By Daniel Feuerstein | Harrison, NJ | August 1st, 2026
After two consecutive losses to restart, the 2026 MLS Season, Red Bull New York got back out on the pitch at Sports Illustrated Stadium to fight their way back to a victory as they faced Orlando City. While missing Adri Mehmeti, Jorge Ruvalcaba, and Omar Valencia due to a one-match suspension for yellow card accumulation and a red card from the last match, it was next man up, or in this case next kid up, as Mijihar Jimenez got the callup and had a magical game to help lead his club to victory as they swept the Lions of Central Florida by the final score of three goals to two.
Mijahir Jimenez scores his first brace in MLS
Due to one of their front three starters being out, Red Bull NY gave out a short-term loan deal to their striker, Panamanian Youth International Mijahir Jimenez, and right away from the opening whistle, he never looked out of place. It was a fantastic debut match as Jimenez was in the right position to take passes and scored his first two goals of his MLS career. The opening goal came from some fantastic passing from both Swedish players for the opening goaL. Dylan Nealis was at the far corner and saw Emil Forsberg up top and outside the area.
When Forsberg received the ball, he saw Gustav Berggren make a run from the far side and headed straight inside the Orlando area. After getting the ball, he saw Jimenez making a run towards the middle of the park, made a nice strong pass to Jimenez, and all the rookie had to do was side-foot the ball and slot it home for his first MLS Goal in the 23rd minute. Jimenez celebrated his first tally with his teammates and had a big smile on his face after putting his side ahead.
His second goal was a thing of beauty as he had a lot of help from Cade Cowell. A nice looping ball from Dylan Nealis landed into the path of Cowell, and it was off to the races he went. While he was tracked step by step by the Orlando defender, Cowell reached toward the endline and somehow pulled off a move to get the ball and himself away from the defender. When he saw Jimenez wide open inside the Orlando area and towards the near post. The quick pass came in, Jimenez found a way to take the shot and bent the ball inside the near post and scored his second of the match and his first MLS career brace in the 60th minute.
Forsberg slips through the defenders for his goal
This was one of those moments you were thinking about how a goal was going to get scored in this situation, as the backline was clogging up the middle of the park. But the Red Bulls did find a way to get it done. Cowell was attacking down the far side and gathered a crowd around him, but when he made the pass toward the inside of the area, two Red Bulls players were in a passive offside position. No one paid attention to Forsberg as he was onside, slipped through the defenders, and received the ball. Made a slight cut and smashed it home past Maxim Crepeau in the 43rd minute for his second of the season.
Orlando fights and pulls one back
With Orlando being down two goals to nil after the opening 45 minutes, this match was starting to look like the season opener back at Inter&Co Stadium. But this time the goal would come much earlier. Orlando City earned a corner along the far side, and when the ball was delivered, it took a deflection off Griffin Dorsey but stayed in the air. Then, rushing to a space to head the ball back into the middle was Braian Ojeda, waiting for it was Tyrese Spicer in the middle of the net and scored in the 52nd minute. Once again, another opponent has ripped up another potential clean sheet for the Red Bulls.
Orlando pulled back a second goal
After going back down to a two-goal deficit, Orlando City kept fighting and wanted to cut that lead back down to one. They quickly got that second goal as Spicer sent a looping ball down the near side of the pitch. Antoine Griezmann hustled to track that ball to set up a play. It was a long pass from the near side toward the far side of the pitch, and Dorsey came hustling up toward the far post. He was all alone and simply had an open net. Scored the second goal of the match in the 63rd minute, and it was once again a one-goal game. Orlando City wasn’t going to be denied a chance to level the match at three, and they held their poise to do so.
A flurry of blocks helped the Red Bulls keep the three points
After the fourth official posted seven minutes of second half stoppage time, it was up to the home side to keep that ball out of the net, and when that moment came to help their goalkeeper Ethan Horvath, the defense came in to block multiple chances. The Red Bulls crowded the middle of the area and made four to five blocked shots against Orlando City, and on the final blocked shot, we saw Julian Bazan come up big by trapping the ball between his legs. Then, as he was going to ground, Bazan did let the ball leak off of him and right in front of Horvath, who pounced on the ball at the last minute and smothered it.
When the final whistle blew, the Red Bulls broke their short two-match losing streak and returned to the win column. Not only a big comeback performance for the Red Bulls, but after two poorly played matches, their focus returned, and they had the urgency to battle back and took the full three points. With the victory, the Red Bulls have moved up to seventh place in the East and away from the Wild Card section of the Conference table. Michael Bradley’s gamble paid off with the call-up, and now he can build off this performance in the next match.
“When you set out to build a team, you know that you’re going to need everybody. And when you put together training every day and when you start to establish ideas, it’s with the idea in mind that you’re trying to help develop and help every player in the squad. It’s not just working with 11 guys every single week, and that’s that. A few guys get opportunities tonight than they would during the entire season. They haven’t had as many in a couple of weeks. When you talk about the strength of the team, it’s having a group of players who understand our ideas who are playing our football on any given night when they get the call.
Huge character in the team. I just said to them it would’ve been easy after the first two games didn’t go our way; it would’ve been easy to be fazed, to be a little bit down and try to find excuses. These guys never batted an eye. They were ready to push each other, ready to improve individually, try to take our ideas collectively and make them all better, and so like tonight it was a strong performance all around,” said Michael Bradley
MIJIHAR JIMENEZ: Scored his first two-goal game in MLS
EMIL FORSBERG: Scored his second goal of the season and third in all competitions, and his seventh assist of the season. His 22nd career MLS goal & his 23rd career MLS Assist
CADE COWELL: Earned a two-assist night. His sixth and seventh assists of the season and his 21st and 22nd career MLS assists
GUSTAV BERGGREN: Earned his second assist of the season and his third career MLS Assist
DYLAN NEAILS: Earned his first assist of the season and his ninth career MLS Assist
JUSTIN CHE: Earned his First Career MLS assist this season
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