BRONX, N.Y. — New York City FC don’t view Saturday’s 1-1 draw against Orlando City SC as two points dropped. Instead, it’s seven points gained during a grueling stretch of three games in seven days.
“I’m going to try and only remember the seven points we took today,” defender Maxime Chanot told MLSsoccer.com. “We are in the right way and you can see right now in the results. We’re getting points. I hope we convinced the journalists and the people in the stadium to believe in us and we are ready to compete with the top teams in this league.”
After going winless in the first six matches of the season, NYCFC won back-to-back games to start this stretch, defeating D.C. United 2-0 at Audi Field and knocking off the Chicago Fire, 1-0, at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday.
“It’s amazing what we’re doing this week,” said Brazilian forward Heber, who scored the second-half equalizer Saturday. “These three games, one game away against the first-place team in the conference and we win there. After we come home, we made four points. It’s very important for us to get confidence. When the players have confidence, everything is easier.”
While the result wasn’t ideal, nor is the eight total points dropped at Yankee Stadium this season, NYCFC coach Dome Torrent said the performance was better than on Wednesday against the Fire.
“I’m happy with the performance. We deserved more,” Torrent said. “That’s just my opinion, but sometimes that’s soccer. Sometimes they deserve more and we are able to win. Today, I think we deserved more, to get three points. It’s not bad for us because it’s three games in a row in seven days. I was concerned about the heavy legs, but after that the effort was amazing.
“I think if we compare today and one month ago, we played much better and the reason why maybe is they understand exactly the way we want to play.”
While the vibe was a positive one in the home locker room, there was disappointment in the visitor’s room expressed by Nani, who put Orlando City in front in the first half.
“We must be disappointed because we want to be a very ambitious team,” Nani said. “We are working on that. We must be disappointed because we want to be on the top. We want to improve every week.”
