Fortunately, the cavalry was on the way. It came in the not particularly scary-looking form of human hang-loose emoji Héber, a journeyman Brazilian striker who would finish the season with an extremely scary—like, better than Zlatan and Josef scary—nonpenalty goal plus assist rate. Just as important as Héber's work in the box was the well rounded game he'd developed in Croatia, as he spearheaded NYCFC's press and dropped into his old left wing stomping grounds to help Moralez, who’d happily returned to midfield, link the buildup to the attack.



Around the same time that Héber rearranged NYCFC’s front end, an equally important shift was happening at the back. Sands, who’d started the year as a defensive midfielder who sometimes dropped between the center backs, became a center back who sometimes moved up to join the midfield. What sounds like semantics turned out to be a sea change for NYCFC’s defense, which shot from 15th in the league for home-adjusted expected goals allowed (1.25) through the first six games, playing a four-back formation, to 2nd place (0.77) over the next six in their new three-at-the-back shape. See, in the graphic above, how the red rolling xGA line hits a dramatic cliff in April? That’s how sharply this unit improves when you push Tinnerholm and Rónald Matarrita from fullback to wingback, let Maxime Chanot and Alexander Callens patrol the wide spaces, and count on the homegrown teenager Jimmy Sands to hold the whole thing down in the middle.

Looking back, the turning point of the season was the April 13 visit to open Minnesota’s new stadium. NYCFC started the game in a 3-4-3 with Moralez and Ismael Tajouri-Shradi pinching in from the wings to overload the midfield behind Taty Castellanos at striker, then switched in the second half to a 4-2-3-1—and, startlingly, they looked pretty good in both shapes. The white-hot May road trip in NYCFC’s shiny new 3-4-3 was too good to last; injuries and wacky MLS scheduling eventually forced Dome to adopt different formations when it became apparent that Ring wasn’t a comfortable substitute for Sands at center back. But by that time something had clicked. The players just got it. Whatever shape the team started the game in, they usually cycled through two or three by the end of it, reacting on the fly to opponents’ tactics faster than the other coach could adjust. Instead of looking confused by Dome’s tinkering, his team was invigorated by it, and the players’ rapidly improving positional sense helped them cover for each other during a rotation-heavy back half of the schedule.

NYCFC finished the regular season with 64 points and a +21 goal differential, both better than they’d ever managed under Patrick Vieira, and wrapped up the East’s top seed with a week to spare. This team can play soccer. But what can data tell us about how they do it?

In Possession

Goals: 1.85 per game (2nd in MLS)

Expected Goals: 1.44 per game (8th in MLS)

Possession [pass ratio]: 57.4% (2nd in MLS)

Final Third Passes: 101.9 per game (18th in MLS)

Press Resistance [xPass in first two thirds]: +0.55% (15th in MLS)

Let’s start with what we know: they play slow, then fast. Maybe it’ll help to see that in viz form.