{"id":191974,"date":"2026-04-10T09:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T09:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/191974\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T09:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T09:26:10","slug":"nycfc-defender-drew-baiera-to-undergo-acl-surgery-in-crusher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/191974\/","title":{"rendered":"NYCFC defender Drew Baiera to undergo ACL surgery in crusher"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>New York City FC defender Drew Baiera will undergo surgery to repair a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee, the club announced Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Baiera, who played limited minutes in three matches this season, suffered the injury during the international break while he was with the U.S. Under-19 Men\u2019s National Team. NYCFC head coach Pascal Jansen had said last week that the defender would be out \u201cfor quite some time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Jansen also suggested that the injury was severe.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"39044255\" width=\"885\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/202603222_sjb_tu6_197.jpg\" alt=\"A New York City FC player in a light blue jersey.\" class=\"wp-image-39044255\"  \/>New York City FC defender Drew Baiera looks on during the second half against the Inter Miami at Yankee Stadium. Mark Smith-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<p>Baiera will have the surgery done \u201cin the coming weeks\u201d at Montefiore Einstein and he will start his rehab immediately after the procedure.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The 19-year-old appeared in 21 minutes across three contests this year for NYCFC.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEveryone at the Club wishes Drew all the best in his surgery and recovery,\u201d the club said in a statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The loss of Baiera for an unspecified amount of time leaves NYCFC with one less defender to come off the bench, specifically to come in for Tayvon Gray.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Jansen did suggest the club had a few options last week when he spoke with reporters.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have [Strahinja Tanasijevi\u0107] who can play there,\u201d the New York City FC coach said. \u201cWe\u2019re very fortunate to have a guy like [Tanasijevi\u0107], because he can play in the middle and on the sides. That is for us the alternative in order to help Tay and have a backup for Tay.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kai Trewin was also named as someone who could help fill the gap as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Baiera originally joined the club through its academy program and in 2023 became the 12th Homegrown signing in club history.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s primarily seen minutes with the club\u2019s second team over the past two seasons before logging minutes in the season opener this year against the LA Galaxy, NYCFC\u2019s win over 2-1 the Philadelphia Union and in the loss to Inter Miami.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York City FC defender Drew Baiera will undergo surgery to repair a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191975,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,24,402,55,54,56,400,319,19271],"class_list":["post-191974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-fc","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-surgery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}