New York Red Bulls II

The bulk of the roster the New York Red Bulls once relied on came through here first: a reserve side founded on 21 January 2015. Tyler Adams became the proof it worked — the first player signed to the club, he moved through to the first team, then to the United States national side, then to Leeds United and Brighton. Aaron Long went a similar route, from the reserve defence to the Red Bulls captaincy and eventually LA FC.

The club plays its home matches at MSU Soccer Park at Pittser Field in Montclair, New Jersey, a ground that holds 5,000 since a 2018 upgrade.

There was a wait before the trophies arrived. The debut season, 2015, ended in a USL Pro semi-final, but by 2016 the side had turned into the best team in the league that year, taking the regular-season title before beating Swope Park Rangers 5-1 in the USL Cup final — the first time a club owned by an MLS side had won that final. Nothing matched it again until 2025, when the team, by then playing in MLS Next Pro, won the regular season and the Eastern Conference playoffs, then beat Colorado Rapids 2 in the final 3-3 after extra time, taking it 3-1 on penalties for the club's first MLS Next Pro Cup. Michael Bradley, once a Red Bulls player himself, took over as head coach that June and had the title within months of arriving.

What the club is actually judged against is the first team it feeds. A place in the Red Bulls II side counts for something only in relation to a place at Red Bull Arena, and every promotion out — Adams, Long, Derrick Etienne Jr., AJ Marcucci among them — is measured against how far the parent club still needs those players to go.