Villa laments heat after City draw

New York City captain David Villa blamed his team’s pre-season trip to Manchester for their poor start to the MLS season on Sunday.

Jason Kreis’ new team travelled from Florida to sister-club Manchester City in England and back to the United States in South Carolina in the month leading up to their maiden MLS campaign.

New York finally made their debut on Sunday away to Orlando City and Villa claimed he and his team-mates struggled with the heat in Florida.

The temperature was approximately 25 degrees Celsius with 50 per cent humidity at kick-off at the Citrus Bowl.

“We did some nice work but we didn’t start well due to the cold weather conditions in our pre-season training. We struggled with the heat here,” Villa said after the match.

“We got better throughout the game and it’s a shame we couldn’t hold on. Orlando put in a good performance, there was just a few minutes to go and they scored from a deflection.”

Orlando dominated the first half on Sunday, taking seven shots to New York’s three, although the teams could only manage one effort on target between them – from the home side’s captain Kaka.

But as the match wore on, the visitors started to find some rhythm, with Villa teeing up Mix Diskerud for the opening goal in the 76th minute.

Disappointingly for the former Barcelona and Atletico Madrid forward, however, Kaka’s deflected free-kick secured a point for Orlando in stoppage time.

“We played a good team that had a good fan-base and a good turnout,” Villa said.

“Obviously it’s a shame at the end that it didn’t work out. But now we need to turn our focus to the next game, it’s going to be a historic [home] game at Yankee Stadium.”