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If only he ever wanted to be here ... one of the very few times NYCFC tried to bring in a player who wasn't bought in, guess we shouldn't be surprised at how it went.
Jovan Mijatović [Forward] [On Loan - Out]
- Thread starter LionNYC
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If only he ever wanted to be here ... one of the very few times NYCFC tried to bring in a player who wasn't bought in, guess we shouldn't be surprised at how it went.
He's such an enigma. You see him with the ball at his feet in traffic and think, with his build, "this dude is gonna body up in the box, then wheel and fire." And it just doesn't happen. He just runs the channel with his hand in the air looking for service.
The potential is there for him to be a physically intimidating presence in the press, too. But he doesn't do that either.
All that being said, I wonder what would happen if Pascal got a hold of him? It's not hard to imagine Jansen putting his arm around Jovan's shoulders and softly whispering some Phil Jackson zen into his ear.
The same productivity flat line we got from Ojeda and Fernandez?
Pascal's a good coach. but I see no evidence he has any special skill in developing young attacking talent.
I don't know about that. Ojeda was much improved over the final few matches. He was downright outstanding a couple times. He certainly was a lot more aggressive, looking to beat guys and get forward rather than back passing at the first sign of a challenge.
Fernandez ... well, I don't know what to say there. He might be the proverbial million-dollar body with a 10-cent brain, which means not even a wizard with a magic wand would make much difference.
In any event, Pascal Jansen knows how to talk to these young men. I have no idea if it would make any difference in Jovan's case. But it's intriguing to think about.
I agree Pascal helped Ojeda, and I’m not sure Jovan would’ve gotten the same results. Pascal is strict about team rules; both Ojeda and Illenic were benched for being late, and his system requires everyone to run and press. Jovan’s slow jogging press and I'm better than everyone attitude would be a bad combination with Pascal.
We like to think the right coach can reach any player, but in 2024 Jovan’s ego was too big for that. When he returned to Serbia, he basically said he struggled because the team wasn’t built around him. Maybe 18 months of limited playing time has humbled him, but back in 2024 I don’t think any coach had a real chance.
Do you at any point care if a forward generates goals? At all? Ojeda scored 3 in 2024 and 0 in 2025 under Pascal. He ranked 115 per ASA in G+A/96 (minimum 1000 minutes). That means that on average, almost every team in the league had 4 players more productive than him.
After 2 years he's more aggressive with fewer back passes? Wow.
If Jansen, Ojeda, Fernandez and Jovan were on a dev team getting paid well below $100k each we could talk about how Ojeda and Jovan finally showed signs of progress after 2 years. Really, though, if they were on a dev team and showed no ability to create goals over 2 years they might have been cut.
For me, the real question now is how CFG’s scouting missed so badly on all three. At this point, we have enough evidence to retire the idea that Cushing simply failed to develop them and accept that they were poor signings. Prospect identification is always a gamble, so some misses are inevitable, but spending that much money and getting nothing from any of them is shocking, especially given how often CFG’s massive global scouting network is touted as a major advantage for the club.
This is almost certainly true. And there's every possibility Jovan came in thinking it was a third-tier retirement league and he was going to blow everyone's doors off and move on to big money back in Europe. How much of that was his personality and how much was the guidance he was getting is an open question.
Well, I don't know what to say about that. I watch the games on the pitch, not a spreadsheet.
Pascal has only had Agu for a year, by the way. Not two. Which means Jansen had to undo what was done before doing that voodoo he do so well.
