I’m pleased to announce that here on the Podcast Blog, we’ll be starting a new community focus piece in which prominent members of the NYCFC family come on and discuss the team and their respective sites! Our first interview comes with Andrew Robinson (aka /u/ibpants) and Chris Magalee (aka /u/perpetual_student), who are two of four moderators over at /r/NYCFC. On their watch, the subreddit has grown into a fantastic community of over 2,500 consistently active users where everyone feels welcome discussing the team they love. It’s a great place to keep up to date on news, talk about matches, and is one of my personal favorite places to frequent! Also of note to you snapchat users, there is now an /r/NYCFC community feed! Just add rNYCFC on snapchat and send them your NYCFC-related stories and be a part of a big community story! Without any further ado, let’s get to know Andrew and Chris! (Special Note: This interview took place before the last few wins and the recent signings, so keep that in mind! It’s fun to see what has come to pass and what hasn’t in light of this!)

Meeting Matt and Andrew

Hey guys! Introduce yourselves and tell us a bit about what you do!

Andy: Hello, I’m Andy, better known as /u/ibpants on reddit.com and I’m a moderator of www.reddit.com/r/NYCFC. We haven’t formally assigned roles to everyone in the mod team – it’s a collaborative effort – but I’ve done the bulk of the styling of the subreddit, along with some of the more day-to-day housekeeping.

Chris: My name is Chris, aka /u/perpetual_student. I’m a moderator for reddit.com/r/nycfc and I tweet from @_ChrisFC. Most people will recognize me as the guy swinging the remove-hammer and handing out yellow cards on the sub, but hopefully for other (more positive) things too! I also occasionally do a guest spot for the Blue Balls podcast.

How did you two get involved with the team? And how did the subreddit come about?

Andy: Well I started the subreddit, if I remember correctly, 21 days before the team was even announced, so I was eager. I’ve been elbow deep in reddit for a while so I just wanted somewhere to talk about NYCFC.

Chris: I’m very young in my serious-soccer fandom by most people’s standards. I started following it seriously a couple of years ago when baseball began to really get boring (watching the Mets lose is what you do when you’re a fan, but it can be exhausting). Being a Mets fan, I naturally chose Spurs to be my EPL team and I started following them just before Gareth Bale decided to leave for Real, which was unfortunate because I really enjoyed watching him. There was also the whole Clint Dempsey thing, but he wasn’t around for long anyway. Stateside, I tried to follow MLS once or twice but I could never really latch on to a team. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it but there was just something about Red Bulls that rubbed me the wrong way, so when NYCFC was announced I was on-board from the get-go. This would be my team. I was approached by Andrew (/u/ibpants) a little more than a year ago now and he said that he liked how active I was on /r/coys (the Spurs sub) and that I didn’t seem like too much of a dick. He offered me the mod spot and I jumped at it.

Why NYCFC? When did you know this was the team you wanted to support and support in such a big way?

Andy: I’m a Manchester City fan from Manchester and when I moved to the US a few years back I knew I wanted to follow MLS. I figured I had three points of contact with the US: my wife is from New England, when we met she was living in New York, and we were moving to Los Angeles. I weighed up the merits of my four options (Red Bulls, Revolution, Galaxy and Chivas) and tried supporting Galaxy but the “Manchester United of MLS” tag really didn’t help matters, plus I’m really not a West Coast kind of person. My interest waned and I’d occasionally watch Sporting KC or Real Salt Lake, but wasn’t really following anyone especially closely. Between the Man City ownership and being located in a city that I do have some great memories from, NYCFC was just so easy for me to get behind initially.

Chris: Brand-new sports franchises are a very rare thing these days. It was an incredibly opportunity to be able to say “I was there when this team was born” for people in this generation. Fortunately for many soccer fans in the US, MLS is still very much in its early years relative to the rest of the world and we all have a unique opportunity to be there at the genesis of many of these teams. The idea of being there from the beginning was very attractive, and the fact that it would be right here in NYC made it a no-brainer.

How do you feel about the team’s performance thus far? What’s going well? What’s going poorly?

