New York City FC Playoff Tickets

New York City FC Playoff History

New York City Football Club began MLS play in 2015 as an expansion team. Despite the club’s late start to the league, the club has one of the biggest fanbases based on attendance records. The team made several marquee signings to lift the profile of the franchise and compete with the New York Red Bulls for local fans. By signing coaches and players with household names in European football, NYCFC signaled their intent to MLS teams to compete for trophies from the offset.

However, New York got off to a slow start, and it took 11 matches for the team to get their first MLS win. Mix Diskerud scored their first competitive goal in a 1-1 draw against Orlando City, but it took months before they would get their first victory beating the Philadelphia Union 2-1. The Blues slow start sunk them down the table and made playoff qualification impossible. But, the franchise did have a solid foundation with Spanish striker David Villa, a World Cup winner in 2010. The big name striker bagged 18 MLS goals in his first season for the club and would go on to be the club’s top scorer in their first four years of play. Midfield duo of Italian Andrea Pirlo and Englishman Frank Lampard also provided New York fans with plenty of reasons to see the team in person.

The 2016 season saw NYCFC adding to their list of big names as Arsenal and France legend Patrick Vieira took over the reigns as head coach. Vieira’s first year was a success as he guided the team to their first playoff appearance. NYCFC notched 15 regular season wins and finished second in the Eastern Conference. The Blues disappointed in their first playoff series against Toronto FC. Despite having a better regular season record, New York was throttled by Toronto and the two-game aggregate score ended at 7-0. Toronto striker Sebastian Giovinco put the final nail in NYCFC’s season by scoring a hattrick in the second game. Although New York failed in the postseason, the team’s fans still saw electric football, especially from David Villa who was crowned the MLS MVP in the 2016 season.

In 2017, the franchise improved on their previous season and finished with 16 wins, once again in second place of the Eastern Conference. The Blues looked to have momentum going into their second postseason, but the team fell in the quarterfinals for a second season straight. They performed better than their last time out, but they were unable to overcame a three goal loss in the first game and ended the series losing out 4-3 to the Columbus Crew.