New York Red Bulls enter new era with "fresh beginning" | OneFootball

By Charles Boehm

The New York Red Bulls did not exactly plan to reboot this winter.

Yet the one-two punch of missing out on the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs for the first time since 2009 and a profound family hardship for head of sport Jochen Schneider has resulted in RBNY “moving forward with a fresh beginning” for next season.

That was the revelation from a Tuesday afternoon media availability in the wake of head coach Sandro Schwarz’s dismissal the previous day, with Schneider explaining his concurrent decision to depart the club and return to Germany, passing the reins to Julian de Guzman, the former Canadian international who’s been his understudy since last year.

“My plan, and Red Bull's plan, was that I stay for one more year until the end of ‘26, until my wife, Annabella, got the diagnosis middle of September of a brain tumor. And that changed everything,” explained an emotional Schneider, who arrived at RBNY from Schalke 04 in 2022. “That's why I had to make the decision to leave the club and to go back to Germany and to look after my wife and our three wonderful children.

“Nevertheless, I'm really grateful for the three and a half years I had here. I think we changed a lot. We changed the culture of the club. We changed the communication,” he added, emphasizing his certainty that de Guzman “will lead this club, the sporting department, into a wonderful future.”

Turning the page

One of three founding MLS clubs yet to win a league championship, the Red Bulls fell agonizingly short of that breakthrough less than a year ago, falling 2-1 to the LA Galaxy in the 2024 MLS Cup final after an upstart run through the East bracket.

Now they look destined for significant changes under de Guzman. His main focus up to this point has been the club’s MLS NEXT Pro second team, and he pointed to that side – who will battle Philadelphia for that league's Eastern Conference championship on Saturday – as evidence of the soccer ethos he’ll bring to the first team.

“It's become some of the most exciting football I've seen in my time involved in football for the past 30 years,” said de Guzman, calling out top ‘Baby Bulls’ prospects Nehuén Benedetti and Rafa Mosquera. “It's fun, it's attractive, it's got creativity … it’s the best example as to what my vision and philosophy looks like for the future of Red Bull.

“I'm very, very certain that, based on the philosophy that we want, the playing style, we will see different compared to what we've seen in the past 12 years,” he predicted. “When you look at Red Bull in the past, we've been a very high-intensity, energetic team. But I think we could add a lot more in terms of the playing style, bringing in players with footballing IQs. You want guys who could perform, with excitement in the attack. And we want to play fun football.”

Head coach search

That mindset will also inform his already-underway selection process for the senior team’s next head coach. De Guzman hinted that “it has to be, for me, somebody that has a very, very good understanding of MLS,” with speculation already swirling about the potential candidacy of assistant coaches Ibrahim Sekagya and Michael Bradley, both distinguished MLS midfielders in their playing days.

The new head of sport also expressed a desire “to turn this chapter into connecting this club, New York Red Bulls, to the culture here in the US,” perhaps an oblique reference to the extensive European influence under Schneider, Schwarz, previous head coach Gerhard Struber and other past leaders.

Whatever the case, missing out on the playoffs – RBNY’s 10th-place finish in 2025 snapped a league-record, 15-year postseason streak – is collectively viewed as a nonstarter.

“We should push ourselves to achieve more. So the outcome of this season, we underachieved, and that's very clear,” said de Guzman. “It's also important to know that there will be a different look, for sure, not just from a coaching standpoint, but from the player roster planning … We could add more flavor, we could add more style, we could add more creativity.”

Big-name arrival?

For all the rebuilding talk, he sounded eager to compete in 2026, prioritizing the acquisition of a third Designated Player. Current DPs Emil Forsberg (11g/11a) and Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting (17g/5a) have more than carried their weight, in both productivity and minutes, amid the wider disappointment.

“It's important that we come into preseason extremely prepared with our three DPs, with our three U-22s, and I would say the attacking area is going to be extremely important,” said de Guzman. “We can't depend on just Emil and Choupo to be scoring goals for us. There's a lot more we could add around them to support them.”

Might that be Timo Werner of sibling club RB Leipzig, RBNY’s prime summer target? Or an even bigger name?

“You don't want to rush into bringing just a DP, because that is a long-term decision that could impact the future of the club,” said de Guzman. “Sure, there were names out there. I know Timo Werner was a fan favorite, but would he have been a player that made sense to Red Bull based on what we want to see, especially in the future? Probably not.

“There will also be difference makers,” he added. “In the attack, it's going to be a big highlight as to who we bring in going into next season.”