Can't start a fire without a spark: On the ground at the Hudson River Derby in New York City

The bar erupts. Patrons scream “LET’S GO!” New York City is utterly supercharged by sport right now. This small watering hole, at 38th and 2nd Street on Manhattan’s East Side, is a microcosm of the mood.

But it’s not MLS, the Premier League or even a sport involving a ball on the screens. It’s the New York Rangers ice hockey team, who have just struck four unanswered goals in the final 15 minutes of a vital play-off game to beat the Carolina Hurricanes 5-3 and reach the Eastern Conference final – a semi-final, in effect – of the unfeasibly large Stanley Cup.

In the week FourFourTwo land in New York, the city is approaching it’s-coming-home levels of excitement – the local basketball team, the Knicks, are in the play-offs, too. Four sports dominate in the US – baseball, American football, basketball and ice hockey – but 30 years on from the 1994 World Cup, football is knocking at the door again.

Shooting the ‘soccer’ breeze with locals is a charming-yet-alarming experience. One taxi driver we meet insists he’s au fait with the rules: “Like, I know the defensemen can’t cross the halfway line.” Right on, man. In two years’ time, a World Cup final kicks off at the MetLife Stadium, 10 miles from the sports bar in which we’re sat watching ice hockey.

Soccer’s glass ceiling in New York feels simultaneously close to cracking and rock solid, yet certain moments across the next 48 hours point to green shoots of growth that give the beautiful game a genuine shot at breaking the stubborn States. It just needs cultivating with more soccer-specific stadia and America’s favourite ingredient: wins.

VIDEO America's Craziest Derby - On The Ground With New York City FC

We spend our first morning in Manhattan attempting to escape it. We’ve accepted an invitation to watch New York City FC train, after the promise of a chat with their head coach Nick Cushing.

But the club’s practice facility is 19 miles north in Orangeburg, a 45-minute drive (if the traffic gods shine on you). No wonder only one or two NYCFC first-teamers actually live Downtown.

NYCFC are 80 per cent owned by the City Football Group (baseball’s New York Yankees own the other 20) and the Manchester City influence is obvious in the branding at the small-but-serviceable training facility. But this is no City feeder team. Forbes value NYCFC at $850 million – with a new stadium being built, that value should exceed $1bn soon.

After light training and pre-match press, a smiling Coach Cushing introduces himself. A native of Ellesmere Port in Cheshire, the lifelong Evertonian seems pleased to hear some English tones. His north-west accent has held, but colloquialisms have crept in. “You’ll hear me say, ‘I’m super-excited’ and stuff like that,” he explains. “When my family are over, they kill me if I use Americanisms.”

Anglo-European habits die hard for Cushing, who’s been known to sport Stone Island in the technical area and enjoy a celebratory Stella when NYCFC win. He’s the mirror-image Ted Lasso. We take our seats beside the lush green pitch where he’s spent the morning coaching team shape and set pieces.

Cushing arrived here in January 2020 after Brian Marwood, managing director of global football at City Football Group, offered him the switch from managing Manchester City Women. “I’m the perfect example of ‘you never know what’s around the corner’. We had no desire to travel as a family. I was fighting for the WSL title, then within 20 days I was on a training field with Ronny Deila in Miami, as his assistant.”

Still only 39, Cushing has managed more than 250 games and won the 2016 WSL – he’s an exemplar for aspiring coaches who haven’t played a minute of professional football. He joined City in his early 20s as a schools coach and worked his way up. In his second year as assistant, New York City FC won the MLS Cup in only their seventh season in existence.

Midway through 2022, he took over as caretaker boss and guided the club to the Eastern Conference final. His reward was the permanent gig for 2023, but what followed was a troubling campaign in which the club failed to make the play-offs, finishing 22nd in the 29-club standings.

“The fans deserved the right to criticise,” admits Cushing. “I’m a fan myself – when my team doesn’t do well, I’m not so happy. It’s part of the game. I sign up to the rules when I become head coach.”

The current campaign kicked off at the end of February, and the Boys in Blue lost their opening three games before a win against Toronto was followed by another defeat and two draws – one against Inter Miami. Lionel Messi was absent through injury, but Cushing and NYCFC did face the Herons in a friendly last November to celebrate the Argentine’s record-extending eighth Ballon d’Or. “The fan in me thinks it’s super-crazy when I’m putting game plans together and I’m writing on the whiteboard: ‘Keep compact, keep the game tight, don’t let Messi get in between the lines’,” says Cushing.

Fun as it’s been to have Messi in the US, is it better long term for MLS to distance itself from its ‘retirement community’ perception? “People believe the level of the league isn’t high,” explains the coach. “But there’s a lot of young talent now. Players start here and go on to Europe, like Alphonso Davies.

“Every team can beat anybody. You go to Salt Lake and it’s at altitude. There are threegame weeks – last year we went from Atlanta across to Portland, on the other side of the country. The games are really fun. I’ve never experienced a league where games are never finished like over here. In England, sometimes you’re 2-0 down with 10 minutes to go and the game is dead. Here, you can be 2-0 up with five minutes to go and there’ll be seven goal chances. You’ll see tomorrow.”

