High hopes for the home opener

It's home opener week for New York City FC and that means it's a time for anticipation and nostalgia on the Hudson River Blue Podcast. Before getting into all the excitement and build-up to the first NYCFC home match of the 2025 season, hosts John Baney and Mark Radigan break down the 1-0 away loss to LAFC. That means attempting to understand the lack of decent NYCFC scoring chances, trying to figure out all that went wrong on that 86th-minute Ryan Hollingshead goal, and focusing on some individual players who stood out for the right and wrong reasons for New York City in its first loss of the season. Season-opening road trip sorted out, the episode then shifts focus to the big 2025 home opener at Yankee Soccer Stadium in the Bronx. Despite the winless start to the season and the in-flux state of the roster, optimism abounds about the year's first home match. We get into the specifics of the match-up and offer predictions about who plays and who doesn't, but we also get nostalgic about past home openers and past meetings with Orlando City. Maybe that's because NYCFC has been busy celebrating its 10th anniversary leading up to this game, trotting out Andrea Pirlo and harkening back to the team's inaugural campaign. That the home opener against Orlando City will be played on the same date these teams played the first competitive games in each of their existences back in 2015 will be a nice cherry on top of the nostalgia sundae. Listen to the full episode and then make sure you’re following Hudson River Blue on Bluesky, Instagram, and Threads, and reading all our coverage at HudsonRiverBlue.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.