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Are the Red Bulls the team to beat now?

AgudeloRedBulls (ISIPhotos.com)

Today's blockbuster trade sending Dwayne DeRosario to the New York Red Bulls just gave one of the best teams in MLS ANOTHER star player and has fans in New York talking MLS Cup.

Just how good is New York now? Here's how the starting lineup looks like now:

2011NYRedBulls

Yes, Greg Sutton started the season in goal, but Coundoul was the starter last year and is starting this week. Either way, New York will have a player with national team caps on his resume in goal. It will still be the team's weakness, but looking at that lineup it doesn't stop this lineup from looking like the strongest in MLS.

The team will be hurting badly come the Gold Cup, with nearly half the team likely to be playing in the tournament, but when this unit is together, it will be tough to beat.

What do you think of this squad? Are the Red Bulls the new MLS Cup favorites, or is Real Salt Lake still the team to beat?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. Big name players mean nothing. Ask the fire how many trophies Conde McBride Collins John Nery Castillo and Ljundberg won them last year…
    …. In fact the Fire are better this year.
    How many titles have Becks and Landon won together?
    No dp has ever won the cup….
    I see the Red Metros winning the trophy fir selling the most jerseys but that is all.
    Henry is always hurt and really hasn’t impressed in mls same for rafa. In fact rafa and ream are good offensively but liabilities defensively and their goalies suck.

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  2. I still am &#$@*($&@#*( that they are called Red Bull New York, instead of Red Bull New Jersey. So far as I know they have never even played a game in NY!

    International call-ups will definitely hurt. I’m not sure those dates aren’t automatic losses.

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  3. It’s good to see that Agudelo is turning out to be the real deal, but I’m still waiting to see Henry play like he can. Agudelo’s high workrate only highlights the fact that Henry sometimes has trouble involving himself.

    Also, I don’t think this trade really hurts the Red Bulls’s depth outside of the short term. I’m sure they can find a backup fullback.

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  4. I don’t understand why people are so worried about the Gold Cup. Who cares about the middle of the MLS season? Yeah, it won’t be fun, but it’s not exactly a determinative stretch as far as winning MLS Cup goes.

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  5. Apparently you’re not aware of a current 36 game undefeated streak. Or the fact that these are the only home losses in the last few years:
    2010 – 0
    2009 – 1
    2008 – 1 regular season, 1 playoff

    (Plus the player’s vote mentioned below.)

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  6. Agree wholeheartedly. NY now has some superior talent, but we’ll have to see how good a TEAM they have. RSL is already there.

    Gonna be an interesting season

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  7. Convenient for Long Island? ha Nowhere is convenient for Long Island but in Long Island. There is no place in the tri-state area 100% convenient for every part of the tri-state area. Harrison right off the train is pretty damn close. Something in Queens would shut off even more people.

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  8. i’d rather have 2 americans on this team than 5 on a mediocre team. did you see agudelo this past weekend? he’s indicative of the kinds of americans that are going to start to come out of the mls if teams like this start becoming the norm. i’m sick of starting donovan, howard, dempsey, and 8 fillers every international fixture.

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  9. As Red Bulls fans will soon discover, it is not WHO is playing but HOW they play TOGETHER. Expect disappointing results.

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  10. My fellow RBNY brothers and sisters:

    I feel the pain. I do. Tchani was still raw but EVERYONE could see how much of a beast he was turning out to be. Borman is a GREAT person and fierce competitor!! It’s sad to see them go but two things have got me relishing this trade.

    Firstly, neither Tchani nor Borman was a No. 10 type of player. Yes, we sacrificed two great pieces (as in Chess it is sometimes necessary to do) but we finally got a natural No. 10 type of player. There is NO DOUBT this was an upgrade in that position.

    Secondly, we have given up depth and that maybe come back to bit us in the a$$ later this season BUT with the amount of talent our academy has been developing, we will fill those needs through the draft and through our phenomenal youth system. We’ll be ok. Keep the faith, my brothers and sisters.

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  11. I disagree, Toronto is a proven cheap team (and I don’t mean cheap like the Kraft Family), under paying their good players. If they can sell Tchani for a good price, Toronto will have money to keep or buy other great players.

