New York City FC is preparing for a decisive match against Toluca in the Leagues Cup, with Head Coach Pascal Jansen emphasizing that his team’s mentality will remain consistent despite the high stakes. After losing their opening game to Puebla and securing a win over Club León, NYCFC must now defeat Toluca at Yankee Stadium and rely on favorable results from other matches to advance.
Jansen reflected on the recent victory against León, highlighting both the team’s performance and the growing chemistry among key players. “I think it’s in our top five this season, if you compare them with the games that we played so far against a good opponent with good players,” Jansen said of the performance against León. “And it was the first time having Nicolas Fernández Mercer on pitch together with Maxi Moralez, with Alonso Martínez.
“So that looked really good. However, there’s always things to improve, because if you look at the team that started, you have to make sure that they get the understanding in each phase of the game. This was pretty decent against León, but it gives no guarantee going into the next game, so that is something that we have to be aware of, and the challenge will be very, very big now going into this next game against Toluca as well.”
Jansen acknowledged Toluca’s quality and experience ahead of Tuesday’s match. “I would say there are more similarities than differences, but they have a quality squad all over — very, very talented players, players that also have earned respect over the years in their careers,” he said of Toluca. “What I like the most about playing against the Mexican teams is the emotional part, and that is something that we can also learn from and take with us.”
The Leagues Cup format leaves little room for error after an initial loss. Jansen stressed maintaining a knockout mentality: “I have my thoughts about the setup of this tournament but we are aware of the fact that we had to play two finals going back to the start of the game against León after the loss in the first game,” he said. “The mentality and the approach hasn’t changed. We got the win in the second game, and it’s a must-win in the third game, and then we have to look at other results, because that is the case since we lost the first game.”
He noted that outcomes are determined by performances on match day rather than expectations or analysis beforehand: “The thing what I do like about the question is you mentioning ‘on paper,’ because on paper, the games are not being played. On paper, we know we’re up against a very strong opponent, as were the two previous opponents, so we respect them all the way. But tomorrow is about the final. We have to win in order to have a chance to go through to quarter-finals, and that goes for Toluca as well. So it promises to be a very interesting game, and I hope ,a very spectacular game as well . We’ve learned from previous two games ,and going head-to-head with one of strongest teams league always challenging .”
Jansen reiterated his focus heading into this critical fixture: “That’s why I mentioned ,also in my comments ,that approached both games coming from first loss as two finals ,both games must-win ,and we’re halfway .We won one them ,and now it’s about second one ,and approach will not change .”
