Last year under Patrick Vieira, New York City FC ended up surprising a lot of people. Despite the star power on their roster, they looked like a top-heavy team that was built to put on a show more than they were to actually win games. Vieira’s dogmatic approach - his teams will build out of the back, will be attack-first, and will focus on possession - seemed a bit naive for an NYCFC team that seemed to need a more defensive approach to hide their weaknesses.
So much for that. While the Pigeons struggled out of the gate, they figured things out as the season went on.