Newly hired coach Domenec Torrent made his New York City FC debut Sunday. It didn’t take him long to get a dramatic 2-1 come-from-behind win over defending-champion Toronto.
NYCFC used two second-half goals by Jo Inge Berget to rally from an early deficit and an injury to star David Villa in a 2-1 win at Yankee Stadium, making a debutant winner of Torrent.
“[Saturday] was the first training session for me and I thought the players were ready,” Torrent said. “When I watched the intensity and the attitude, I said ‘OK, they’re ready to try to win.’ The one thing I tell them is don’t relax. We want to be a good team and the objective is to win. What I keep saying is we want to win MLS Cup. … We don’t give up.”
They didn’t give up Sunday. Trailing at halftime to the next-to-last place team in the East, NYCFC (9-3-4, 31 points) rallied to move into second in the conference, just three points behind Atlanta with a game in hand. And they did it behind Berget’s first MLS brace and Torrent’s tactics.
After former coach Patrick Vieira bolted for Nice, NYCFC replaced him with Torrent, who had spent the past 11 seasons under Pep Guardiola at Barcelona, Bayern Munich and, finally, Manchester City, NYCFC’s parent club. But he’d been delayed in Spain awaiting his work visa, not arriving until Friday night.
“It was a crazy week because we are in travel for the visa,” Torrent said. “But in the end everything is good.”
Well, not all good. Villa limped off in the 28th minute — replaced by Jesus Medina — with a right knee injury expected to sideline him for a game or two.
NYCFC conceded nine minutes later when Victor Vazquez took a longball from Auro and beat defender Sebastien Ibeagha. Keeper Sean Johnson was late off his line and Vazquez chipped the ball past him.
Torrent didn’t just ditch his jacket at halftime. He ditched tactics that weren’t working. He shifted winger Ismael Tajouri-Shradi from right to left in his 4-3-3 formation, prodded NYCFC to play quicker and tweaked their positioning.
The fullbacks were high upfield with the wingers more inside, the way Vieira preferred. Torrent likes the wingers outside and the outside back more inside. In the end, his changes bore fruit.
With Tajouri-Shradi on the left, he sent in a 51st-minute cross and Medina deflected it to Berget for a cheeky, backheel goal. Then 17 minutes later, Berget ran onto a through ball from Maxi Morález and slotted it home. The bearded Norwegian had just one goal coming in, but broke out in time to ease the loss of Villa.
“It’s a bad news for us because he is a key man for our team,” Torrent said. “He has a lot of experience, especially in these type of games. It’s not a good news. I spoke with him and he told me it’s not serious. We are waiting for the doctor. I think it’s not bad, but maybe he needs one or two games.”
