MLS Cup
MLS Cup preview: New York Red Bulls ready to make history
Few gave Sandro Schwarz’s team a chance the playoffs. Now, NYRB find themselves in the championship game after a historic postseason run.
Regardless of the result in Saturday’s MLS Cup, the 2024 New York Red Bulls have put together one of the most astonishing postseason runs in MLS history.
The No. 7 seed in the Eastern Conference, nothing was expected of the Red Bulls but they now stand just one game away from a first-ever championship. After 29 years in MLS, one of the league’s founding clubs may finally break its MLS Cup hoodoo.
The Red Bulls have long been the nearly-men of MLS. They are currently on the longest active playoff run in US sport, making it to the postseason for 15 consecutive years. But they have only once made it to MLS Cup, losing to the Columbus Crew in the 2008 final. That’s it. And for a team that has won the Supporters' Shield three times, it has started to feel like the long-awaited championship would never materialise.
It seemed that way for much of 2024, even. Early optimism from a 4-0 victory over Inter Miami was broken by a bleak run of form in the second half of the season, winning just four of their last 20 games in all competitions. The postseason is often defined by momentum and the Red Bulls appeared to be severely lacking.
That was, at least, until a gutsy 1-0 win on the road against Columbus Crew in Round 1 ignited a fire. They battled to a 2-2 draw in Game 2 and were victorious in the resultant penalty shoot-out, knocking out the reigning champions.
They met city rivals New York City FC in the Conference Semi-final and came away with victory in the first-ever postseason Hudson River Derby. Most impressively of all, they held their nerve in the Conference Final and beat in-form Orlando City by a single goal. For just the second time in three decades, the New York Red Bulls are preparing for MLS Cup.
The star - Emil Forsberg
There is no shortage of brilliant No. 10s in MLS. Waifish, creative midfielders play key roles for many teams but Red Bulls talisman Emil Forsberg offers something different.
The 33-year-old attacking midfielder spent the first 15 years of his professional career in Europe and has racked up 90 caps for the Swedish national team. He is the team’s creator-in-chief; his thoughts swift and his first touch silken.
But what makes him so crucial to Sandro Schwarz’s side is what he offers out of possession. Having spent eight years with RB Leipzig - the German branch of Red Bull’s global network - he is well-versed in the high-pressing, high-intensity style that all RB teams rely on. For years, the New York Red Bulls lacked a player of Forsberg’s quality in the final third. Now, his introduction has been transformative.
“You see some guys who maybe come in here, they’re stars and maybe they don’t want to be here, maybe they have big egos,” teammate John Tolkin said of Forsberg recently. “He’s really so down to Earth. He’ll talk to everybody on the team, whether it’s the cleaning people at our facility or the top guys. I have a lot of respect for that … and it makes guys want to win for him too.”
The stat - New focus for the Red Bulls
Although they have stuck to their familiar style, it would be wrong to say that the Red Bulls have not developed under Schwarz. In each of the past six seasons the Red Bulls were the team with the lowest passing accuracy in MLS, preferring instead to play direct, risky passes.
They are still around the bottom of the rankings in 2024 but their passing accuracy has risen considerably this year, as this graph from SofaScore shows...
The arrival of Forsberg hints at the new focus on build-up play, as does the signing of Felipe Carballo over the summer. The Uruguayan midfielder is another more thoughtful addition to the midfield unit and he has brought an element of control that previous iterations of this team have lacked.
The moment - Coronel’s heroics knocks out Columbus
Even after a Game 1 victory in Columbus, the New York Red Bulls were still underdogs to progress against the 2023 MLS Cup champions. In Game 2 a late Christian Ramirez header made it 2-2 on the night and forced the game to a penalty shootout, which the Crew needed to win to avoid elimination.
Columbus took the lead in the shootout and found themselves on the brink of victory three times, but three consecutive saves from Carlos Coronel kept the Red Bulls alive.
“Carlos, massive moment stepped up, huge,” midfielder Daniel Edelman said after the game. “And those saves were everything and so vital to like, give me confidence, and to be able to know that I have Carlos’ backing, that he’s going to make the save.”
The team - Schwarz’s side likely to remain unchanged
The Red Bulls' incredible postseason form has partly been built on an ability to keep a largely unchanged starting XI. The solid defensive trio of Dylan Nealis, Andres Reyes and Sean Nealis will be fit to start again in front of the impressive Carlos Coronel in goal.
The only concern for Schwarz is the injury sustained by Felipe Carballo in the victory over NYCFC which kept him out of the Orlando game. Carballo is unlikely to be able to feature from the start against the Galaxy but Peter Stroud and Daniel Edelman looked solid in the Conference Final and offer plenty of industry in the middle of midfield.
New York Red Bulls predicted XI: Carlos Coronel - Dylan Nealis, Andres Reyes, Sean Nealis - John Tolkin, Daniel Edelman, Peter Stroud, Cameron Harper - Emil Forsberg, Dante Vanzeir, Lewis Morgan.
The quote - Forsberg asks the question
Heading into the best-of-three series against Columbus Crew, Emil Forsberg was asked about the prospect of facing the reigning champions. His response has become a motto for the team and supporters throughout this astonishing postseason run, asking one simple question.
“OK, we’re playing Columbus. It’s a good team, but f**k it, we can win. Why can’t we?” Forsberg said. “We have a fantastic team, fantastic coaches. We just have to believe. There is nothing before or after.”
That question - Why can’t we? - hit at everything we thought we knew heading into the playoffs, everything that we thought was needed to succeed. The team was on a rotten run of form, had little championship-winning experience and found itself on the harder side of the bracket with a succession of road games. The barriers seemed unsurmountable.
Nevertheless, the Red Bulls asked ‘Why not?’ and are still waiting for an answer. They are now just one game away from completing the most remarkable postseason run in the history of MLS Cup.
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