After an offseason full of tweaks to the roster that emphasized youth, New York City FC is suddenly a more versatile side. The end result is a team that is more skilled at adjusting in games, something that certainly wasn’t the case the past four years.



After several signings from their academy and targeting emerging internationals on the transfer market, NYCFC now boasts the second youngest team in MLS, with an average age of 24.4 years old. NYCFC is now, on average, a year younger from top to bottom than when they entered the league in 2015.



But it isn’t youth being served simply for the sake of it, or even in the name of austerity, as the team transitions away from big names, long in tooth and on high price tags. This is a team that was built, by design, to specifically be younger and thereby more athletic. It showed the last two weeks in two draws that displayed the team’s ability to adjust tactically in a way that they may not have been able to...