WASHINGTON—Bradley Wright-Phillips raced to reach Alejandro "Kaku" Romero Gamarra’s through ball, fired his finish between Frederic Brillant’s legs and beneath David Ousted’s right arm, then peeled off his red No. 99 jersey to reveal a white No. 100.
For a player who left his native England to try and create his own mark on the game, being signed in 2013 after a midseason trial, notching his 100th career MLS goal was a milestone he truly coveted, and he shared that with the New York Red Bulls.
“I’m obviously happy, not just to score 100 goals, but to do it for this club,” Wright-Phillips said after a 1-0 win over D.C. United on Wednesday. “They gave me a chance.”
Wright-Phillips is now the quickest ever to reach the benchmark in MLS, after he arrived at New York following increasing frustration across the lower levels of England’s football pyramid. And it’s only appropriate his 100th come against D.C., given how his arrival in New Jersey has helped transform the balance of power in this original rivalry.
The Red Bulls are 6-3-4 in regular-season Atlantic Cup matches Wright-Phillips has played. Their record sinks to 22-31-9 when he hasn’t. It’s even more pronounced in the postseason, where BWP’s record is 3-1-0 against D.C. and the club without him are just 1-6-2 over their first 17 MLS seasons.
Between the regular season and postseason, he’s scored nine times against a club that was once the league’s standard bearer. And he’s been a part of both Red Bulls' Supporters' Shields, their first two major titles.
“The success that the club has had [in recent years] is largely due to Brad,” said Red Bulls head coach Chris Armas. “The goals are only part of the story. When you have guys like him in the locker room, it raises the standard of everything. When he speaks, and he’s not a guy of many words, but he does command the locker room and the video room, and people listen.”
To add a poetic element, even Wayne Rooney was on hand to watch from the bench as BWP made history before entering as a second-half substitute for D.C. United. For much of their careers, Rooney was England’s preeminent striker, while Wright-Phillips played in the shadow of his famous father, Ian Wright, and famous brother, Shaun Wright-Phillips.
“I’m one of his biggest fans,” Wright-Phillips said of Rooney. “It’s nice that I shared the pitch with him today. … But there’s nothing my 100 goals goals can say to his whole career. The guy’s a legend.”
Wright-Phillips originally planned to wear a T-shirt that read “No. 99 scores 100,” before a Red Bulls equipment manager approached him with the jersey idea. When he got to unveil it, only two minutes into his 159th league appearance, even Armas took time to savor it.
“In that moment, the soccer game didn’t matter,” Armas admitted. “For that second, I was so happy for Brad. I was just so happy for him in that moment. … He’s so much about giving the credit to his teammates, but in that moment it was so much about Brad. [I wanted] just to enjoy watching him take some credit for a second.”
But even if he took a moment to celebrate, the man known as BWP still thought of those who came down to watch the weather-delayed match.
“I was just thinking, please let me get lucky enough to score,” he said. “I wanted to show the traveling fans. It was nice.”
