Maxi Moralez celebrates his goal with NYCFC teammates. (Vincent Carchietta-USA TODAY Sports)
It took 40 minutes for New York City FC to score its first goal of its MLS encounter against Orlando City SC Sunday night.
For the next 42 minutes, the host team had its way and then some as it rolled to a 5-0 victory at Yankee Stadium.
Tata Castellanos, Maxi Moralez and Malte Amundsen led the way with a goal and assist apiece. Jesus Medina and Ismael Tajouri-Shradi added single tallies.
Goalkeeper Luis Barraza, subbing for Sean Johnson, who is with the U.S. men’s national team at the Concacaf Gold Cup, recorded his second consecutive clean sheet.
Needless to say, NYCFC head Ronny Deila liked what he saw on the pitch.
“When we do the same performance over time, we’re gonna get what we deserve in the end,” he said. “Today we played top football from the first minute to the last minute and we won by five. We could even one more, and they had one goal chance during 90 minutes. hats impressive.
“It’s top professional, what we do, and the way that we get three, we go for four, we go for five, and players coming on do the job. The others, just keep on going, then we’re going to be really hard to play against, so I’m just a proud coach today, I’m very happy for the boys.”
In the losing locker room, head coach Oscar Pareja, gave credit where it was due, although he said his side did not have it Sunday night.
“A very difficult game,” he said. I think New York, from the first minutes, were just getting into our spaces and obviously they played much better from the first minute. We couldn’t find a way to match the game and we’re going to observe it.
“We go with no excuses tonight. Nothing went our way, we didn’t play well, we couldn’t put our passes together, we have tired legs there, too, and we didn’t look very sharp. So the only thing that I can say is, to our fans, that have been very supportive with us all the time, obviously they don’t deserve such a performance. But we have a commitment with ourselves and we will look in the mirror to see what needs to be better.”
Medina, off a Castellanos feed, gave NYCFC all the scoring it needed in the 40th minute against goalkeeper Pedro Gallese.
Tajouri-Shradi doubled the lead in the 53rd minute as City poured it behind Moralez (65th), Amundsen (79th), his first with the club and Castellanos (82nd).
“I think didn’t we changed anything; we try to do our best and what is important is that we play as a team,” Moralez said. “I think that the goals that went in were the goals that were needed in the past games, and it is a great difference. It is hard playing every 2-3 days, various games but playing our first game home with a lot of intensity and the difference we made.”
