Nearly two years ago, Kevin O'Toole was trying out for NYCFC as a recruit while also completing his graduate thesis at Princeton University.
The topic was the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, and he graduated in 2022 with a degree in commercial real estate.
In an interview with The Daily Princetonian, he admitted that a career in professional football was a “dream.”
But O'Toole, a native of Montclair, New Jersey, not only has football talent, he also has tenacity.
He overcame being cut from the Red Bulls youth program and juggled an Ivy League thesis with an MLS training camp in Latin America.
He earned a starting spot in the NYCFC backline.
He picked up his first professional assist on Wednesday.
And on Saturday afternoon at Yankee Stadium, assuming manager Nick Cushing makes no changes to his starting lineup, he'll be facing Lionel Messi.
The matchup will pit NYCFC's left back, a Princeton native, against Inter Miami's right winger, a native of Argentina.
“He's a player I've looked up to my whole life,” O'Toole told the Post, “so it'll be a great honor to be on the same field as him.”
Messi's appearance in the Bronx is emblematic of his and the MLS experience as a whole.
Messi has been in the league for 14 months, but this will be his first time playing against NYCFC outside of an exhibition match.
He was DNP in his last two head-to-head games due to hamstring injuries.
Messi will fill Yankee Stadium.
Fans will enter the stadium wearing Argentina and Barcelona's number 10 jerseys.
He will be under the watchful eye of coach O'Toole, who is making $196,000 this season, according to the MLS Players' Association.
Messi will likely be as dominant as he always has been when taking to the field in MLS.
And the league's only source of income may or may not head to its next destination depending on plans to rest Messi and keep him healthy.
Is it bad for the league's long-term image that Messi, who ranks in the top 10 in MLS scoring despite appearing in just 14 of Miami's 29 games, can outmaneuver opponents with such ease?
The answer, according to Cushing, is no, and he argued that MLS will simply become like every other league that Messi has blessed.
“He's been dominant everywhere he's been, right?” Cushing said. “He's been dominant in every league and tournament he's been in.”
In the short term, that means Saturday at Yankee Stadium, Cushing will have to find a way to stop Messi and a powerhouse Inter Miami that is clearly atop the MLS standings with 19 wins, four losses and six draws.
NYCFC (11-11-7) is winless in eight straight games and is losing its guaranteed spot in the playoffs, which feature the top seven teams from each conference (NYCFC is sixth in the East).
“I don't think you can emphasize how to stop it individually. [Messi]”A lot of people in football during his time tried different tactics to try to stop him personally, but I don't think it's possible,” Cushing said.
“I think teams keeping the game compact and making sure they control the space he plays in is going to make the game difficult for him.”
The good news for O'Toole is that he has experience guarding Messi, having faced the 2022 World Cup hero in an exhibition match nearly a year ago. As O'Toole explains, in that match Messi often drifted from the right to the centre and didn't have many one-on-one opportunities.
But O'Toole deflected the shot, Messi remained scoreless and New York City FC beat Miami 2-1. O'Toole will be hoping that Saturday's game will ease some tension.
“It felt really surreal. It felt that way the first game,” O'Toole said. “Now that I have that experience, hopefully it'll be a little more normal.” [Saturday].”
The bigger question for NYCFC is whether it will become home to a superstar like Messi when its $780 million stadium in Queens opens in 2027.
NYCFC sporting director David Lee's strategy has been to build a team without such big names, understanding that sustained success in the MLS cap system requires growth, not flashiness. NYCFC tried to field aging superstars when the franchise launched in 2015, but it largely backfired as Frank Lampard and Andrea Pirlo underperformed.
Lee's hands-on approach has led them to consistent playoff appearances and the 2021 championship.
But there is reason to believe that Queens' strategy will change.
Miami is the best team in MLS, with a squad full of aging international stars (Luis Suarez, Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets are also on the roster), and NYCFC is not only opening a 25,000-seat stadium in a few years, but this week it announced a new minority investor: Marcelo Claure, the Bolivian billionaire who teamed up with David Beckham to found Inter Miami in 2018.
Claure, who sold his stake in Inter Miami, is a flamboyant man, and flamboyance fills the stands.
An MLS spokesperson emailed Messi's “influence statistics” in the form of ticket sales and called the striker “the Taylor Swift of professional sports.”
O'Toole understands his mission.
“It's going to be a very different environment,” he said. “There's going to be a lot more people there than we're used to. It's going to be very exciting, and I want to take advantage of that excitement.”
