Alonso Martínez

They also carved Orlando with long balls that they just completely bypassed those three guys right there in the middle.

They allowed Alonso Martinez to run directly into the ball like directly into the ball in the attacking third.

And then the left side of the defense struggled tremendously.

Iago, in my opinion, in the first half, was slow to read the danger, to recover.

Agustin Ojeda at his normal right wing position.

And up top, your starting striker, Alonso Martinez.

So, Mike, you know, we're kind of going to have to jump ahead and talk about Martinez.

Let's talk about, I guess I'm going to, yeah, I'm going to jump ahead now.

I'm going to play your question to Janssen from Saturday's game against LAFC because it's relevant to the Miami game.

So here's that clip.

We've seen a lot of Alonso Martinez in the past couple of games, but nothing tonight.

Can

And, and then he just puts the header wide from, like, four yards out, and it's, like, kind of...

You know, he's been in and out of the starting lineup in part because of the Alonso Martinez, you know, return from injury.

But this is, you know, as, I think, impressive as Luigi has been since, uh, you know, coming in on loan this summer, that has been kind of the, the, the downside to him is that he's, he's very good at finding himself in good areas and sometimes, um, you know, not as much as, as one would hope in terms of the, the final, the finish, the finishing touch on a move.

Um, you know, that, that's one that he'd want back.

You know, so what? And that's, you know, NYCFC have played themself into that kind of conversation, right? The so what conversation.

Because, um, you know, that, that's a, a result that you could've predicted from a mile away in a game that unfortunately unfolded kind of exactly as we all feared.

feared.I really want to see a healthy Alonso Martinez play alongside Luigi in some capacity.

Yeah.

Um, and the one thing that s- that- Bothers me based on what he has said is I asked him at the, I asked him before the Chicago game in a press conference.

I, I was, I was curious because Alonso Martinez is back, and there has been so much rotation of Benitt Rare up front, Luigi up front, uh, uh, you know, and, and who, what's the plan? Like, what are we doing here? And then you add Alonso Martinez in.

It's like, are we gonna have more of a rotation of those three guys or, or is it, are we gonna stick to one guy? You know, I wanted to know.

I said, "Is, is this the time for experimentation with the playoffs coming, uh, or are you going to, you know, stick to one guy?" And he said, you know, "It's a combination of both and, you know, we have, w- we expect, you know, we have these expectations of Alonso and we're gonna work him in.

Um, a- and, and, and the point maxi role, that's not working.

Uh, there ha- the, at some point there needed to be a rethinking of how we l- use a majority of players on this team, and it's not working.

I don't love the idea of playing Alonso Martinez two straight starts in a short week, uh, when he didn't look good in either game.

I mean, he's coming off the ACL.

Um, I'm happy with, uh, Taallas's minutes again on pitch.

Uh, Alonso got ano- another 60 minutes.

Um, and, uh, Malachi Jones looked bright again today.

So those are things that, uh, we can take with us into the next game again.

I think the tough situation...

Okay, I...

The first half of the last game, what I thought was really interesting is it was Alonso Martinez, Nico, uh, uh, Wolf on the left, Nico Fernandez and Ojeda.

And if you think about it, that was a very similar squad that we had last season, right? Except maybe Nico was on the right, Maxine was in the middle.

This year, not only did they not improve their roster, they had three players leave or get injured.

They, um, Alonso Martinez, Justin Hack, and Andres Perea.

They didn't replace anything with Perea.

They didn't replace Alonso Martinez, and he's still not back, so basically you've lost him for the whole season.

I mean, he might be back towards the end of the season, um, at full strength.

And then you have Justin Hack.

Anes Wolf at left wing.

Agustin Ojeda at right wing.

Then in the 87th minute, a stray pass from goalkeeper Matt Freese went directly to Marin Hajisli, who tapped in the winner.

Alonso Martinez did make his first start since tearing his ACL last season, playing 60 minutes and looking like his old self physically, which was definitely a good sight to see.

But the result leaves NYCFC with one win in its last 11 matches, and the pigeons now only have six games remaining to claw themselves back above the playoff line.

Next up is Inter Miami on Wednesday, and then LAFC at City Field on Saturday, October 17th.

Like, the current NYCFC team has never lost to Chicago until this game, and they had them basically down for the count after the, the red card.

And it's just like the fact that there was just no real...

The best chance that they had to get a second goal was that Alonso Martinez sort of, like, first time shot after Nico crossed the ball to him, and he sort of puts it out wide on his, like, redirect attempt.

But that being your sort of best opportunity, clear opportunity to score while you had that man advantage until maybe desperation time after they conceded.