Preview:New York City FC vs Puebla - prediction, team news, lineups

Seeking their first normal time victory at the Leagues Cup, Puebla will visit Red Bull Arena in Group A action on Tuesday to battle New York City FC in Harrison, New Jersey.

At this tournament last year, the Pigeons were eliminated in the quarter-finals on penalties by the eventual champions, the Columbus Crew, while Puebla finished bottom of a group featuring Inter Miami and Tigres.

Match preview

Over the past few weeks, New York City have experienced all kinds of emotions domestically, but to their credit, they have found a way to collect points despite all the craziness.

Pascal Jansen’s men enter this game unbeaten in their last three league contests, including a wild 4-3 comeback victory on Friday in Frisco against Dallas.

Four of the last five times that they were behind at the interval, the Boys in Blus managed to earn a result, emerging victorious on the previous two occasions in that predicament.

They have won two of their three Leagues Cup affairs played at Red Bull Arena, coming from a goal down to defeat Mexican side Tigres at that venue in the round of 16 a year ago.

That said, this team have claimed just one normal time triumph in the opening phase of this competition, crushing Toronto 5-0 in New Jersey in 2023.

This will mark the third time NYCFC face a Mexican side in the group phase of this competition, and they are winless in those previous two matches without a single goal scored.

After a lengthy winless spell domestically, Puebla come into this tournament hoping to ride the small amount of momentum they may have gained a few days ago.

La Franja collected a 1-0 triumph over Santos Laguna on Friday, their first in the new Apertura campaign, while they ended an 11-match winless run in Liga MX at the same time.

Interestingly, their last competitive away triumph occurred against Santos Laguna as well in February of the Clausura campaign (2-0), while they are currently on a seven-game losing run as the visitors, with each of those defeats being against Mexican opposition.

The only time they have ever come away with a point in the Leagues Cup group phase was against an MLS side, defeating the Chicago Fire away from home 10-9 on penalties after that game ended in a 1-1 draw.

Pablo Guede’s men have lost two of their last three competitive fixtures when scoring the opening goal but hung on to a shutout victory the last time out against Laguna.

Los Camoteros have only claimed one victory in normal time against a US-based club, defeating Chivas USA at the 2010 North American SuperLiga (2-1), with the latter known today as Los Angeles FC.

New York City FC form (all competitions):

Puebla form (all competitions):

Team News

Heading into this clash, New York City will be missing Keaton Parks, Malachi Jones and Thiago Martins, all of whom continue to recover from leg injuries.

Jonathan Shore, who was born in New York, scored his first career MLS goal in their triumph over Dallas, though Alonso Martinez was the hero, scoring a hat-trick including the winner six minutes from the end.

From matchday two to three of the Apertura campaign, we saw four new faces in the Puebla fold, with Jesus Ivan Rodriguez, Nicolas Diaz, Ariel Gamarra and Franco Moyano coming into the starting 11.

Ricardo Marin scored eight minutes after coming on for Esteban Lozano on Friday, while Rodriguez only faced one shot and was able to pick up his first clean sheet of the new Liga MX campaign.

New York City FC possible starting lineup:

Freese; Gray, Haak, Tanasijevic, O’Toole; O’Neill, Shore; Wolf, Moralez, Fernandez; Martinez

Puebla possible starting lineup:

Rodriguez; Guerra, Rey, Fedorco, Diaz; Gamarra, Moyano, Moreno; Marin, Lozano, O. Gonzalez

We say: New York City FC 2-0 Puebla

New York City have far more attacking options to count on and should not have much trouble containing a side still trying to find their identity in Liga MX.

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