No New York City FC could find the net on Saturday night, but the Cityzens still recorded a win and three points in their home opener.

An own goal by Christopher McVey turned out to be the loan goal of the match as City registered a 1-0 victory over Inter Miami CF at Yankee Stadium.

It was NYCFC’s first win of the season after going winless (0-1-1) in its first two games.

Goalkeeper Luis Barraza recorded the shutout.

“I think obviously going away and playing the first two games away, it was always going to be tough and we knew that,” he said. “Obviously we were upset even though we were on the road. We were upset that we weren’t  able to really bring back home the points. So I think now showing out in front of our fans in front of our people, I think it was important for us to put on a solid complete performance and I think we did that today.”

Head coach Nick Cushing also was happy with the result and three points.

“I think if you look at last year we didn’t start the season so well on the road,” he said. :It’s pretty similar to this year, and then we go and win the home opener and it just gives you that life. We have another home game next week, and we’ll go into this training week with the mindset of wanting to improve and of a mindset of ‘we need to fix those small details to make us a better team.’ But, with confidence and knowing that we’ve put three points on the board, we’ve got our first foot forward and truly a difficult game against D.C. [United]. If we work hard this week, we could put another performance in.”

McVey knocked in Santiago Rodriguez’s free kick in the 35th minute, which turned into the lone tally of the encounter.

Cushing would have liked to have seen a second goal for obvious reasons.

“We have to be ruthless in front of goal,” he said. “If we’re going to be a top, top team, we have to score the goals. We have to kill the games. We had a preseason game against Portland in California where we carried 75 percent of the ball, and we lose one-nil on a set play because we don’t score the goal. In Nashville, we were one-nil then they go two-nil. And one-nil at Chicago, we should go and get the second goal and win the game. It could have been the same today, but we defended the game incredibly well. The second goal completely kills the game.”

Front Row Soccer editor Michael Lewis has covered 13 World Cups (eight men, five women), seven Olympics and 25 MLS Cups. He has written about New York City FC, New York Cosmos, the New York Red Bulls and both U.S. national teams for Newsday and has penned a soccer history column for the Guardian.com. Lewis, who has been honored by the Press Club of Long Island and National Soccer Coaches Association of America, is the former editor of BigAppleSoccer.com. He has written seven books about the beautiful game and has published ALIVE AND KICKING The incredible but true story of the Rochester Lancers. It is available at Amazon.com.