New York City FC sends a message to the Union and MLS with a 3-0 playoff win over Inter Miami

NEW YORK — No one on the Union will say this aloud, because it’s not the kind of thing one says aloud in the playoffs.

But it might bear saying now that the team the Union should want no part of this month isn’t the one they’ll face Thursday at Subaru Park, FC Cincinnati (8 p.m., FS1, Fox Deportes).

No, it’s the team that took to Citi Field on Monday night with a reigning champion’s star above its crest, won last year in a league that launched a decade after the Mets’ last World Series title.

New York City FC needs no introduction to the Union, after Philadelphia’s regular-season sweep this year of the team that won last year’s Eastern Conference final at Subaru Park.

The Pigeons might need a little reintroducing to the rest of Major League Soccer, though. While their 16-11-7 record this year was far from ideal, they finished third in the East, closing the regular season with three straight wins after taking the Campeones Cup exhibition in mid-September.

Now make it four straight, thanks to a 3-0 dismissal of Inter Miami in the first round of the playoffs.

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New York goalkeeper Sean Johnson, an MLS veteran who’s likely to be on the U.S. World Cup team next month, called the win “a statement to ourselves that we’re in the right mentality to go on and take care of business at the end of the day.”

Two other New York veterans, defender Anton Tinnerholm and striker Héber, said it took a while to get used to a new playbook installed by manager Nick Cushing when his predecessor Rony Deila resigned in June to go to Belgium’s Standard Liège.

Cushing had been one of Deila’s assistants, and was promoted to the top — his first head coaching job since leading Manchester City’s women’s team from 2013 until then. (His players there included Delran’s Carli Lloyd, who spent four months at City in 2017.)

“He has clear ideas of what we’re going to do, and now we’re feeling like we’re really playing the way he wanted,” Tinnerholm said.

If you watched New York blow a bunch of first-half chances, you might not have believed that. If you watched Miami’s Aime Makiba clear Héber’s shot off the goal line by way of the crossbar — only for Miami’s Christopher McVey to hit the rebound off his own goalpost and back into play — you might have just laughed.

But in the 63rd minute, the champs finally broke through. The opening goal came from Gabriel Pereira, a 21-year-old winger signed in January for $5.5 million from Brazil’s Corinthians. It was set up by Santiago Rodríguez, a 22-year-old midfielder brought in on loan last year from Uruguay’s Montevideo City Torque — another club that, as the name implies, is owned by Manchester City’s global empire. (Now you know how Cushing got here, too.)

Six minutes later, veteran midfield talisman Maxi Moralez officially dismissed any ghosts in the faded postseason logos on the foul territory grass. At the end of a terrific full-length buildup, Moralez buried New York’s second goal. The crowd of 18,066 erupted.

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Héber finished the scoring in second-half stoppage time. It was a symbolic tally at that point, but there was plenty of symbolism in it. The Brazilian missed much of the year because of an ACL injury suffered in late 2020, and enjoyed a strong rebound this year.

But many of his teammates missed major time due to injuries, including Tinnerholm (twice), stalwart centerback Alex Callens, and central midfielder Keaton Parks.

In the regular-season finale at Atlanta, three players were hurt badly enough to miss the playoff opener: forward Talles Magno (who scored the winner at Subaru Park last postseason), central midfielder Alfredo Morales, and right back Tayvon Gray. We’ll see if any of them return for Sunday’s conference semifinal at second-place CF Montreál (1 p.m., ESPN and ESPN3).

But on the whole, Cushing’s squad is healthy enough that he’s been able to settle on a consistent rotation — something the Union and Montréal enjoyed throughout the year.

“If you do that, and you get guys playing with freedom and they’re content, and they’re settled, you get goals like you see tonight and performances like you see tonight,” Cushing said.

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You also get the kind of message everyone saw. The champs aren’t dead yet, and the rest of the Eastern Conference is on notice.

“If we play on this level, I think we’re the best team in the league,” Tinnerholm said. “But we know it’s going to be a way tougher game on Sunday.”

Alan Velasco’s “Panenka” chip shot down the middle clinched a penalty shootout victory for FC Dallas over Minnesota after a 1-1 tie in Frisco, Texas.

Sixth-place Minnesota scored first, thanks to its star playmaker Emanuel Reynoso, in the 53rd minute, and was poised for an upset. But Facundo Quignon tied the score 11 minutes later, and that was it for the scoring in regulation and extra time.

All of the takers in the shootout scored except Minnesota’s Wil Trapp, whose attempt was saved by Dallas goalkeeper Maarten Paes.

Dallas will visit intrastate rival Austin FC in the conference semifinals on Sunday night (8 p.m., ESPN and ESPN Deportes).