Michael Bradley’s new-look Red Bull New York defeated the defending United Soccer League (USL) Championship winners Pittsburgh Riverhounds 3-1 at Sports Illustrated Stadium in the U.S. Open Cup’s round of 32 on April 15.
That advanced Red Bull to the round of 16 where they will face arch-rival, New York City Football Club (NYCFC) at home on Wednesday at 7 p.m.
At a recent media availability, Bradley summed up his thoughts on his team’s next game.
Big Cup game. Derby, I think at this point in the season, it’s the perfect game and the perfect, perfect time. And so we’re really excited to step on the field and play a big game, test ourselves against a good team, and really, really go after things next.
You can call Red Bull a new-look team because of how different their lineup has looked this season as opposed to last. Second-year MLS player Julian Zakrzewski Hall has been the team’s main center forward this season and leads the club with six goals. Rookies Adri Mehmeti and Matthew Dos Santos made the team out of training camp and haven’t looked back since. Mehmeti has been playing central midfield and is tied for the team-lead with three assists and added a game-tying goal against Inter Miami recently; Dos Santos has made nine of 10 starts this season primarily at left-back and contributed an assist.
Then there is designated player (DP) Jorge Ruvalcaba who, after a slow start, has three goals in his last five games. I would be remissed also to not mention Ronald Donkor, the right-footed midfielder who comes into Wednesday sporting a goal and three assists in regular season play and has been a breath of fresh air, helping the team maintain possession and create plays in tight, highly-contested spaces.
Last season, Red Bull’s opponent whose nickname is ‘The Pigeons’ made it all the way to the Major League Soccer (MLS) Eastern Conference final where they were blown out 5-1 by the eventual Cup champion, Inter Miami CF. However, they did win both Hudson River derbies: Red Bull were shutout 2-0 on May 17 and then in front of a good crowd at Sports Illustrated, fell to their arch-rivals again 3-2. Conversely, Red Bull are coming off a year where they missed playoffs for the first time since 2009.
Fast forward to the current year and Red Bull are dealing with injuries to three players (Cameron Harper, Justin Che and AJ Marcucci) but the one to American center-back Justin Che has hurt the most. Che started the team’s first four games of the season and was on the field for 359 of 360 possible minutes. However, since pulling his hamstring on March 14, Che remains weeks away from game-form although he has returned to training, according to head coach Michael Bradley.
NYCFC’s top two goal scorers from last season, forward Alonso Martinez and midfielder Hannes Wolf are both nursing leg injuries and are likely to be ruled out for Wednesday’s match. Nevertheless, NYCFC will deploy a potent attack. This season, the Pigeons rank third in the MLS Eastern Conference in goals-for (19). The charge has been led by DP Nicolas Fernandez Mercau, whose eight goals rank second in the league despite playing striker when he is used to playing midfielder.
The reason Red Bull find themselves 11th place in the MLS Eastern Conference standings while NYCFC find themselves seventh is Red Bull have not kept the ball out of their own net. This season, Red Bull have given up the second-most goals (25) across 10 regular season games, while NYCFC have conceded just 16.
The goalkeepers on Wednesday will be Matt Freese for City and Ethan Horvath for Red Bull. Freese is 27 and Horvath is 30 so both bring plenty of experience to the net. Freese started his MLS career in 2019 with Philadelphia and has since been NYCFC’s number one choice for the past three years. Horvath spent almost all of the first 12 years of his career in Europe (mainly England) before signing with Red Bull New York on January 29.
In the absence of Martinez, three Argentines (including Fernandez Mercau) have powered the Pigeon Attack this season. Thirty-nine-year-old veteran and midfielder Maxi Moralez has been his usual self, dishing out a team-high six assists while 21-year-old Agustin Ojeda has been a decent attacking threat playing out on the wing. Ojeda has three goals and two assists on the season and six goals and nine assists since joining the club in 2024.
At a recent media availability, Bradley discussed how he’s been preparing to face a team missing its star forward, but that has a lot of depth.
We’ve spent a good amount of time over the last few days going through New York City. We took the players through some video this morning, and they’re a good team. They have good players. They have interesting ideas, certain ideas that are similar to ours, but obviously their own style, for sure, and so it’s in my eyes, two good teams, two good teams that want to put the game on their terms, two good teams that want to play football, two good teams that want to attack and score goals.
Right-back Jahkeele Marshall-Rutty was brought in to help a backline that lost Kyle Duncan and Noah Eile during the off-season. So far, Marshall-Rutty has been durable and played 817 of a possible 900 minutes. The 21-year-old Canadian has also contributed an assist this season.
Marshall-Rutty described the challenge that lies in front of Red Bull in tomorrow’s derby, specifically for a Red Bull team that will suit up an 18-year-old (Julian Hall) and two 17-year-olds (Adri Mehmeti and Matthew Dos Santos) in their starting eleven.
We have some young guys, but also we have experienced guys who played in World Cups, who played in Champions League, so they also know how big tournaments are. But it’s an opportunity at a trophy. And obviously we want to win MLS Cup. We want to make the playoffs, but this is also another trophy that we can win, and at home in a derby. So you know, that’s motivation for itself. We’re all excited, and we all know our goal, and that’s to bring as many trophies as we can each season, and this is one that’s in front of us, so we’re all ready.
Historically, Red Bull hold a 16-12-4 record against NYCFC in 32 meetings across all competitions. Red Bull also have gone 5-0-0 vs their arch rival in elimination matches and 3-0-0 in the Open Cup.
The most recent of those elimination matches? The 2024 MLS Cup Playoffs’ Eastern Conference semifinal where Sandro Schwarz’s Red Bull prevailed 2-0 at Citi Field in Queens.
Can Michael Bradley’s men now replicate that magic and send the Pigeons packing? Tune in at 7 p.m. on CBS Sports Network, Paramount Plus, and Red Bulls Radio, with pre-match coverage starting there at 6:30 p.m., to find out.
