Attacking Connections & Family Matters Spark NYCFC II’s Cup Run

New York City FC II’s 3-2 Open Cup win against Hartford Athletic shared some qualities with their Second Round win over crosstown rivals New York Red Bulls II earlier this month. In both, the Baby Blues faced a pressing opponent who often looked like the more dangerous attacking side. Also in both, the attacking partnership of Jonathan Jiménez Vargas and Taylor Calheria helped drive the team to victory.

As Calheira explained after the Third Round match in Connecticut’s capital, the duo’s connection is well known and well cultivated. “We actually carpool too,” he said. “We just keep the connection; we have a good bond. At the end of the day, we're just always looking for each other.

“In the beginning, I was playing forward and then he went to forward – and ever since, we’ve been clicking,” Calheira added.

It’s been a good Open Cup for Calheira so far; he opened his account in the tournament with a goal in NYCFC II’s match against New Jersey amateurs FC Motown in March. But even with this being his first time playing in the Open Cup, his ties to the competition go deeper – something we’ll cover shortly.

In the Hartford game, Calheira had a pair of goals while Vargas a pair of assists; against New York Red Bulls II, the positions were reversed, with Vargas on the scoreboard with a hat-trick and Calheira credited with an assist.

‘Creating Chances’

“We spend a lot of time on creating chances,” said NYCFC II coach Matthew Pilkington. “We work on it a lot in training. It's a big part of our game.” And it certainly paid off in their match against a Hartford side performing admirably in the USL Championship, the top pro league in the land behind Major League Soccer (the Nutmeg Staters are currently sixth after five games).

Scorelines can only tell part of the story, though, and what stood out about this particular match was the way it escalated. Both teams were scoreless in the first half, though Hartford’s Mamadou Dieng did head a ball into the net that was called back for offsides. At the end of ninety minutes, the score was tied at 1-1.

It was in extra time when things really opened up, with Hartford taking an early lead and NYCFC II tying it up and taking a lead of their own on goals by Calheira and Máximo Carrizo.

But it was in the second half that the true shape of the match began to reveal itself. And it’s in this respect that Calheira credited Pilkington for motivating the team. “He just said, ‘Take all the nerves away and do what you guys do. You know we can play,’” Calheira recalled. “His halftime team talk is really what led us to gain our confidence and move us forward in the game.”

In retrospect, the match felt more like a duel between Coach Pilkington and his Hartford Athletic counterpart, Brendan Burke, than anything else. After NYCFC II took a 1-0 lead in the second half, Burke began making a slew of substitutions beginning in the 64th minute. That seemed rushed from the outset, but the gambit paid off: Hartford’s goals came from Romario Williams and Deshane Beckford, neither of whom were in the Starting XI.

Pilkington’s measured approach also paid off. He was content to let his team absorb their opponents’ press for a while, until things cracked open. When asked after the match about his more measured approach to making substitutions – and if the possibility of extra time played a role – he was philosophical.

“We had a few guys in mind in certain areas. We knew that certain players would run out of steam. We’ve had a very heavy games program in the last few weeks,” Pilkington said. “So we rotated a little bit tonight to give some fresh legs – but we knew certain players would run out of steam. We just wait for those moments and then you have to adapt to be ready to make changes in different areas.”

The match featured parallels and contrasts across its 120 minutes. The give-and-take dynamic of the scoreline was one big example of this. Both Tomás Romero and Hartford Athletic goalkeeper Paul Walters made big saves over the course of the night. NYCFC II has a relatively young lineup: Carrizo is just 16, while Calheira and Vargas are each 22. Hartford Athletic featured some younger players in their squad, but there are many veterans to lean on, including captain Danny Barrera, who is 34.

Chances to Develop

Pilkington also addressed the young age of most of his players in his comments to the media after the match. “I do think we should be celebrating this opportunity and celebrating the fact that we have young teams of young players – 16 years old, 17 years old – competing against seasoned pros and how that's going to help their development,” he said. “It's going to help you develop as a league. It's going to help you develop as a country. So the more opportunities we can get to these players the better.”

The Open Cup is also something of a family tradition for Calheira. His father, Adauto Neto, suited up for Crystal Palace Baltimore in the 2010 Open Cup – specifically, for a match against the Richmond Kickers that, like this one, featured an extra time period. (Richmond – the Open Cup winners from 1995 – won that match 1-0.) Neto also coached Calheira during his school days, before Calheira attended NCAA powers University of Maryland, Baltimore County and was NYCFC’s first pick in the MLS SuperDraft.

“It's the US Open Cup,” Calheira said with some familiarity after the match in Hartford. “We all are pros and we all want to keep moving forward in this tournament,” he said later. “And we just keep getting confidence as we keep moving on.”

Calheira and his team will get the chance to do exactly that when the Colorado Springs Switchbacks, another second-division pro side from the USL Championship, come to Queens next month. For now, NYCFC II have the distinction of being the last MLS NEXT Pro team standing in the tournament – and the possibility of another historic Cupset standing out on the horizon.

Tobias Carroll is a Brooklyn-based writer and the author of four books, most recently the novel Ex-Members. He's on X/Twitter at @tobiascarroll, and is also on Instagram at @tobiascarroll.