of the campaign, the obviously tone deaf PA announcer doing so with quite a flourish and way too much enthusiasm, "Coming onto the field, Sooperrr Frank Lampard". His arrival was greeted with lusty boos by his own fans, their patience long since exhausted by a player who delayed his initial arrival to the club last season, has been injury prone ever since, and recently declared he will somehow juggle playing with covering the Euro 2016 for the BBC from America.
Lackadaisical cameo
Turning 38 next month, Lampard's weekly wage of $120,000 is twice what Muyl will earn this year, and, in this lackadaisical cameo, the English man represents the type of player a more confident MLS should be moving away at this point in its development. It wasn't his fault NYC FC ended up losing 7-0 to their nearest neighbour but he is symptomatic of a lot that is wrong with the club. That his annual salary of $6m is more than the Red Bulls' (who have suffered their own share of superannuated and overpaid imports through the years) entire wage bill may also explain the dissatisfaction with his perceived lack of commitment.
Although investing in over the hill stars – Pirlo, more indolent than iconic on $5.9m, often carries the air of a man taking time out from touring art galleries for a stroll around a baseball diamond as part of his immersive American experience – is part of NYC FC's problem, the team had been doing better up to this hammering. Off the field though, it has issues that run deeper than ageing midfielders banking ridiculous money for jam. A club whose majority owner is Abu Dhabi and Manchester City's Sheikh Mansour can afford to be profligate. What it can't endure if it's to be taken seriously is the type of embarrassing attempts at microwaving a soccer culture around the team.
From the off, NYC FC has behaved like an outfit that believes slick marketing (their merchandising operation is an impressive sight to behold) matters more than anything else when growing a brand-new club. From the off, they distributed song sheets to fans arriving at the ground up in the Bronx, the type of desperately gauche gesture that instantly made it a laughing stock around the league, and, once it went viral, around the world. How could it be any other way when they somehow believed the more gullible supporters might adopt the following ditty as their own as they set about creating a just-add-water instant tradition?
“You might have some history
But we don’t give a crud
Your team will always be a joke until they have a cup
(Shout the opposing team’s name!!!!)”
Against that unintentionally comedic background, it’s little wonder rivals taunt them about their remote ownership by chanting “Man City B” and mock them about their stadium by singing “Take me out to the ball game”, the baseball anthem. How a propos that those are actually the kind of organic, witty improvisations fans come up with by themselves, when not handed hymn sheets by suits who obviously don’t understand a jot about the true nature of following a team.
Zero knowledge
These may have been the same business gurus who decided to delay the kick-off of the much-hyped local derby last Saturday because the FA Cup final went to extra-time. Nothing says that your league shouldn't be taken too seriously like making people wait for a game on another continent to finish before you start. Not to mention NYC's coach Patrick Vieira (appointed by the powers that be in Manchester despite no senior management experience and zero knowledge of MLS) having to explain the wait to David Villa and the rest of his team.
It doesn't help matters either that a minority of fans appear determined to ape the worst elements of the English game. Even before the embarrassingly one-sided encounter last weekend, "supporters" from both sides re-enacted ugly scenes from Green Street, the execrable hooliganism movie that enjoys an absurd cult status over here. Thankfully, unlike a similar street fight back in August, there doesn't seem to have been any Cockney-accented chants of "Who are ya?" this time around.
We are unable to confirm whether any of those involved in that fracas were “Empire State Ultras”, a subsection of the fanbase that recently hung a banner declaring themselves to be “Against Modern Football”. These are men who have pledged allegiance to a club that came into being last year on the whim of an Arabian billionaire, in partnership with the world’s richest baseball team, and with a budget that dwarves most of its competitors. Ironic? They don’t give a crud.
