Patrick Vieira doesn’t care what you think.
The NYCFC coach, in his first season with the second-year MLS club, makes decisions like a coach with the kind of job security and cachet that Bill Belichick has with the Patriots, whom he’s led to six Super Bowls.
The centerpiece to the autonomous way in which Vieira operates comes in the form of the bold, if unorthodox, end-of-the-season move he made to bench his incumbent goalkeeper, Josh Saunders, in favor of Eirik Johansen, who never had played a league game.
Vieira, answering to no one but himself, made a move that was as admirable as it was arrogant.