Cruz Azul's Late Winner Over NYCFC Says More About Midfield Control Than Luck
José Paradela's shot took a deflection off James Sands and looped past Matt Freese in the 78th minute, but the story of Cruz Azul's 2-1 win over New York City FC on Sunday at Sports Illustrated Stadium had already been written by then.
The Liga MX champions finished with 20 shots to New York City's total, six of them on target, according to LeaguesCup.com's post-match figures. Numbers like that don't happen by accident against an MLS side that had opened its own Leagues Cup campaign with a 2-0 win over Santos Laguna. They happen when a team built around Érik Lira and Agustín Palavecino in central midfield is allowed to dictate tempo for long stretches.
Palavecino put Cruz Azul ahead in the 35th minute, drilling a shot from the left side of the box after Lira won the ball back from a New York City turnover, according to NYCFC's own match recap. Giving the ball away in your own defensive third against a team built to punish exactly that is the pattern MLS clubs keep running into against Liga MX opposition in this competition.
New York City did not fold, though. Max Murray leveled the score in first-half stoppage time, rising to head home a Nico Fernández Mercau free kick delivery for his first career professional goal. For long stretches of the second half, City matched Cruz Azul's intensity if not their control.
The Deflection That Wasn't Really Luck
Paradela's winner will get filed under fortunate, and the ball did take a touch off Sands on its way in. But look at how the chance came together. Carlos Rodríguez found Paradela with room to work centrally, and Paradela had already tested Freese twice earlier in the match. Cruz Azul kept generating that kind of look because they kept the ball, and New York City kept chasing it.
Head coach Pascal Jansen called it "a very intense game and a good lesson for us to see what happens when you play at the top level," in comments relayed by Front Row Soccer. Max Murray, City's scorer, added that facing "the reigning Champions of Liga MX" for 90 minutes was a measuring stick in itself.
Neither quote settles the argument outright, but both point at the same thing. New York City competed. They did not control. The result leaves City at 1-1-0 in Phase One, needing a win in their final group match to keep their Leagues Cup alive, per LeaguesCup.com. Cruz Azul move to 2-0-0 and face Chicago Fire on August 13, needing only a point to lock up top spot in Group A.
None of this settles the larger MLS versus Liga MX debate for good. Results in a group phase built on single matches rarely do. But it adds another entry to a pattern that keeps repeating whenever a Liga MX side with a settled midfield meets an MLS opponent still building continuity under pressure. Cruz Azul had that control on Sunday. New York City didn't, not for long enough.
