When Patrick Vieira looks back on his time spent in the United States managing New York City, he does so with a sense of warmth – both personally and professionally.
The Palace manager moved to the ‘Big Apple’ in 2016, and he immediately felt right at home.
“I enjoyed it straight away,” he said. “I had a couple of friends living in New York for a while, like Youri Djorkaeff who played with me in the French national team.
“He really understood what New York was about and he made me understand the city really well – and things to do in the city... New York is a good place to live.”
Professionally, though, it was a huge challenge: a first job managing outside Academy football.
“I wanted to challenge myself moving from youth football to professional football,” he explained. “I wanted to go to a league where I was getting more pressure, and wanted to test the philosophy that I wanted to implement.
“Of course, moving to New York City F.C. was a really good decision, because I was surrounded by people who were prepared to give me a platform to go to the next level.”
Major League Soccer is a very different set-up to European football, from the calendar to the financial regulations, and it took some adapting.
“It’s a different way of working, because you have to take a lot of elements into consideration when building teams,” Vieira said. “The salary cap is one of them. It’s pushing you as a manager to really think about the priority and the quality that you want when you’re building the team.
“There are also different levels of players. You have players who came from South America or players who came from Europe and are used to training every day and playing games every weekend, and you have players who came from the draft and have been training three or four times per week.
“So there were different levels of ability of players and it’s not something easy for a manager to build a team or build the training session.”
Vieira was impressed by the passion and dedication that American fans showed to the sport.
“The British people or European people would be surprised by the passion of the game and of soccer in the United States,” he said. “Even myself, I was really surprised because we played in different places and the stadiums, the atmosphere.
“People coming before or seeing fans after the game. There is a passion over there that is growing every year and I think the future looks really bright for US soccer.
“There are a lot of Americans now coming at an early age in Europe and playing the game, trying to learn even more, trying to develop themselves and to challenge themselves.
“It’s such a big country that I believe they will be successful in the near future.”
It’s not just football; Vieira is an avid sports fan and New York offers no end of opportunities to see the best of the best.
“This is a plus,” he said. “Living in New York, you are going to Madison Square Garden, watching the ice hockey.
“You are going to the baseball watching the [New York] Yankees play, you are going to see American football. If you love sport in general, you will be really pleased living in the United States.
“I have been to a couple of ice hockey games – it was a play-off – and I was really amazed by the passion and the game itself, because that was the first time I was watching a game live.
“I was really into the passion and excitement, and this is a sport that I discovered over there that I loved.”
As a home, New York offered Vieira the perfect balance of personal and professional.
“Spending more time with the family, walking around,” he said. “You have tourists of course who can stop you for a picture or an autograph, but the majority of the time you can live your life in a really good way.
“What I mean by that is doing what you want: walking around Central Park, going for a drink, going to have dinner with friends.
“You enjoy it. I enjoyed the last two-and-a-half years over there.”
