Two New York Derbies In A Week Of Cup Football For NYC Soccer

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The Soccer Times

·24 de abril de 2026

Two New York Derbies In A Week Of Cup Football For NYC Soccer

Each of the five men’s professional soccer teams in the New York Metropolitan area takes part in cup matches this coming week, as the regular season makes way for the must-win excitement of knockout football in the US Open Cup and the group stage of the USL Cup.

Four of those five are involved in matches against each other, as New York Red Bulls and New York City meet in the Open Cup in Harrison, NJ, while New York Cosmos host Brooklyn FC in Paterson, NJ, in the USL Cup.

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These tournaments are often organized in a regional manner from the early rounds, which can make local derby matches fairly common.

The Cosmos and Brooklyn are both only a few games into their inaugural seasons, but are already set to face each other in the USL Cup despite playing in different USL leagues – League One and the Championship respectively.

The Red Bulls and City, meanwhile, have played each other a handful of times previously in US Soccer’s major domestic championship, the Open Cup, with the team from New Jersey having a clear upper hand in those past meetings.

The Red Bulls, under new head coach Michael Bradley, are already fielding a team full of young players, so it will be interesting to see their lineup in the cup match.

These games are often a test of depth and development, which, in theory, are two things that franchises from the game’s two most prominent multi-club ownership groups should have, but attaining depth can be difficult in MLS. The Red Bulls will hope that their new training center, opened last week, will help with that going forward.

New York City’s defeat of Westchester SC in the previous round was its first-ever Open Cup win against a team from the city’s metropolitan area. It has been knocked out twice by the 2013-2020 version of the New York Cosmos, in 2015 and 2016, and three times by the Red Bulls (2017, 2018, and 2022).

NYCFC also failed to score in those three Open Cup games against the Red Bulls, so the team from the Bronx/Queens has plenty to aim for in this round of 16 Hudson River Derby at the Sports Illustrated Stadium in Harrison.

As of this season, the Pigeons are no longer the only men’s professional team within the five boroughs. The introduction of Brooklyn FC, with the men’s team playing its inaugural USL Championship campaign this year, adds a new dimension to the professional soccer landscape in NYC.

Brooklyn faces fellow newcomers, New York Cosmos, who have set up camp over in Paterson, New Jersey, at the picturesque Hinchliffe Stadium. This latest iteration of the Cosmos has struggled to attract spectators in recent weeks, and though a local derby should lead to a higher turnout, both teams are still looking to get a foothold in the region, so crowds could still be sparse.

A free bus to the game put on by Brooklyn FC from its equally picturesque Maimonides Park home should help, and the return trip should have fans back on Coney Island in time for the women’s team’s final home game of its 2025/26 season.