Red Bull gives you wings
The New York Red Bulls are an American professional soccer club based in the New York metropolitan area. The Red Bulls compete in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Eastern Conference. The club was established in October 1994 and began play in the league’s inaugural season in 1996 as the New York/New Jersey MetroStars. In 2006, the team was sold to Red Bull GmbH and re-branded as part of the company’s global network of football clubs, leading to the team’s current name.
The Red Bulls have played their home matches at Red Bull Arena since 2010, having previously played at Giants Stadium. The club is one of two teams in MLS based in the New York metropolitan region along with New York City FC, which entered the league in 2015. The two sides compete against each other in the Hudson River Derby.
The Red Bulls have reached the MLS Cup final once in 2008 when they were defeated by the Columbus Crew. The club has won three regular season Supporters’ Shield titles in 2013, 2015 and 2018, and has also twice reached the final of the U.S. Open Cup in 2003 and 2017, losing on both occasions.
The club’s original name was Empire Soccer Club, which gave birth to the name of the team’s largest supporters’ group, Empire Supporters Club. The team’s original owners were John Kluge and Stuart Subotnick. The name was MetroStars was chosen in reference to Metromedia, the media company founded by Kluge after Nike’s original suggestion “MetroFlash” was rejected. The owners also considered but rejected buying the rights to the name “Cosmos”.
Tab Ramos, the first player to sign with MLS, became the first MetroStars player and was soon joined by 1994 FIFA World Cup teammate Tony Meola and A.C. Milan star midfielder Roberto Donadoni. 1990 World Cup player Peter Vermes was named the first team captain, but it was the previously unknown Venezuelan Giovanni Savarese who became the Metros’ first breakthrough star. The team’s first coach was Eddie Firmani of New York Cosmos fame.
In 1996, the MetroStars made news when they selected players named Juninho and Túlio in the 1996 MLS Supplemental Draft. This report set off an immediately positive reaction which was quickly crushed after the MetroStars revealed that they had not actually drafted well-known Brazilian players Juninho Paulista and Túlio Costa, as people had assumed. The MetroStars waived both draftees on March 25, 1996. While the identity of “Juninho” was later discovered, the true name and club history of “Tulio” remains unknown. This bizarre episode has entered MetroStars folklore.
When the league began play in 1996, it was expected that the MetroStars would quickly become the league’s dominant team. This expectation never materialized. Despite famous players and high-profile coaches, the team never seemed to click together. The team’s first home game against the New England Revolution proved to be a harbinger of things to come. Former Juventus defender Nicola Caricola inadvertently flipped a cross into his own net in the dying minutes to hand New England a 1–0 win in front of 46,000 fans.
The resulting play would later be dubbed the “Curse of Caricola” by fans to explain the team’s inability to come through with a domestic trophy in their history. Firmani left after eight games (3–5) and was replaced by former Portugal coach Carlos Queiróz, who did no better than even (12–12) the rest of the season. The team made it into the playoffs, only to lose to eventual champions D.C. United.
Starting in 1998, the team stopped referring to itself as New York/New Jersey, but it took a few years for the media and fans to catch up. The team went by just MetroStars, with no city, state or regional geographic name attached to it, a rarity in American sports.
The MetroStars bottomed out in 1999 with a record of 7–25 under former U.S. national team coach Bora Milutinović, the worst record in MLS history. Hoping to light a spark under the floundering club in 2000, the MetroStars dropped a bombshell by acquiring German international player Lothar Matthäus from Bayern Munich. Matthäus played in only 16 MLS games during the season and his tenure in the U.S. is considered a disappointment. The team did, however, leap from dead last to the conference title.
On August 26, 2000, the MetroStars’ Clint Mathis set an MLS record by scoring five goals in a game against the Dallas Burn.
In 2003 the club hired new manager Bob Bradley, a New Jersey native known for winning multiple titles as an assistant with D.C. United and head coach with the Chicago Fire. Bradley led the team to the U.S. Open Cup final and a playoff berth in his first season. In 2004 the MetroStars became the first MLS team to win a trophy outside of North American soil with a victory in the La Manga Cup. The MetroStars defeated Ukraine’s Dynamo Kyiv 3–2 in the semi-finals before edging Norway’s Viking FK 1–0 in the final.
Bradley was fired during the 2005 season and assistant Mo Johnston was named interim head coach, guiding the team to seven points in its last three games; the MetroStars made it to the playoffs, but yet another season ended in disappointment when they were knocked out of the playoffs with a 3–2 loss to the New England Revolution.
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