Anyone got a hacksaw?

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Twenty-four hours later, we’re sipping iced tea outside a chic brunch restaurant in suburban Queens. In front of us, New York Red Bulls fan Vic Arroyo takes a hacksaw to a large black case. There’s precious loot inside: the Hudson River Derby Cup, a trophy in the shape of the Statue of Liberty’s torch. Currently, it belongs to Red Bulls (provided Vic can hacksaw off the lock for which he’s forgotten the combination), but it passes to supporters of the club who perform best in the derby of New York’s two MLS outfits.

A hacking Vic is soon heckled by largerthan-life New York City FC fan Felix Palao from the Bronx. “You may have that trophy, but I sure as hell know you don’t got one of these!” yells Felix in a broad New Yorkese, gesturing to a garish Super Bowl-style ring. “This is something the club gave all season ticket holders in 2022,” says Felix, offering us a close-up. “It denotes we won the MLS Cup, which they don’t have on the other side!”

Despite being just a few hundred metres from Manhattan, the other side of the Hudson River is actually in the state of New Jersey, which is a bone of contention in itself, given the Red Bulls still call themselves ‘New York’. “Go home to Jersey!” cackles Felix above the curbside din of sirens, honking horns and passing traffic blaring Latino music into the cloudy afternoon sky.

Two more Red Bulls fans survey the scene, father and son Andrew and Ian Pollock. “Sure you didn’t buy that ring at the five-and-dime store?!” enquires Andrew. Derby day in New York has officially begun.

Red Bulls have sold about 400 away tickets for the Saturday evening game at Citi Field, home of the New York Mets baseball team, with a 30,000 crowd expected. Homeless New York City FC split their games between there and Yankee Stadium. Is there ever any derby crowd trouble? Andrew flashes FFT a look, coughs and smiles. “Sometimes.” 

American-born, he’s a lifelong football fan, with proud ancestral roots in Scotland. His Red Bulls shirt features a custom St Andrew’s Cross and is also signed by star player and Scotsman, Lewis Morgan, who’s written, ‘To Scots-American, THANK YOU!’

“Football has been religion to me since I was born,” explains Andrew. “I sat with 77,000 people to watch Pele and New York Cosmos when I was in high school. The game was always here. It’s about the next steps now. Once the World Cup came in 1994, that was the deal: start a league. It was only going to grow from there.”

Grow it has. Slowly. There were 10 founding MLS clubs in 1996, next year there will be 30 when San Diego make their bow. Red Bulls were the New York/New Jersey Metrostars for a decade before their 2006 takeover and rebranding by the energy drink powerhouse, and moved into their own purpose-built Red Bull Arena in 2010.

NYCFC joined in 2015 to much fanfare, with David Villa, Andrea Pirlo and Frank Lampard in tow. Yet such shallow histories serve as a reminder that soccer in New York is still in its relative infancy. Keen for a proper prematch derby atmosphere we make moves. “I’m planning to lose my voice today,” says Felix. “Our X factor is being within the five New York City boroughs. We get up for this. It’s the one we always mark on the calendar.” “It’s nice you say that,” replies Andrew. “But we don’t get up for you on our calendar.”

World’s most linguistically diverse fanbase, you’ll never sing that

The journey from restaurant to stadium takes us via Roosevelt Avenue, one of the planet’s most diverse strips of concrete, sandwiched by middle-class regions to the north and south. Nicknamed the World’s Borough, this area of Queens is home to some 162 languages, with 200 nationalities living across three neighbourhoods.

Alighting from the train at 74th Street, we jostle for sidewalk space and digest the chaos we’ve landed in. Barbers, delis, dental offices, phone shops, gyms, bakeries, tattooists and dozens of restaurants. Cars beep, sirens blare and pedestrians zip about like ants. Stay in Times Square if you want McDonald’s and M&M’s, come to Roosevelt Avenue for a real taste of New York.

At the west end of Roosevelt lies Citi Field. Fans are already milling around a large statue of Baseball Hall of Famer Tom Seaver lunging dramatically into a pitch. The US tradition of tailgating is in session: fans barbecue and booze out of the back of cars and trucks. Within a minute, a total stranger passes FFT an ice-cold bottle of Modelo. Don’t mind it.

“This tailgate is mild compared to what you’d usually see!” explains our new friend Rich Jimenez. He’s driven in from his Long Island home to watch the game, with friend AJ Orana. “We sit in section 125, on the opposite side from the Third Rail and Los Templados supporters’ groups. They’re wild. I wish more of the stadium was contagious like that. The problem is you only have one section that really cheer. But the hope is, when we have our own stadium, we’ll feel that across the whole place.”

