Shorthanded Red Bulls fall to St. Louis City

By Daniel Feuerstein | Harrison, NJ | September 30th, 2026

After the original date of this match was rescheduled due to the Nor’easter that came to the area over the weekend, Red Bull New York was ready to face St. Louis City SC with a shorthanded roster. With nine starters and bench players, along with three others not available due to injury, the Red Bulls tried to put up a good fight. They had some chances, but nothing much on target as they broke their two-match winning streak, falling to St. Louis by the final score of three goals to nil.

Red Bull 2 call-ups help out

Due to the number of players who weren’t available due to their commitments to their respective national teams, Red Bull New York called up players on short-term loans from their two team: defender Connor Faello, midfielders Sekou Kone and Nate Worth, and winger Pedro Castro. Once this match is over, they will return to their MLS Next Pro Two team and resume their season.

Early goal conceded

St. Louis City earned a free kick and tried to score on the chance, but it was thwarted, and the visitors got the ball back to restart a new attacking run. Tomas Totland received the ball and took a quick look to see where to place the ball. He took a long cross from the far side of the midfield towards the near side touchline, finding Conrad Wallem. When Wallem got possession, he made a quick cross to the middle of the pitch and found Rafael Navarro, who put his head on the ball and beat Ethan Horvath in the 8th minute.

Red Bulls woke up and pressed

When the goal was scored, the Red Bulls didn’t wake up when the opening whistle blew. But afterwards, they got back into the match and pressed throughout the entire match. They were giving St. Louis problems inside their area, but the one issue the Red Bulls had was not getting the ball into the net. Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting had two stellar chances to convert goals, but he was stopped by Roman Burki or the St. Louis defense. In the 49th minute, he got a free chance from a poor pass by the defender. He faked out Burki twice inside the area, but when he took the shot, the defender was on the line to block the shot off his thighs.

Poor pass and down by two

When the Red Bulls started to move the ball forward, the initial pass was successful to the midfield, but on the next pass it went directly toward a St. Louis player. Chris Durkin took advantage of the play and made a quick pass to substitute Simon Becher, and when the ball got towards him, he took the shot one time and smashed it hard inside the near post in the 87th minute. Just took a sweeping motion and destroyed the ball to get that two-goal lead.

More Calamity from the backline

St. Louis was looking for the dagger, and they earned it inside second half stoppage time. Attacking down the far side, St. Louis found ways to take the ball off the feet of the Red Bulls and attacked their net. When Jeong Sang-Bin got close inside the area, he took the shot but was blocked, but coming out of nowhere was substitute Tomas Ostrak, and he buried the ball past Horvath in the first minute of six in second half stoppage time. After the rest of stoppage time ended the two match winning streak and the points in three of their last four matches were all gone and back to the drawing board for Michael Bradley.

“We gave away a bad early goal on a set piece, and then for most of the game, we played pretty well. We did a lot of the things that you would need to do on a night like this against a team like that in a pretty good way. We created some big chances. Generally, after the set-piece goal that they scored early, the biggest chances of the game were for us. But we couldn’t score, or we didn’t score, and then the second and third goals at the end were frustrating goals to give away. Those were bad goals to give away. In the end, it’s a frustrating night, but there’s still everything to play for. Everything is still in our hands, and there are a lot of big games to come. Like we always do, we’ll look at it, make sure we find the right ways to improve, and make sure we’re ready 10 days from now in San Diego,” said Michael Bradley

Red Bull New York drops a three goal loss against St. Louis City SC

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