Andy: Until I started watching this team I always thought that having possession was the same as controlling possession, but I’m not so sure anymore. NYC have lots of possession, but they rarely look like they’re in control of anything really. Everything breaks down in the opposition half and the defense are left stranded. My take on it is that there’s a lack of confidence in the defense so the team doesn’t fully commit to the attacking phase. They’re in an uncomfortable limbo between defense and attack that means they’re short of passing options in the opponent’s half and play breaks down too easily. Once the opposition gains possession we don’t have enough bodies forward to quickly pressure them off the ball, but we’re also not fully prepared to defend either so people are scrambling to get back.

Chris: I think we’re par for the course, honestly. Expansion teams are supposed to be bad. People have given Jason Kreis a lot of flack for his decisions thus far in the season, but he’s doing what he can with what he has to work with. He’s a proven player and coach in this league – the guy knows what he’s doing. What’s going well: Kreis can have a huge impact on our younger players; specifically Khiry Shelton. I can’t think of another coach in the US I would want teaching him the game. Obviously Josh Saunders has been phenomenal through the first third of the season, but I’m wary of how that’ll hold up over the course a full season. He’s putting a lot of mileage on himself to this point. What’s going poorly: Everything else. The backline is making poor decisions, the final third seems to just be a mystery to everyone but Villa…it’s a shitshow, to be sure. But a lot of what we’re seeing right now boils down to chemistry. So much of what makes a team great in this sport is the ability to anticipate what your teammates will do and where they will be. So far, that hasn’t happened (and I’d be shocked if it had, as I think most people would be).

What, if any, changes would you like to see the team make moving forward?

Andy: In the short term I think Lampard will help, but a confidence inspiring holding midfielder would do wonders for this team in my opinion. I don’t mean to slight Jacobson, because he’s got a heavy load on his shoulders, but I don’t know that he’s good enough to carry it on his own. Grabavoy, Mix, and fullbacks all feel the need to help him out. A proven guy in that role would (hopefully) give those guys the confidence to fully commit to the attacking phase without that niggling doubt that they’re exposing anyone.

Chris: It’s hard to make changes with the injuries we have at the moment. I had written in the /r/mls Countdown to Kickoff – NYCFC Edition that we needed to have a stiff back line (we’d already shown some issues during the preseason) and needed to stay healthy in order to compete. We’ve done neither of those things, and it’s cost us dearly. Fortunately we’ve got Frank Lampard coming soon, which is a built-in change to the lineup. If these latest rumors about either Drogba or Andrea Pirlo prove true, either one is obviously a massive upgrade.

You have an hour with Coach Kreis, what do you talk to him about? What do you tell him about the team?

Andy: I don’t really know that there’s anything I could tell someone at the level of Jason Kreis that he doesn’t already know, but I’d love to take the opportunity to pick his brains. I’d ask him what he thinks is the upper limit to the current squad and how many changes he thinks he’d need to turn it into an MLS cup winning team. I’d be really interested to learn what really happened with Mendoza. I’m also curious about the thought process that leads him to play Facey and Wingert out of position.

Chris: I tell him that the fans are behind him and that he’s making the right moves. I’m confident in Kreis’ ability to get this team going. Right now, it’s going to take some tweaks and we’ve seen that in the last couple of weeks with the release of Andres Mendoza and the trial-period of Oguchi Onyewu commencing. The FO is clearly also aware as they go out and try to sign a win-now DP for our last spot. So I tell him to just make sure the guys don’t get too frustrated with each other. They need to stick together and learn each other to be successful.

What do you think of the NYCFC community and how it has developed? What’s your favorite thing about it?

Andy: Living in Los Angeles I’ve really only experienced it online, but it seems to be a real mixed bag. It’s clear that MLS support is markedly different than European support. For instance, when Man United sign someone like Di Maria you won’t catch Liverpool fans saying “a rising tide lifts all boats” and I think the NYCFC fanbase has a good mix of these attitudes. Constant vitriol can be a little exhausting, but I also don’t think football shouldn’t be a massive love-in between rivals. In my opinion we’ve struck a happy medium although MLS fans are likely to tell you that we’re too wannabee European, and Europeans will probably tell you that we’re too Disneyfied American (probably with liberal sprinklings of the word “crud”). I do think we’re still finding our groove though. Like I say, it’s a mixed bag, but we’ll find out who we really are in a matter of years, not months.

