“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Justin Che and New York Red Bulls agree another 4 years.
Nobody at New York Red Bulls will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Dylan Nealis trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Ethan Horvath has written the date down.
Russell Canouse and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cameron Harper is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and New York Red Bulls know it.
Jahkeele Marshall-Rutty and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at New York Red Bulls has been clear about where Dylan Nealis stands, which is more than many ever get.
Something was said to Gianluca Busio and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
10 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
“I did not go to Seattle Sounders to sit and watch. I want to come back to New York Red Bulls and fight for my place.” 3 appearances in 9 matches say the rest.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Julián Bazán trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is John McCarthy’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and New York Red Bulls needing him to play as if none of it matters.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.87 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; New York Red Bulls are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Gianluca Busio and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
The goal that put Atlanta United FC ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when New York Red Bulls equalised, 3 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Ethan Horvath
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at New York Red Bulls has been clear about where Mohammed Sofo stands, which is more than many ever get.
Two goals and a mark of 9.09 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at New York Red Bulls this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Successful dribbles: 17. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Miles Yedlin kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Nobody at New York Red Bulls will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Vancouver Whitecaps go through and New York Red Bulls go home, 0‑2 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting provided it, and the 8.96 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
One scored and one made, which is a different afternoon from scoring twice and an easier one to overlook. Marked 7.96, and involved in 2 of his side's goals.
It needed Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting to find the net to bring anything home at all: 3‑3 against Orlando City, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Successful dribbles: 16. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.