NYCFC defender excited for highly anticipated matchup vs. Lionel Messi: ‘Great privilege’

Roughly two years ago, Kevin O’Toole was simultaneously a rookie on trial with NYCFC and finishing his senior thesis for Princeton. 

The topic was the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan and he graduated in 2022 with a degree in commercial real estate.

A professional soccer career, he acknowledged in an interview with The Daily Princetonian, was “a pipe dream.” 

But O’Toole, a product of Montclair, N.J., is resilient, not to mention talented at soccer.

He overcame being dropped by the Red Bulls youth program. He juggled an Ivy League thesis with MLS training camp in Latin America.

He won a starting spot on NYCFC’s backline.

He picked up his first professional assist Wednesday. 

And on Saturday afternoon at Yankee Stadium — assuming coach Nick Cushing doesn’t adjust the starters — he will line up against Lionel Messi.

It will be NYCFC’s left back from Princeton against Inter Miami’s very right winger from Argentina. 

“He’s a player I’ve looked up to my whole life,” O’Toole told The Post, “so to share the same pitch with him is going to be a great privilege.” 

Messi’s appearance in The Bronx is microcosmic of the entire Messi/MLS experience.

He has been in the league for 14 months, but this will be Messi’s first game against NYCFC outside of an exhibition.

He was a DNP-hamstring the two previous head-to-heads.

Messi will pack Yankee Stadium.

Fans will arrive in No. 10 Argentina and Barcelona uniforms. 

He will be monitored by O’Toole, whose salary this season is $196,000, according to the MLS Players Association.

Messi may very well dominate, as he’s done regularly when navigating the MLS pitch. 

And then the league’s one-man revenue stream heads to the next stop, or maybe not, depending on the plan to rest Messi and preserve his health.

Is it bad for the league’s long-term image that Messi, who is top 10 in MLS goals scored despite playing in just 14 of Miami’s 29 games, can so easily overmatch the opponent? 

The answer is “no,” according to Cushing, who argued it only makes MLS the same as every other league Messi blessed. 

“He’s dominated everywhere he’s been, right?” Cushing said. “He’s dominated every league and tournament he’s played in.” 

In the short term — meaning Saturday at Yankee Stadium — Cushing will have to find a way to stop Messi and the juggernaut Inter Miami side, which is clear atop the MLS standings with a 19-4-6 record. 

NYCFC (11-11-7), riding an eight-game winless streak, is losing its grip on a guaranteed playoff spot, which go to the top seven teams of each conference (NYCFC is sixth in the East). 

“I don’t think you can individually highlight any way of stopping [Messi],” Cushing said. “I think there’s many across the world of football in his time that have tried many different tactics to stop him individually and I think that is impossible. 

“I think it’s about your team keeping the game compact, your team making sure you control the space he works in because that will make the game difficult for him.” 

The good news for O’Toole is his experience defending Messi, having faced the 2022 World Cup hero in an exhibition about a year ago. As O’Toole explained, Messi often drifted from the right to the middle in that game and there weren’t many opportunities for one-on-one matchups. 

But O’Toole deflected a shot and NYCFC beat Miami, 2-1, with Messi going scoreless. O’Toole hopes it takes the edge off for Saturday. 

“It was definitely a surreal feeling. I definitely felt that in the first game,” O’Toole said. “Having that experience now, it will hopefully be a bit more normal [Saturday].” 

The larger picture for NYCFC is whether it will be home to superstars like Messi when it opens a $780 million stadium in Queens in 2027.

The strategy of NYCFC sporting director David Lee has been to build rosters devoid of such marquee signings, understanding that sustained success in MLS’s cap system requires development over flash. NYCFC tried rostering aging superstars when the franchise launched in 2015, and it largely backfired with disappointing results from Frank Lampard and Andrea Pirlo. 

Lee’s pragmatic approach resulted in consistent playoff appearances and the 2021 championship. 

But there are reasons to believe the strategy will alter for Queens. 

Miami, the poster team for aging international stars (it also has Luis Suarez, Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets),, is the best team in MLS. And NYCFC is not only opening a 25,000-seat stadium in a few years, it announced a new minority owner this week — Marcelo Claure, a billionaire from Bolivia who teamed with David Beckham to launch Inter Miami in 2018. 

Claure, who sold his stake in Inter Miami, is flashy. And flash fills seats.

While emailing Messi’s “impact stats” in the form of ticket sales, an MLS spokesman called the striker “the Taylor Swift of professional sports.” 

O’Toole understands the assignment. 

“The environment that comes with it is going to be quite different,” he said. “There’s going to be more people than what we’re used to there. It’ll all be very exciting and I’ll try to channel that.”