The New York Red Bulls are buzzing off back-to-back impressive road victories and enter their home opener Sunday night against Minnesota United (7 pm ET | MLS LIVE on ESPN+ in US, on DAZN in Canada) as the lone team with maximum points in the early goings of the 2022 season.
There’s a lot for Red Bulls fans to be excited about — Lewis Morgan getting off to a flying start after an offseason move from Inter Miami CF, the anticipated debuts of new Designated Player No. 10 Luquinhas and Ashley Fletcher and the return of Aaron Long.
The central defender, who now wears the armband, is back after missing the entirety of the 2021 campaign with a ruptured Achilles.
But Long is back and so too, it seems are the Red Bulls.
“We don’t want to get too ahead of ourselves,” Long said on the latest edition of Extratime. “I’m not going to say we’re the team of the past when we’re winning Supporters Shield and setting the points record, it’s way too early to tell right now. But we are confident and we want to win this next game for sure.”
Still, there’s a lot that Long likes, especially in the attacking third, from a 3-1 win at San Jose and an eye-opening 4-1 victory over Toronto FC at BMO Field.
“They’re two really good performances on the road, really, really good performances,” Long said. “The way we’re creating chances in transition and the fact that we’re scoring these chances that we weren’t scoring last year is really good.”
Long has anchored the Red Bulls backline in the first two matches and is hoping to work his way back into the US men’s national team fold, especially with massive World Cup Qualifiers coming up this month.
But the immediate goal is becoming the only team to get nine points from their first three matches this season. For the Red Bulls to be successful Sunday night against the Loons, they’ll need to continue doing what they’ve done in the first two weeks — increased chance creation in the final third that has especially impressed Long.
“I think the most promising thing for me right now is in transition the way we’re creating those chances in the box and we’re getting looks in front of goal,” Long said. “Last year we were having a lot of one-goal games or zero goal games and we weren’t, it’s not just that we weren’t scoring, but we weren’t creating as much as I wanted.”
