HARRISON, N.J. – The New York Red Bulls’ run to the MLS Cup final in December, surprising as it may have been, was a form of validation of the club’s focus on the energy drink company’s soccer approach. The squad that lost to the LA Galaxy two months ago boasted seven players who began their career on homegrown contracts, winning the praise of the Galaxy’s general manager Will Kuntz even as he celebrated his team’s triumph. Coupled with the all-important addition of ex-RB Leipzig midfielder Emil Forsberg at the start of 2024, the Red Bulls seemed intent on keeping it in the family.
Getting within touching distance of winning the club’s first MLS Cup, though, changed things.
Ahead of their second season with head coach Sandro Schwarz, the Red Bulls spent the winter fast-tracking a roadmap to lifting trophies, betting big on experience. Of their eight signings this offseason, four will be 30 or older by the end of the season, most notable among them the former Bayern Munich striker Eric-Maxim Choupo-Moting on a designated player contract. It signals an attempt to win now, even as younger players still play a key role.
“We just had some younger players kind of going through their first MLS season or their first big moments in games,” midfielder Daniel Edelman told said Wednesday at the team’s media day, days before the Red Bulls kick off their season on Saturday at FC Cincinnati. Older players offer “the stability, the morale, staying positive in certain moments and also just the street smarts on the game. They’re just more clever, drawing fouls and all that stuff.”
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The Red Bulls have the benefit of continuity that they did not have in Schwarz’s first season, using preseason to hone in on smaller details as they begin to perfect the head coach’s vision.
“Even if the preseason was short, I sort of think everybody knew what they wanted to do as soon as we came here,” Forsberg said. “I think based on last year, we have some stuff with the ball to do better and also the way we have to win the ball, what we can do there to relax or to go forward. Defensively, I think we did a lot of stuff last year that we keep on working on and want to do better, so it’s been a little bit of everything but just those small details with the ball [are] going to be important for us.”
The straightforward transition in preseason has allowed several different Red Bulls players to focus on developing their leadership qualities, mixing that in with whatever personal goals they have for themselves. That includes Choupo-Moting, who left Bayern for the U.S. for new off-field adventures as much as fresh experiences on the field.
He chased a move that “motivated me 100% and I wanted something special,” he said. “It’s a new country, a new culture, a new league, which I think is progressing a lot during the past years. … That’s also one of my goals, to help [young players] to improve, to give them a little bit of my experience and my quality on the pitch and to try to make them better.”
It can also help to call upon a player who has experience winning trophies in a Red Bulls jersey. Four years after he was traded to the Houston Dynamo, 2018 Supporters’ Shield winner Tim Parker re-joined the club as a free agent with the hopes of helping the Red Bulls’ younger talents manage the bigger moments they hope await them.
“It’s always high energy, but there’s a lot with young players that you always have to manage and obviously keep them under wraps because there’s a lot of emotion that can go into a lot of different things with young guys,” Parker said. “At least for us – the older guys, the older veterans on this team – I think it’s important for us to help guide them along the way and just show that emotion can play a part in some good things but also you want to be able to hone those and use them at the right times.”
Edelman, who said he’s beginning to feel like a veteran at 21 as he enters his fourth season as a professional, hopes the pairing of new additions and the memories of MLS Cup will fuel a new energy for an ambitious team that hopes to lift silverware in 2025.
“It’s definitely a great feeling to get to the final because a lot of people counted us out and I think we’re supposed to carry that with us to this year,” he said. “I think it’ll just give us more confidence and of course, it’ll make us more hungry because we want to win it all now. We never want to have that feeling again. It was one of the first feelings of my life, probably, losing the final but we’ve got to walk with a little more swagger,, I think, this year because people just counted us out and we were underdogs but look what we did. When the games mattered the most, we stepped up to the occasion.”
Klopp’s New York check-in
Even in a busy winter for the New York Red Bulls, the biggest news in the world of Red Bull soccer was the arrival of former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp, who started his tenure as the company’s head of global soccer in January. He has spent the early weeks in the job visiting Red Bull’s different soccer teams, with visits to Paris FC, Brazil’s Red Bull Bragantino and Japan’s RB Omiya Ardija along the way. He mixed in a visit to New York earlier this month, introducing himself to the players during his stay.
“He came by at the training facility one of the days,” Edelman said. “We had our scrimmage against Hartford [Athletic], a USL side, so he was there watching that game. He spoke to everyone before we went out for the scrimmage, just kind of sauntering around the field and stuff. It was cool.”
The specifics around Klopp’s role, which he described as “Doctor Football,” who is “helping wherever I can, where I can give my all,” are unclear, though Forsberg is confident he will be a great addition to Red Bull’s global soccer project in New York and elsewhere.
“I think he’s going to be a fantastic addition to the Red Bull family with his experience and everything he’s won, to put his input in stuff, it’s going to be fantastic for us,” Forsberg said.
Though it was an introductory meeting, he left a lasting first impression.
“He spoke really well, I think he was really wise in what he said,” Edelman said. “How could he not be with the teams he’s coached and the career he had? I’m a big Liverpool fan so it was pretty cool to see him in person and hear from him. He’s a good guy that’s going to be in charge of overseeing Red Bull.”
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