NEW YORK — New York City FC coach Domè Torrent expressed a degree of frustration when he was unable to join his new club until nearly two weeks after his appointment due to Visa impediments.
While resolved that he was unable to control the government process, Torrent appeared less accepting of the inability to manipulate his new team during its 3-2 road loss Saturday to the Chicago Fire.
“It’s my mistake, because when a coach is not able to convince the players, we are in trouble,” Torrent said after his second match with the club.
New York City led 2-1 at halftime, but Aleksandar Katai scored twice in the first seven minutes of the second half and the Fire prevailed, 3-2.
Torrent said the warning signs were present when Nemanja Nikolic found a large gap in the defense en route to the game’s opening goal in the 6th minute.
“In football, when you don’t have focus — exactly what happened in the second half,” Torrent said. “We spoke about that in the locker room because we were in trouble during the first half in the same way between the lines. I said to them, ‘We have to control in between the lines. We made a big mistake, especially in the second half.”
Katai found freedom and shook City backs Ben Sweat and Alexander Callens for the game-tying and game-winning strikes.
“He’s someone I know from Spain and know about his quality on the ball – and that killed us,” Torrent said. “But it is more our mistake then the quality of that player. We can’t have the luxury of losing the game in five minutes of the second half when we talked about it during the halftime. We have players that gave it all, they fight all the way I have no complaints about it. But we have to be better.”
A less tolerant Torrent will enter his second full week of training with NYCFC ahead of his first Hudson River Derby against the New York Red Bulls on Sunday at Yankee Stadium.