What do Kobe Bryant, Denzel Washington, Phil Jackson, former President Barack Obama, the New Zealand national rugby union team and Formula One drivers have in common?
All have inspired the coaching philosophy of New York City FC head coach Pascal Jansen.
“I’ve done everything within my power in order to keep myself educated, and learn more and more and more,” Jansen told The Post about his philosophical approach, while crediting his mother for instilling that in him. “Keep myself interested and very curious to ask questions all the time, and if you don’t get answers, you ask more questions. If there’s somebody else that can inspire you, maybe give you answers to questions that you have, go find them and try to contact them. And that is something in this time of age is possible.”
And after the results of the 2025 season, which saw the first year MLS coach lead NYCFC to the Eastern Conference finals, it’s hard to argue that the eclectic mix of ideas and philosophies hasn’t worked.
Jansen finished 2025 with a .488 win percentage, the second-highest for a coach in club history, and ended the regular season with 56 points in the standings, the highest since 2019.
Jansen was one of the four first-year MLS coaches to lead their squads to the conference finals last season — the time first in league history for such a feat by a group of rookie coaches. The Dutch soccer coach pointed out that immediate success was a combination of several factors in his mind — including a “competitive roster,” a coachable group and chemistry.
Nevertheless, the NYCFC boss pushed back a bit on 2025 being a successful season.
“I agree for a certain part, but not successful enough,” Jansen said. “We want to be more successful than we’ve been so far. We have to raise the bar again in order to become more successful, and that is the challenge for this season.”
NYCFC hits the ground running against an LA Galaxy squad on Sunday that is looking to regain the form they had when they captured the MLS Cup title just two seasons ago.
Jansen has made it clear that success this season for NYCFC will be measured by doing “better than we did last year,” which likely means reaching the MLS Cup final or winning a trophy in the U.S. Open Cup or Leagues Cup tournaments. Doing so would mean overcoming a few obstacles, with the club having to deal with the loss of their leading goal scorer, Alonso Martínez.
“I think we all know the standard. I think we all know what was expected of us,” defender Tayvon Gray said.
“We need to start out strong. We need to win this game,” veteran midfielder Maxi Moralez said. “We have a good team, so we’ll see what happens. I’ll tell you, the season is very long, but we need to start this Sunday with the mentality to win this game.”
Jansen said that the club needed to reflect on the 2025 season and analyze everything in order to set things in motion for this upcoming campaign. One of his biggest lessons was dealing with all the travel MLS teams have to contend with during the season.
“Trying to find a good balance between the ideas that we have to train and work on, on pitch, making sure that players turn in to the best versions of the of themselves, and making sure that you’re able to cope with all the traveling is something that was so challenging and will help me going into the 26 season,” he explained.
The NYCFC coach will also benefit from knowing the team a bit better in Year 2 at the helm.
“It’s the hunger and it’s the desire to be better than last season, and that is going to be a huge part of our identity,” Jansen said. “Going forward in 26, you saw the intensity that we try to play with every game, the organization that we show on pitch, the mental calmness that we always try to get exposed on pitch, is something that will remain exactly the same.”
