Regarding interactions with players and others:
Chatted briefly with Justin Haak. Nice kid-- literally, he's the same age as my kids. We compared notes on youth soccer clubs around the city-- he played on Chelsea Piers. I told him I have a NYCFC season calendar from several years ago with his signature on it, that they were giving away at a Gjoa event that NYCFC sponsored when my son was playing there.
Chatted for a while with Maxime Chanot-- this guy is the nicest, most genuine guy, thoughtful, well-spoken. Absolutely deserves the survivor crown. He's the only player who lives in the city (upper west side), all the others live in Rockland or north Jersey for an easy commute to the training facility. He just applied for citizenship, and he loves NYC so much. He DEFINITELY deserves the forum survivor crown!!
For dinner, they seated two players at each table, and so I chatted throughout the dinner with Malte Amundsen, and Cody Mizell next to him. Malte was--again, I'm old, so to me he was this really sweet kid from small-town Denmark. I told him about the year I lived in Paris in 1992 with a French and a Danish roommate, that was the year Denmark upset France in the Euros final, in Paris. And my Danish roommate's grandmother drove from Denmark to Paris with Danish flags flying on her car to visit him during the tournament, haha. That all blew him away, it's a legendary year for young Danish soccer fans. When I mentioned I was a Tottenham fan, he asked me whether Eriksen or Hojbjerg was more beloved to Spurs fans. I said Eriksen, just, at the moment, but if Spurs actually ever win anything with Hojbjerg it will definitely be him!
Taylor Twellman was the MC of the event, and I'm a fan, so during a break I went over and chatted with him briefly, told him I was a big fan. He was very friendly and appreciative. Told him that Willets is and always was the ideal spot for the stadium-- the epicenter of soccer culture in NYC. I told him to walk around Flushing Meadows Corona Park on a weekend afternoon and see the dozens of pick-up and league games, adult and youth, and their families, speaking 50 different languages. Told him how important it was, just as a fan, what NYCFC was doing for the underserved communities in the city.
At the table next to me was Gaby Perreira but didn't get a chance to talk to him and I think the language barrier would have made it awkward anyway. I complimented Maxime and Malte on their impressive English.
Finally-- left with a colleague and when we got to the corner, there's a solitary guy there, facing away and looking at his phone, who looked like Cushing. So I approached and was like, "coach?" and he turned around and it was! Like, he was there by himself trying to get an Uber or something, haha. So I chatted briefly with him-- told him I loved his halftime adjustment swapping Talles and Andrade, and that lots of fans appreciated that. He seemed genuinely happy to hear that, haha. All these guys were so friendly-- maybe they were instructed to be very friendly and positive by the club for the night, because it was a fundraiser and so on, but it did seem genuine to me. I think they are happy to receive whatever attention/interest they can get, because soccer is so under the radar here in NYC and the US, compared to baseball/football/basketball/etc.
Finally (part deux): I will not reveal which players/staff were the sources for this, to protect them, but I was told 1) Santi would very likely be back this week, and hopefully be available for Saturday, and 2) a player is coming soon who we (fans) will be very excited about. I said, "a center forward?" and they smiled and said they couldn't say more. When I saw the news about Sands today, I wondered if that was who they meant. But my gut says, no, the implication was that it was someone more exciting than that (not that Sands isn't great news). So we'll see!
www.nycfc.com
