New York Red Bulls
The club
New York Red Bulls are not New York City FC. The two clubs are separate MLS members based in the same metropolitan area, and this corpus carries a dossier for each; nothing here describes NYCFC. The Red Bulls are also a different club from Red Bull's other properties, RB Leipzig in Germany, Red Bull Salzburg in Austria and Red Bull Bragantino in Brazil, all part of the same Red Bull ownership structure under figures such as Ralf Rangnick but each a distinct football club with its own league and history.
The club was established in October 1994 as the New York/New Jersey MetroStars, one of the ten founding franchises of Major League Soccer, and took the field for the league's inaugural 1996 season. The MetroStars name referenced Metromedia, the media company of original owner John Kluge, who ran the club with Stuart Subotnick; Nike had proposed "MetroFlash" before the MetroStars name was settled on. On 9 March 2006 the Austrian energy drink company Red Bull GmbH bought the franchise outright and rebranded it Red Bull New York, later New York Red Bulls, with new colours and crest.
The club played its home games at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey from 1996 to 2009. It has played since at a soccer-specific stadium in Harrison, New Jersey, about seven miles west of Lower Manhattan, which opened on 20 March 2010 with a friendly against Santos as Red Bull Arena. The ground was renamed Sports Illustrated Stadium on 11 December 2024 under a 13-year naming agreement between the Red Bulls and Sports Illustrated Tickets; capacity is 25,000, making it the sixth-largest soccer-specific stadium in MLS. The head coach for 2026 is Michael Bradley, the former United States international and former Red Bulls player, hired in December 2025 to replace Sandro Schwarz after the club missed the 2025 playoffs.
Recent seasons
New York Red Bulls made the MLS playoffs in fifteen consecutive seasons from 2009 to 2024, a run that ended in 2025, when the club failed to qualify for the postseason for the first time since 2009. The exact points totals and final league placings for the 2020 through 2025 seasons individually were not established from the sources read here, beyond the 2024 run to the MLS Cup final and the missed playoffs in 2025.
Honours and landmarks
New York Red Bulls have won the Supporters' Shield, awarded to the club with the best regular-season record in MLS, three times: in 2013, 2015 and 2018. The exact points totals for each of those Shield-winning seasons were not established from the sources read here, though the 2018 total is described as a club record at the time. The club has reached the MLS Cup final twice, in 2008 and 2024, losing both. Columbus Crew beat New York Red Bulls 3-1 in the 2008 final on 23 November 2008, with Alejandro Moreno, Chad Marshall and Frankie Hejduk scoring for Columbus, all three assisted by Guillermo Barros Schelotto, and John Wolyniec scoring the Red Bulls' reply; Schelotto was named the match's most valuable player. LA Galaxy beat New York Red Bulls 2-1 in the 2024 final at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California, extending New York's wait for the club's first MLS Cup. New York Red Bulls have twice reached the US Open Cup final, in 2003 and 2017, without winning it.
Notable scorelines
The club's biggest win is 7-0 at home to New York City FC on 21 May 2016 in the Hudson River Derby. Its heaviest defeat is 0-6 away to the Kansas City Wizards on 20 June 1999. Clint Mathis scored five goals in a single game against the Dallas Burn on 25 August 2000, and Mike Grella scored the fastest goal in club history, in seven seconds, during the 2015 season. Bradley Wright-Phillips scored 27 league goals in the 2014 season, the club's best single-season scoring return.
Head-to-head notes
New York Red Bulls' principal rivalry is the Hudson River Derby, against New York City FC, who joined MLS as an expansion club in 2015 and are based across the river in the Bronx; the two clubs' shared metropolitan area and the same-sport, same-city proximity are the basis of the rivalry, and the 7-0 New York Red Bulls win of 21 May 2016 is the largest margin recorded between the pair. Details of the wider all-time head-to-head record between the two clubs were not established from the sources read here.
Right now (2026/27)
Michael Bradley is the head coach, appointed in December 2025 after Sandro Schwarz departed. Through 21 games of the 2026 MLS regular season, New York Red Bulls have won seven, drawn five and lost nine, scoring 31 goals and conceding 43, for 26 points, sitting eighth in the Eastern Conference in wild-card contention. Home form reads four wins, three draws and four defeats, and away form three wins, two draws and five defeats.
Summer arrivals include the goalkeeper Ethan Horvath from Cardiff City, the defender Robert Voloder from Sporting Kansas City and the forward Jorge Ruvalcaba from UNAM Pumas; departures include Alexander Hack by mutual agreement, Daniel Edelman transferred to St. Louis City SC for a reported 850,000 dollars, and Noah Eile to Bristol City. Recent results include a 3-2 win over Orlando City SC on 1 August 2026, a 2-1 defeat to Atlanta United on 15 August 2026 and a 1-0 defeat to Nashville SC on 19 August 2026. Julian Hall, Jorge Ruvalcaba and Emil Forsberg have been regular scorers for the club this season. The full remaining 2026 fixture list and the club's playoff position at the end of the regular season were not established from the sources read here.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Red_Bulls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_New_York_Red_Bulls_season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports_Illustrated_Stadium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_York_Red_Bulls_records_and_statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_MLS_Cup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Open_Cup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MLS_Cup
Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.