*but his off field impact will never be forgotten, including the Pirlo sign which will always be a symbol of the new and exciting early years of this club.
2025 Roster and Transfer Discussion Thread
- Thread starter LionNYC
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Talles Magno signed and played in May, and because of Covid schedule distortion, it was the primary window.
NYCFC announced that Santi signed in June and he played in June. The window was closed. Consensus is the transfer secretly happened in May, during the primary window.
I agree with Gotham Gator that Pirlo's early years were decent for us and are often overlooked because the last year or so was so bad. I also agree with you that the Pirlo addition was exciting. Despite the mixed success, I'd do the Pirlo thing over, It was fun to watch him. My only Pirlo complaint is all the free kicks he wasted from positions where Villa has shown he could consistently score from.
Agreed - and by sign I meant FootyLovin’s actual sign! And yes, it felt like a bucketlist like item seeing someone like Pirlo play live even if the on field product was often not so great. I remember when he made his first appearance in street clothes - one of my kids was so excited that he thought Pirlo waved to him. And we all then had those No Pirlo No Party shirts etc. I am not so big on signing past prime players, but there is some value in the purely fun side of it.
Yeah I agree I remember 2015 Pirlo more than any other Pirlo. I was watching a game on the couch in high school and my dad sat down to watch it with me who has zero soccer knowledge (like me at the time). He was immediately impressed by Pirlo’s long ball passes. He was dropping them like dimes and shimmying away from attackers. I think it was the game where Pirlo got the assist on the David Villa run between to defenders. I eventually got him a Pirlo t-shirt that he still wears from time to time.
I know "retirement league" signings are often frowned upon by MLS fans who want the league to be taken more seriously, but honestly, I’ve always enjoyed seeing stars like Pirlo, Lampard, and Villa suit up in MLS. While I wouldn’t want all three DP spots used on players over 33 again, I think there’s real value in having one high-profile veteran on the roster.
These players help drive attendance, boost merchandise sales, generate excitement, and can even help attract other talent to the club.
I’ll admit, I’m a bit disappointed that MLS has largely moved away from the Pirlo-type signings—though to be fair, that shift might be less by choice and more due to Saudi Arabia snapping up many of the available big-name players on the market.
Getting 35-40k people at Yankee Stadium was an awesome feeling
ZYanksRule
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And I think this is the problem with the high-priced global superstars. While I think there is some value in having them on the team, that value is limited because those players have never proven to increase attendance long-term. They bring fans to the stadium, but when they're gone so are their fans.
Inter Miami (and MLS) will learn that lesson when Messi leaves -- unless they bring in more global superstars, the Miami-mania will rapidly deteriorate.
MLS has never been able to figure out how to turn David Villa fans into MLS fans.
I’m not sure we have the data to say it definitively either way. What we do know is that when you bring fans in with someone like Pirlo and then replace him with someone like Jesús Medina, they don’t tend to stick around. But maybe if you consistently maintained that caliber of player, more of those fans would stay engaged.
I’ll also say this: in the early years, the seats next to mine were resold for every match for two straight seasons, and I never once met the actual owner. Instead, it was a rotating cast of people who were clearly there to see Pirlo, Lampard, or Villa. The interaction was almost always the same—they’d say they didn’t know much about MLS but came to see their player, then they’d comment on how impressed they were with the atmosphere, and before halftime they were cheering for the home team just as loudly as everyone else.
Maybe each of them never came back—but someone else always did. And if those players keep fans coming through the gates, and those fans are engaged and helping build the atmosphere alongside the rest of us, does it really matter if it’s a different person every game or every time the star changes? I’d argue that it adds real value to the environment.
Honestly, I’d much rather have a rotating crowd of die-hard soccer fans coming to see their favorite star and getting swept up in the match than what we’re likely to get in those premium seats in the new stadium—a sea of disengaged corporate types barely paying attention.
ZYanksRule
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I agree with this. Yes, if you keep signing global superstars, you'll keep bringing people in.
Maybe some of those people become NYCFC fans, but we have seen a steady decline in attendance that leads me to believe the Club hasn't really gained much long-term gain from having the stars here.
I despise the American Eurosnob soccer fan:
* The 2014 World Cup was when soccer really clicked for me. I put my deposit down for NYCFC tickets that summer. I was so disappointed to find out that the notable USMNT MLS contingent consisted of Clint Dempsey in Seattle and 2 players in fecking Canada. If NY did not happen to have a brand new team that year, then MLS and maybe even soccer as a whole might have lost me. I'm not alone. US Soccer and MLS need to figure out how to pay and lure USMNT team players back into MLS because the best way to get American soccer casuals watching MLS and learning to love the game as a whole after 2026 is to have a bunch of USMNT players in MLS.
You want NYCFC to explode in 2026? Sign one of the top 7-8 most recognizable faces of the USMNT. Not some European league has been.