Not far away, we encounter Los Templados during their pre-match rally. A melee of fluorescent orange flares, powder blue NYCFC flags and acrid smoke, they move and mosh to a soundtrack of drums, brass and whistles. His voice-losing pre-game plan in full swing, Felix Palao is at the front, leading the singing and holding aloft a Modelo. He’s joined by around 150 fans: men, women and children (some in pushchairs). Flanking them are bemused NYPD officers and fairer-weather fans, who prefer to capture this rolling racket on smartphones from a distance.

The scene would put most European fanbases to shame. Inside the stadium, we’re taken pitchside and allowed to stand behind the goal to watch the warm-up, where we dodge flying footballs and gawp at the Mets’ 6,900 sq ft giant screen (the largest in Major League Baseball). Soccer and baseball stadiums are an awkward combination. Pitch shapes don’t match and stands adopt a less aggressive gradient, with baseball supporters invariably looking up for soaring balls. At football, fans’ sight lines tend to focus down. We’re still staring at the ridiculous screen when Red Bulls’ star import Emil Forsberg (once of sister club RB Leipzig) brushes past, followed by the rest of his team-mates and the NYCFC squad. It’s time to take our seats.

Keeping up with the Joneses

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After the traditional singing of the Star-Spangled Banner, the game kicks off under a sky that’s turned an ominous Manchester shade of grey.

At open training the day before, Cushing put his defence and midfield through a drill that required them to play around a press. A separate practice asked his attackers to run a transition from central midfield to the opposition box, via the wings, with a cutback finish. Two minutes into the game, those exact patterns combine.

Fed by playmaker Santiago Rodriguez, Malachi Jones gets on his bike down the left. The rapid winger’s low cutback finds Hannes Wolf in the box, and the Austrian takes two steadying touches before sweeping home to send Los Templados loco.

He runs to them, trailed by team-mates, some of whom are yet to touch the ball. Quite the start. Jones is last to arrive and leaps on top of his pals, a cherry on a Hudson River Derby celebration pie.

The 20-year-old, who joined in January via the MLS SuperDraft, is an early-season success story. He’s also a young man with an incredible backstory. Born in Sierra Leone, Jones and his seven orphaned siblings were adopted by a family from Tennessee after his birth father died in a boating accident. “My dad passed away on September 8, I was the eighth pick in the draft – eight has just been a special number,” he once said. His NYCFC shirt number? No.88.

Once the opening-goal adrenaline subsides, the match’s flow becomes clunky. Challenges fly in and both teams give the ball away cheaply. The Red Bulls seize the initiative and begin forcing saves from NYCFC’s extremely capable goalkeeper, Harvard alumnus Matt Freese. In first-half injury time, Freese gets a decent right hand to a 25-yard thunderblaster from Cameron Harper, but it flies in off the underside of the bar in spectacular fashion. The teams head to the interval level.

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On 57 minutes, NYCFC manager Cushing introduces Monsef Bakrar, an Algerian striker who’s endured a horror season in front of goal – 11 appearances, zero goals. Cushing has stood by him: five minutes later, Bakrar is back on the touchline embracing the gaffer, having stolen in front of his marker to turn in a Tayvon Gray cross.

FFT make the executive decision to relocate to the Latin American party now taking place in the stadium’s south-east corner. Drumming away in the drizzle, Los Templados sing and sway, kicking every ball while the 11 sky-blue matadors in front of them fight off the Red Bulls for the final half-hour.

Cushing’s words from the previous day hang in the air – “games here are never finished” – but when the ball falls again to Bakrar, it feels like a fairytale of New York City FC is unfolding. He catches it flush on the volley, but Paraguayan goalkeeper Carlos Coronel tips it onto the bar. An incredible save.

Ticking into stoppage time, Red Bulls captain Sean Nealis flies into a tackle half a light year late, a second yellow certain, and there’s a sense that New York is blue today. At the final whistle, players and staff sprint towards Los Templados, booting mini balls into the crowd. Freese’s gloves arc into the grateful hands of a young supporter, as the dancing, drumming and singing ratchets up.

We head back into the bowels of Citi Field to dry off – in the mixed zone, it’s not long before a beaming Malachi Jones is on the scene. “The biggest game I played in college was Lipscomb vs Belmont – we were from the same city,” he reveals to FFT. “This was on a much larger scale. Coming from Sierra Leone, I know everything I have is an opportunity and I’m not going to let it slip through my fingers.”

Man of the moment Bakrar isn’t far behind, explaining what he said to Cushing during their post-goal embrace. “Just thank you,” says the Algerian. “He always believed in me. I’m so proud of my team-mates. It wasn’t like I scored a goal in a normal game – it was a derby! New York is blue!”

Soon, we hear a shout from behind us – a beaming Cushing is walking briskly in our direction. “If I’m not on the front cover of FourFourTwo next month, I won’t be happy!” he jokes. Er, sorry, Nick. A handshake turns into a bear hug. “Congratulations,” we gush, embarrassed that the winning manager has made a beeline for us in a crowded corridor, before he bounds off for his press conference.

With a European in the dugout, South Americans in the stands and money from the Middle East, football might just have a chance of seeping into the consciousness of New Yorkers. It’s a cultural coalescence fully befitting this World Cup-ready city. 

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