FC Cincinnati forward Dominique Badji (14) takes a shot past New York City FC defender Maxime Chanot (4) during the second half. (Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports)

Once invincible at whatever venue they called home, New York City FC just can’t get out of its own way these days.

The Cityzens dropped their second home game in five days, losing to FC Cincinnati, 3-1, at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday night, after losing to the Philadelphia Union at Citi Field on Saturday night, by a similar score. They also dropped to 14th place out of 15 teams in the MLS Eastern Conference.

NYCFC (4-7-4, 16 points), which is 4-2-1 at home and a woeful 0-5-3 on the road, sits a point ahead of cellar-dwelling Inter Miami CF (5-10-0, 15), which lost to the Red Bulls on Wednesday night, 1-0.

It also was City’s first loss at Yankee Stadium since 2022.

All in all, not a very good night.

“It is clearly frustrating for everyone,” captain James Sands said. “We worked very hard during the week. We have a good game plan, and when things start to go against you, it seems like they are always going against you. It is easy to lose focus and discipline a little bit and deviate from the plan when you are losing, but it is important, especially for this team, for a young group of guys that we stick together. We are still not even halfway through the season, so it is a rough stretch, but it doesn’t take much to make playoffs in this league, so we need to use these experiences to be ready for the end of this season.”

Added head coach Nick Cushing: “I knew we would see this from the players tonight because there was a real air of frustration after the Philadelphia Union game. We played our best half of football in that game and then we lost on late first half goals, it’s crazy. We have to learn from that. That wasn’t the referee, we came undone in those moments against a really experienced team. Tonight what I saw was a team doing everything. They [FC Cincinnati] had that one shot on goal, in the top corner from eighteen yards, a free kick and a penalty. We had many free kicks and we should have had a penalty last week. We scored tonight. I’m almost certain this will turn for us.”

Luciano Acosta celebrated his 29th birthday by lifting the conference leaders (11-1-3, 36) into thhe lead in the 38th minute. He drove home Dominique Badji’s lay-off, after Alvaro Barreal had driven to the byline down the left and cut back.

Barreal doubled the margin in the 59th minute as he curled a marvelous free kick around the wall after Acosta was fouled.

After Braian Cufre’s 64th-minute header goal gave the host side some life, Brandon Vazquez’s penalty kick sealed the match for FC Cincy in the 70th minute after Yerson Mosquera was upended in the box.

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.