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The mystery surrounding whether New York City FC star Nicolás Fernández Mercau wanted out of the club continued a day after a report surfaced indicating he had requested a transfer.
NYCFC head coach Pascal Jansen sidestepped a question from The Post about the report after the club’s 2-1 win over the Columbus Crew on Wednesday night, directing questions about the transfer window to sporting director Todd Dunivant.
Wednesday’s match was the club’s first since the World Cup break came to an end and since journalist Germán García Grova reported on Tuesday that Fernández Mercau told New York City FC he wanted a transfer out of the Big Apple.
In the same report, it was said that NYCFC had rejected a bid from another club for Fernández Mercau worth $18 million, and that decision led to the star striker deciding he does not want to renew his contract with the MLS side.
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It was never specified which league or club had made the offer for the NYCFC star.
Fernández Mercau was brought in last summer during the transfer window and is under contract through 2029.
While Jansen did not address the report directly, he pointed to Fernández Mercau’s performance against Columbus to convey where the player’s mindset was at.
“First of all, if you look at the performance from Nico within the team he was playing today – which has been his team for over a year now – you can see where his mind is at,” Jansen said. “He had a tremendous performance, a huge impact on today’s game. Also, you see a player that is performing for and with his team with a lot of energy, and that’s what he’s supposed to do.”
Fernández Mercau extended his goal-scoring ways, opening the scoring for New York City FC in the 28th minute on a penalty kick.
It marked his 11th goal of the MLS season and kept him in the top 10 in league goal scoring. Fernández Mercau has now scored in four of his last five regular season matches.
His success this season had already drawn interest from overseas earlier in the year, when it was rumored that Portuguese clubs Sporting CP and SL Benfica were interested in Fernández Mercau.
At the time, Jansen said that he was “not aware if there’s any interest” in the talented player, but didn’t express surprise that he would be getting looks from other clubs.
He reiterated that point on Wednesday.
“He’s a great player, so for great players with a lot of quality, there will be interest all the time,” the New York City FC coach said. “So that is something we have to get used to apparently, and we’ll deal with it like we always do.”
