We regret to inform you that five players who may have finished in the top ten this month have been suspended for two weeks…..
That week of joy culminated in a decisive 5-2 victory over Charlotte FC in the postseason play-in round, following which they were ousted by FC Cincinnati
In a nutshell: Though they still finished eighth in the league, RBNY’s playoff run continues. A crucial offseason is coming up, and a coaching choice needs to be
The positive
The Red Bulls’ defence, led by Andres Reyes, Sean Nealis, and John Tolkin, has allowed them to stay competitive even with a lacklustre offence
Furthermore, all of those players have quite fair contracts (between $400,000 and $500,000 according to the MLSPA; however, Reyes recently inked a new deal extension that hasn’t been
Read all of our 2023 offseason guides for each MLS team as they are eliminated from the postseason here
The 2023 New York Red Bulls season was laid in the coffin and lowered to the ground weeks ago. Then, as they seem to always do, the Red Bulls punched through the coffin and climbed out of the ground to extend their MLS-record playoff streak to 14 years thanks to a game-winning penalty deep into stoppage time on Decision Day
That feel-good week crescendoed with a 5-2 thrashing of Charlotte FC in the play-in round of the playoffs before being eliminated by FC Cincinnati.
The short version: The playoff streak lives on, but RBNY still finished eighth in the conference. A pivotal offseason awaits, with a coaching decision to be made
State of the roster
Head coach: Troy Lesense (since 2023)
Chief Soccer Officer: Jochen Schneider (since 2022)
In defense, the foundation of Andres Reyes, Sean Nealis and John Tolkin is why the Red Bulls have been competitive despite an insipid attack
What’s more, those players are all on very reasonable contracts (between $400,000 – $500,000 per MLSPA, though Reyes just signed a new contract extension that hasn’t been accounted for yet)
Despite a dip in performance this year, Carlos Coronel has shown flashes of being an elite goalkeeper in this league (but is being paid like it)
New York continues to get production out of Tolkin and other homegrowns. U.S. youth international midfielder Daniel Edelman won a starting spot and fellow midfielder Peter Stroud has proved, at the very least, he’s a capable rotation player in this league if not more. That helps stretch the salary cap
Homegrown attacker Omir Fernandez is a solid MLSer, while young players acquired from outside the club like Frankie Amaya and Cameron Harper have given strong minutes. There’s talent on this roster that hits the cap at value
It’s a matter of “who” not “if” for the next homegrown to pop between Serge Ngoma, Julian Hall and Bento Estrela
If not for Lewis Morgan’s season-ending injury, perhaps the attack would have been okay, which would have been good enough
With Lewis Morgan out with injury, and next to nothing generated from designated players, the sputtering attack nearly sunk the 2023 season. That starts with the lack of production from DPs Luquinhas and Dante Vanzeir
Luquinhas (signed for $3 million) had three goals and three assists in 26 appearances this year, buoyed only by a strong end to the season and some kind matchups against Toronto FC and a heavily-rotated, hungover FC Cincinnati. At one point, he had one goal and one assist over 31 games between 2022 and 2023
That is a shockingly bad output for a DP No. 10 tasked with being the Red Bulls’ creator-in-chief
The end of the season was very encouraging and Luquinhas is clearly talented
But was it enough to trust him to be a high-level difference-maker in 2024?
Forward Dante Vanzeir (signed for an initial fee north of $5 million) hasn’t been much better
He had two goals and one assist in 19 appearances, limited to eight starts due to a combination of a suspension for using a racial slur, subpar form and, now, injury
Free agent acquisition forward Cory Burke has been a nonfactor and Elias Manoel, signed permanently from Gremio after an impressive loan last year, had just three goals in 28 regular season appearances (19 starts) before a hat trick against Charlotte in the playoffs. Tolkin, a left back, had as many goals as any of the forwards (three)
What could change
The foundation of this roster is still solid and RBNY has top-line flexibility
Even if neither DP leaves, they could bring in another (though it’d likely have to be a young DP or a player under max-TAM, like Atlanta did with Saba Lobjanidze this summer, to preserve all three U-22 initiative slots)
It’s more likely a DP (Luquinhas) leaves and they can add one with no restrictions or possibly two
Beyond that, there’s U-22 initiative flexibility as well, with only Reyes occupying one of the three spots
At some point, Tolkin will head to Europe. Might that be this winter?
The infrastructure
For all the fair criticism of RBNY’s standing in the global Red Bull pecking order, the club has made a marquee signing for a significant transfer fee in each of the last two seasons in Luquinhas and Vanzeir
The global scouting network has helped target young players from South America, most successfully with Cristian Casseres. The club keeps talking publicly about increased investment this winter. Let’s see how that plays out
The club’s ethos will always be centered around young players in a high-pressing tactical system, and while you can argue with the aesthetics there’s no questioning the team’s identity
Red Bull Arena, when full, is one of the best places to watch a game in the league, and the club has a new, state-of-the-art training facility in the works
Offseason priorities
Hire a head coach
Troy Lesense was named RBNY manager after Gerhard Struber departed
He wasn’t named interim, but wasn’t given a long-term deal either. This season was effectively an audition for Lesense to get the job long-term
Lesense did good work this year
He’s been handed a tough draw with Morgan out injured essentially the whole year plus a lack of attacking talent
Since he was elevated the club has tried to play a bit more than dialing the car-crash soccer up to 11, like under Struber, even if it didn’t always pay off. A great run at the end of the season kept alive their MLS-best playoff streak. Lesesne deserves a ton of credit for that.
More importantly, Lesense did strong behind the scenes with the locker room, an area where Struber was severely lacking
It would be surprising if RBNY goes in a different direction at head coach, but it still needs to get done
DP production
It’s also been written about four times in this story already, and that’s because this is the clear and obvious place for improvement for the Red Bulls
It’s a little unfair to cherry-pick the best examples of DPs in MLS and drop them into any team, but there are a few reasonable shouts for RBN
LAFC’s Denis Bouanga was in a similar profile as Vanzier and signed for a similar fee
Philadelphia’s Daniel Gazdag was cheaper than Luquinhas, in a similar level of league in Europe (Hungary vs
Poland) and is the same age. Would RBNY be a Shield contender with Bouanga and Gazdag instead of Vanzier and Luquinhas? Probably
Even hitting on one of the two would almost certainly have made this comfortable a playoff team
The good news is they’re not far away. The bad news is the spots they need to improve are the most difficult to get right and something the Red Bulls have struggled mightily with in recent years (Patryk Klimala, Dru Yearwood and Josh Sims were the previous three DPs.)
Balance between Red Bull’s global goals and MLS pragmatism
The signing of Burke — a player over the age of 23! — in free agency this winter hasn’t worked, but did show perhaps they dialed it back
slightly from being pure ideologues to the Red Bull Way to understanding there are some different needs in MLS
Being part of a global soccer family isn’t bad
It helped lead to good signings like Casseres and others
It makes the pathway to pros more attractive to the best young talent, who know they have the inside track to the Bundesliga and RB Leipzig (like Tyler Adams) if they
(
