The walls of New York City FC’s offices in Midtown Manhattan are plastered with club slogans and catchphrases. “Pillars,” the team calls them: “Beautiful Football,” “Trailblazing Spirit” and “Football Cityzenship” (whatever that means) are among them. In a not-so-subtle manner, they’re intended to encourage club employees to try to live up to Manchester-based City Football Group’s so-called ideals.



One phrase in particular stands out from the crowd. The text is bigger and bolder than any of the other office affirmations, taking up an entire wall of the break room.



“The mission of New York City Football Club,” it declares, is “to build New York City into one of the soccer capitals of the world.”



Seven years after the club was founded and five years after the team played its first match, that reads less like a mission statement and more like a...