Win!, the documentary chronicling the first year in New York City FC history, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival last week, giving fans and filmgoers and inside look at one of the most pored-over seasons in MLS history.
Directed by British filmmaker Justin Webster, Win! offers a fly-on-the-wall look at the process of creating a club from scratch, with all the requisite drama and tension that goes along with it.
Of course, one of the main characters in the documentary is no longer with NYCFC. Jason Kreis led New York City through their expansion campaign, but was dismissed by City Football Group after the club failed to make the playoffs in 2015.
Still, Kreis checked out the documentary, and shared some of his thoughts on the film and NYCFC’s debut season with CBS New York’s Glenn Crooks.
In the film, Kreis – who said he “wasn’t too thrilled” at first about the documentary crew being in the locker room but quickly grew comfortable with the extra access – mentions that he took a risk leaving Real Salt Lake to take the NYCFC job in December 2013.
Crooks asked Kreis if that decision was worth the gamble. Kreis, who is currently scouting Paraguay for Jurgen Klinsmann and the US national team as they prep for this summer’s Copa America, was diplomatic.
“There are two ways to look at it,” he said. “From a positive perspective, I never would have been able to spend six months in Manchester, England, with my family. I never would have been able to take a European tour after that and visit some of the major cities with my family. I never would have had the opportunity to coach [David] Villa, [Frank] Lampard and [Andrea] Pirlo if I hadn’t taken the risk to leave Salt Lake.”
“From the other perspective, it wasn’t positive. I got fired. Now I’ve been out of the game for some period of time and I don’t know for how long — it might be forever. The risk that I took to come here and build something that I thought would be a long-term venture turned out to be an extremely short-term venture. Myself and my family have had to pay the price for that.”
For the rest of the interview, as well as thoughts on the film from Webster and NYCFC sporting director Claudio Reyna, check out Crooks’ column
