NY Red Bulls Kick Off 2025 Season vs. FC Cincinnati
The New York Red Bulls, reigning Eastern Conference Champions, begin their 2025 season on Saturday night vs. FC Cincinnati at TQL Stadium.
Head Coach Sandro Schwarz will deploy the newest Designated Player Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting for his first start in Major League Soccer.
The Red Bulls have posted a 4-0-1 mark against FC Cincinnati on the road, including a 3-0-1 mark at TQL Stadium.
Captain Emil Forsberg returns to the pitch for his second season with RBNY, lining up alongside Lewis Morgan. Morgan is entering his fourth season with New York, after leading the team in goals scored last year with 13. Morgan has recorded four goals and four assists in eight career-matches against FC Cincinnati, including a brace in the last time the club’s met on July 20, 2024, at Sports Illustrated Stadium.
Daniel Edelman and Peter Stroud link up in the defensive midfield.
New York have tallied a 3-1-1 mark in their last five MLS regular season matches against FC Cincinnati. Omar Valencia and Alexander Hack also make their first starts in MLS, with Cameron Harper, Sean Nealis and Noah Eile rounding out the field players. Carlos Coronel starts in goal for New York.
New York Red Bulls Head Coach Sandro Schwarz
Thoughts on performance…
“I said this directly in the locker room to our guys on one side when we analyzed our performance, I think it was very well, especially the first 60-70 minutes, and after we concede the goal, it was an open game. But we had our moments. We were very active. We had some good situations with the ball. I would say we had our chances to score for the first goal, but at the end we are disappointed about the result, but when we are looking for the performance, I would say I’m satisfied with the performance.”
On Omar Valencia’s first MLS start…
“Great first steps for him to play the first time in our starting lineup, and this is the identity of our club. To build up these young players. He came from the second team last season. Played a lot of minutes for the second team. He joined our training session with the first team, and he had a great preseason, and we have seen this today as well, in the first game, and he had a lot of good moments. He was strong in defense, good combination with (Alexander) Hack on the side. And he had also some good moments in our buildup situation to solve in small spaces. This situation in the final third, good runs. So, for the first game, was a very good performance of him.”
Mindset for home opener…
“It’s great that we have next weekend that we are playing in our Sports Illustrated Stadium with our supporters. It’s a good feeling for us, for the whole team, for the whole staff, for me as a head coach, it’s a good feeling now that we play next week our home opener against Nashville. Of course we wanted also to give them today a result. But at the end the performance, what I said was okay most of the time, and in our basic behavior, I was very satisfied today with the first game. But then we conceded very easily, this one goal in this situation, and then we tried everything. Our mentality was good, and it’s good now that we have this feeling with our supporters, and then to come together next Saturday.”
New York Red Bulls Midfielder Lewis Morgan
On team connectivity…
“Yeah. I mean, a difficult result. Obviously, you want to start this season on a positive note, especially coming away from home, we played well in the game. Yeah, there’s positives to take and there’s obviously things that we need to do better. I think, in fairness to Cincinnati, they did create some chances towards the end, and it was a good battle. But of course, losing one nil is not great, but we bounce back, and we go again. We take the positives from it. I thought Choupo looked great tonight. Yeah, and, for sure, I’m looking forward to improving that connection with him and Emil and all these guys in the forward area. So, loads to build on, but under no illusions, obviously, there’s things that we need to work on”.
On the fans…
“Obviously, tonight we’re disappointed. Obviously, we’ve got fans who have come out, and we want to perform well and get the result for them, so no excuses. It is on us is on us to improve and do better.”
On Fitness…
“Yeah, I mean, physically, I feel great. You know, I had a good preseason. The club are great. They manage me, and I feel like I’m in a really good spot physically at the moment, of course, as a forward player. I’m really tough on myself. I always pride myself on helping the team in terms of numbers, in terms of goal scoring and create chances and stuff and tonight didn’t do that. I’ll look at this game to try and improve on but yeah, I think we played well as a team. I think there’s loads of positives to take. We came to a really tough place against a good team, and we always seem to have good battles here. So, like I say, positives to take, but yeah, loads to build on.”