- complain that MLS is no good because it won't spend for the best players, but
- refuse to support MLS and increase its revenue
- complain that Americans don't appreciate soccer
- bitch even more when Americans show interest every 4 years
- sneer when that interest wanes, but
- demand that USMNT players never play in MLS which might actually maintain that interest*
- show up occasionally at MLS games wearing foreign team jerseys just to watch some aging star
- complain when he sits whether for rest, injury, or because he's useless and the game has playoff implications
* The 2014 World Cup was when soccer really clicked for me. I put my deposit down for NYCFC tickets that summer. I was so disappointed to find out that the notable USMNT MLS contingent consisted of Clint Dempsey in Seattle and 2 players in fecking Canada. If NY did not happen to have a brand new team that year, then MLS and maybe even soccer as a whole might have lost me. I'm not alone. US Soccer and MLS need to figure out how to pay and lure USMNT team players back into MLS because the best way to get American soccer casuals watching MLS and learning to love the game as a whole after 2026 is to have a bunch of USMNT players in MLS.
You want NYCFC to explode in 2026? Sign one of the top 7-8 most recognizable faces of the USMNT. Not some European league has been.
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ZYanksRule
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Who aside from Pulisic has the talent or the name recognition to drive that level of ticket sales?
This USMNT is far from the days of Dempsey, Donovan, Beasley, and Howard. This current group is very boring.
Yeah, I can't really put my finger on why, but none of the current guys outside of Pulisic feel like they have much recognition. It is somewhat strange because a number of them play for big clubs. I'd go as far as to say that no one currently on the USMNT outside of Pulisic is even as popular as Mix was when he joined NYCFC.
IMO it doesn't matter. If NYC signed Weah, Pulisic, Adams, Scally, McKenna, Reyna (if he plays), McGlynn, Musah, Sargent, De la Torre or Pepi -- really any forward or midfielder and certain fullbacks -- as long as they end up on the 2026 WC roster, there would be buzz. Casuals would just know "Hey, I saw that guy in the World Cup game against Cameroon/Portugal/Japan. He must be good. He plays for the New York team? Awesome."
That's a NY sports fan mindset. The goal is not to lure the USMNT obsessives who are disappointed already. You want the attention of the millions of metro area people who follow football, baseball, etc and watch a handful of WC games in 2026. And if you get a tiny percentage of them to start following NYCFC that's substantial.
Fake Jew
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For whatever it's worth I do have a hot take that Pulisic will have an MLS contract signed and announced by the 2026 World Cup. There's too much money and opportunity at stake for it to not be the case.
ZYanksRule
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I think the only guy that might move the needle aside from Pulisic is Reyna, and I'm not even sure on that one. If we brought in CP13 we'd have that buzz for sure. I just don't think the other guys sell any tickets or us.
I agree that NY sports fans want the best -- this is why minor leagues don't really work here. And it's why our popularity has never really gone as high as some other MLS teams. But I don't think our popularity will increase by signing a USMNT player from this current era aside from Pulisic.
Ignoring contract status, just for argument’s sake, if we were to bring in more than one of guys for example like Gio, Jedi and Sargent, around the WC,I think it would def generate some buzz and interest. Not the same as signing Kevin dB and HM Son, but the formula would be positive.
I think the debate about Aging Star fans becoming real fans misses how a team builds. Anything that brings in fans is good. Wins do it. Aging stars do it. Anything that causes fans to leave is bad. Losing seasons are the biggest. But boring play also does it. Scandals do it.
The challenge of building fandom is to have more in flows than out flows over time. In flows will always be mostly temporary. But imagine that every inflow will capture 5% of those incoming. And every outflow will erode 2% of the total base. That's the challenge.
So bring the Aging Stars. Play fun football. Win matches. And know that if you don't keep the inflows coming you'll experience an outflow that will see most of those fans leave.
Do enough cycles of this over the years and the steady underlying base will grow to fill the stadium. (Assuming the seats haven't all already gone to corporate marketing departments.)
The challenge of building fandom is to have more in flows than out flows over time. In flows will always be mostly temporary. But imagine that every inflow will capture 5% of those incoming. And every outflow will erode 2% of the total base. That's the challenge.
So bring the Aging Stars. Play fun football. Win matches. And know that if you don't keep the inflows coming you'll experience an outflow that will see most of those fans leave.
Do enough cycles of this over the years and the steady underlying base will grow to fill the stadium. (Assuming the seats haven't all already gone to corporate marketing departments.)
There's two things here. First, the USMNT is just not as good as it should be. They're like this year's Knicks: They're a good team that's doing well but they just can't compete with the top teams. The other thing is that I somewhat randomly went to a Gotham FC playoff match last season and between the two teams there were 6 or 8 USWNT players on the field. And it was awesome to see them in person. I mean, being able to see Rose Lavelle repeatedly slice through defenders felt like an honor in a way.
The USMNT is not anywhere near as good as the USWNT but MLS could really use the star power of having those "I saw him on TV" types of players.
