Pretty remarkable he is rated this highly while not being able to dislodge KO from the XI.
Christian McFarlane [Defender] [HG]
- Thread starter LionNYC
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I think he is perceived as a high ceiling guy given his athleticism. He's still just 17. It's also a position that a lot of teams struggle to fill.
I think KO is starting because they have known for a long time that McFalane was gone so KO is our future. Not because McFarlane can't beat him out, from his time when KO was out I'd say he's as good if not better than KO which is pretty remarkable for a 17 year old. The team also seems to be under orders to keep McFalane healthy and play him as little as possible. The team went out of their way to avoid starting him early in the season, going as far as playing Wolf at LB for a game. Even now there are games where KO is completely gassed and clearly needs a sub but the team won't sub on CM.
I'm happy for Christian and it's always good to build the rep that the club can develop players but the fact that they post this like it's great news for NYCFC shows how clueless they are about what we as NYCFC fans care about. They barely let him play for us even when we needed him and unless they got a good fee that they plan to invest in actual difference-makers for NYCFC this is more frustrating given the current state of our roster than exciting
Yeah especially given the fact it's posted to NYCFC socials with the kit change and everything in this "look how cool" way. I'm not a man city fan. I'm an NYCFC fan.
off the top of my head, mcfarlane is the first player to really go through the entire process of acadmey, II squad, first team, transfer ? I don't remember if scally ever played for the IIs, but both these guys got similar bubble wrap treatment.
Congrats to him and hope he succeeds at the highest level.
and hopefully for us, Lee makes good use of this roster spot and the money we got. tick tock tick tock
When Scally played here, the II's didn't exist.
I can understand the scally bubble wrap because you are transferring outside CFG, but doesn't make a lot of sense for McFarlane. Does it really matter if he plays here and gets hurt or at man city? I think the Occam's razor answer is that Cushing didn't play any of our young players post League Cup and that's a big reason why he's not here.
They may have bubble-wrapped Scally in the same way but I'm not sure at the time that's what any of us thought was happening. In the few appearances Scally made for NYCFC he mostly looked like an academy player that was in a bit over his head. We also had Tinnerholm and Gray at the time so we didn't really need Scally. The Macfarlane bubble wrapping was far more obvious. A couple of times this past season OT came back from an injury and they'd just play him the full 90 no matter how tired he looked from the 60' mark onward. You have Macfarlane who has proven he belongs on the pitch even against a team like Tigres on the bench but they'd rather leave OT out there looking like he's going to pass out from exhaustion than risk playing Macfarlane for 10 min.
We will never know but Macfarlane was on the field in the Tigres game that seemed to be the turning point for Cushing to play the vets. I just can't understand the number of times toward the end of the season that O'Toole looked gassed around the 80' make and Cushing would just leave him out there and then finish the game with 3 subs left and Macfarlane sitting on the bench after he proved he's more than capable of playing.
That said I don't disagree with you that it could be entirely a Cushing issue. Looking back on it he was terrible with load management and squad rotations. He ran Wolf, Maxi, and O'toole into the ground down the stretch. Cushing was the MLS version of Tom Thibodeau down the stretch last season. Let's hope Pascal can install an offense that can work across a rotation of players and isn't completely dependent on the same 4 attackers to function.
ZYanksRule
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I really disagree that this isn't "exciting" for NYCFC fans. One of our homegrown players just got transferred to, arguably, the biggest club in the world. I understand there are mixed feelings about our connection to Man City, but we shouldn't let those feelings cloud how massive this move is for Christian and for NYCFC. Yes this is New York City, but MLS is currently a developmental league. If Christian kills it over there, it will bring an air of legitimacy to everything we do and will continue to aid recruitment of future players who eventually want to move to Europe.
Davo15
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I don't see how its "massive" for us if we produce these guys and they don't even really play for us.
I'm inclined to agree, but also somewhat doubting because McFarlane was clearly more ready to go than the other kids. If Nick was understandably giving priority to results over development, he didn't need to make that compromise with McFarlane.
Still not exciting. The 3 best players we developed have combined to play fewer than 500 minutes for NYCFC.* That's actually demoralizing and I'm not sure why we want more of it. Sure, we're in the player development business and can't avoid it. It is what it is. I neither cry about it nor celebrate it. And since we have to do it we might as well be good at it. But I'm very much not sure that it helps team quality all that much. I would rate the Union and Red Bulls as having the best academy development in MLS for several years now and it hasn't been a road to success for them. The problem with homegrowns is the best ones leave before their prime. Stars in their prime win titles, and in MLS, almost all of them come from abroad. Many might not be as talented as our best homegrowns, but they are here from 25-32 while the best academy products mostly are not.
* At least the trend is up: Reyna played 0, Scally 70, and McFarlane >300.
ZYanksRule
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It is continued proof of concept that you can develop here and he sold to some of the biggest clubs in Europe.
Reyna, Scally, Sands, and McFarlane all homegrowns who have gone on to major clubs in Europe. Taty and Jack Harrison both developed here and moved on to big clubs in Europe. The more of these moves that happen, the more young players will want to come here.
Yes I agree with mgarbowski that veterans are what win MLS Cup, but we're also always going to be a selling club as long as Europe is a bigger destination. I believe we will see more good players come here because we are proving that you can succeed here and move to Europe.
I think this really gets to the core of it and once again it's a situation where we are an outlier compared to other MLS cups. Most of the young players from other MLS clubs who have been sold to big European teams have played far more in MLS than our academy prospects. Look at guys like Alphonso Davies (81 MLS games), Aronson (57 MLS game), Djordje Petrovic (48 MLS games).
It's fun to get to know a player and see them move on to bigger things, look at even our non-academy guys for comparison. Who do you feel more invested in following: Taty, Harrison, even Herrera or Scally and Macfarlane?
Davo15
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I do get what your saying but it's hard to get excited about the concept if the really good players we develop skip playing here. If they were to stay for a couple full seasons first it would be easier to get excited from a NYCFC perspective IMO.
ZYanksRule
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I agree with that. It's not exciting as an NYCFC fan to see McFarlane leave this early in his development. But that doesn't make it bad for us. I consider it a necessary evil.
But why is it necessary? We keep painting NYCFC's unique actions as this is just how it goes in a selling league when other teams in the league are doing things differently. NYCFC uses our U22 slots on very expensive talent that is far less proven and needs far more development than the guys other teams are bringing in for those slots. The moment an NYCFC academy player comes good they will barely play for us meanwhile 14-year-old Cavan Sullivan is already making appearances for the Union and rumors are that part of the reason Curtin was fired is that he didn't play their young academy players more.
You can't keep excusing outlier behavior from CFG by going this is just how it is in a developmental/selling league when all the other teams in the same league arent doing this crap.
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Revfugee
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Exactly. Even Herrera.
No shade on our homegrowns who do or did see serious minutes, Haak and Sands and Jasson, but for some reason we bubble wrap our best homegrowns while we have no problem bringing in expensive kids from elsewhere and giving THEM minutes. I doubt we see much of Carrizo any time soon, if ever.
Hey, if they were spending the transfer fees on Cuchos and Almirons and Gil’s and even more guys like Maxi, I’d feel great about this. But if those big sales don’t translate into big purchases and silverware, we aren’t an American Ajax (or even a West Ham), we’re just Crewe Alexandra with better weather and food.
This club has great geography, great merchandise, an attractive playing style despite its handicaps, and we are about to get a great stadium. But this farm club thing is getting a little tired.