Chris: The thing I love most about the NYCFC community is that it’s as varied as the city itself. It has people from all sorts of soccer backgrounds with all sorts of opinions on the game and how it should be played. It makes for a really diverse and in-depth discussion about the team. There’s some bad apples here and there, sure, but for the most part everyone is pretty supportive of each other and understands that we’re all here to support the same team.

What do you want to say to the redditors subscribed to /r/nycfc? Why should more NYCFC fans come to the subreddit?

Andy: Just a big thank you for making the community what it is. People have disagreements on our subreddit and that’s great because debate is always good, but it’s rare that it ever gets heated and personal enough that we have to step in. For an online community of our size that’s really quite remarkable.

Chris: I really think we have a lot of great opinions and discussions going on at the subreddit every week. We haven’t gotten the daily traffic I’d like to see yet, but our numbers are growing every day. Don’t be afraid to share your thoughts or ask questions (especially in our Free-Talk Friday thread!)

Are you a member of any supporter’s groups? What other involvements with NYCFC do you have?

Andy: I’m not. I’m not all that familiar with the concept of supporters groups so as far as I’m concerned you can be Third Rail, Hearts of Oak, Brown Bag, whatever. If you’re a New York City supporter, you’re okay in my book. Plus I’m on the other side of the country so I don’t really know that joining a supporters group would make sense.

Chris: I’m currently with the Third Rail for my second year. I was there in the beginning, during that first bar crawl for the World Cup. We’ve obviously grown exponentially since then and taken on a lot more people. Full disclosure: I am considering leaving when my membership is up next year, but not because I have any problems with anyone there or how the SG is run. I’ve had the opportunity to talk at length with [TR President] Chance Michaels and [VP of Supporter Experience] Brian Toto pretty much every time I’ve been to a match and those guys really work hard and put up with a lot of crap from a lot of people. I have a lot of respect for them. I’ve just found that through the course of the season I’ve gotten to know people in another SG and frankly I just associate with them more than the people in TR.

Finally, with all the transfer rumors, who would you like to see join us, Drogba or Pirlo? If you could pick any one player (realistically, no Messi unfortunately) to be our third DP, who would you choose? (Note: This is fun to look back on in light of recent signings!)

Andy: All the ones I’m most interested in are dropping like flies. De Rossi was the perfect choice in my mind – able to create from deep, but also a bit of brick wall. I think De Jong would be great. I really rate guys like Gareth Barry and Michael Carrick. I think you probably see the theme here – I really want a holding mid. Of Drogba and Pirlo I suppose I’d be inclined to go for Pirlo, but for someone occupying that space on the pitch I’d rather go for someone with a little more of a defensive mindset.

Chris: It’s tough because both obviously have their merits and make a difference right away. People shit on the defense a lot because we let up a lot of goals, but we’re not really scoring all that much either. Drogba immediately commands attention from opposing defenses and frees-up Villa to wreak havoc in the box, while also having the strength to deal with the defense focusing on him. Pirlo is all-time, obviously, and can help a lot not only on the pitch but also in teaching our patchwork midfield how to work together. There’s a notable absence of an on-the-field leader on this team (Saunders can only do so much from the box), and either one of these guys could fill that role pretty well.

Wow! A ton of information there from Andy and Chris! I’d like to give a huge thank you to them for taking the time out from their lives and running the subreddit to come on here and let us pick their brains! If you’re not already a subscriber to the subreddit, I strongly encourage you to join us over at www.reddit.com/r/nycfc. It’s a truly great community of people and you can learn a whole lot about the team and its going-ons every day. Both Andres and I frequent it so be sure to talk to us over there about anything you’d like to see on the podcast or the blog! So once more, a huge thank you to our friends at /r/NYCFC and all it’s members! Keep an eye out in the future for more community focus pieces. If you have a suggestion for who you think should be spotlighted next, please let us know in the comments or on twitter!

Be sure to follow Andres at @TheAndresSoto and myself @Coltons13 on twitter for everything NYCFC Fan Podcast related and NYCFC related! Also be sure to follow the Podcast on twitter @NYCFCPodcast If you enjoyed this, please check out my own blog, Great Balls of Fire, at gbofblog.wordpress.com! Let’s go, NYCFC!