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  12. Lindpere is actually pretty inexpensive…want to say something like 150. RB just dumped Salou who was on 230 or something like that + took an international slot (and was utterly useless.)

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  13. Roy Miller is 26.
    Joel Lindpere is 29.
    Jan Gunnar Solli is 29.
    Mehdi Ballouchy is 27.
    Luke Rodgers is 29.
    Dane Richards is 27.
    Bouna Coundoul is 29.
    Carlos Mendes is 30.

    That’s 8 guys who have started for the Red Bulls in your 26-30 range who are fixtures in the game day 18.

    And while Tim Ream may be just 23, I don’t think he’d be considered a “prospect” by MLS standards. And Agudelo may just be 18, but the guy is very promising.

    Henry, Marquez, DeRo, Tainio are in the 31-33 range…old enough to be concerned (particularly about injuries) but not old enough to write off. Guillermo Schelotto was starring in this league until he was 37!

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  14. I love that people are crying over tchani like he is the second coming of Messi hahaha, Derosario has 4 MLS cups u haters, Its better to take a proven and better payer than a roll the dice Tchani.

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  15. You are nuts, Euro… Did you see RB beat Man City last year? Imagine this year’s squad… EPL runs 6 deep…The rest is garbage

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  16. Ballouchy is now back to being the role player that he should be…a nice change of pace from De Ro. Tchani is staying in Canada…They have the ends to keep him. Get used to the new MLS, Euro…

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  17. -1, 100%

    DeRo makes this team an instant MLS Cup favorite. Tchani wasn’t even STARTING for this team. To say he’s a future EPL competitor adn World Cup player is ridiculous. How many young guns have we seen flame out before that happened? C’mon. Get with it. We traded an MLS back-up (Borman), and a possible star (Tchani) for a player who is a solidified all-star in this league. Not to mention a player who is EXACTLY what the Red Bulls need, a creative attacking midfielder.

    You sir are plain wrong.

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  18. I stand by my comment about this NY squad being as good as a mid-level EPL team. Compare the starting lineup of NY against, say, Blackburn, and NY would surely come out on top. The stars and experience of the Red Bulls outweighs the workhorses who play for Blackburn. It’s true that NY doesn’t have the kind of depth that it needs, because of the salary cap, but as a thought experiment, and comparing the starting 11s, NY comes out on top.

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  19. I’d say that Kreis had much less to work with in SLC than Backe has had. The biggest being DP slot attraction and money. New York City has the cache to get Henry, Marquez etc. but what Kreis has done with much less is astonishing.

    NYRB had better win now though because they gave up a vital future piece in Tchani. Tchani, Agudelo, Ream and Coundoul are players to build around.

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  20. Agudelo is as good as gone. He’ll be sold before July. His replacement will be Henrik Larsson, Martin Dahlin, or some other prehistoric fossil like Fatty Foulkes (google him). Now is a good time to invest in Red Bulls Rascal Scooters and Lifeline Medical Alerts pendants with charging bull logos (Help ref! I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!)

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  21. No depth, no cup. Look for Henry to get injured a lot, Marquez to mail it in, Aguedelo to make countless rookie mistakes, and DeRo to find yet another thing to bitch about and affect his performance. Tanio and Solli’s performance will quickly fade once they run out of whatever bizarre fermented animal protein they eat (yak? reindeer?) in Finland and Norway and their new shipment gets held up in customs.

    It’s NY -they’ll always figure out a way to choke. And it’s MLS where some underachieving team from flyover country is more likely to have a hot playoff streak and win the cup.

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  22. Anything less then a MLS Cup win is a disapointment now for the team. This team is built to win championships now, and if everyone can stay healthy they should be able to win this season, even with the Gold Cup.

    Go Red Bulls

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  23. The Backe haters are hilarious. Fellas, we just got done with JCO. Backe could sign donald duck and it would be better than what JCO brought in. When Henry, DeRo, and Marquez are done here, they will be replaced by….wait for it…..NEW SIGNINGS!

    This is a f-ing fantastic trade. We need creativity in the midfield, and DeRo brings that in spades…haters.

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  24. The difference is that I don’t expect Tchani to stick around this league for too long. He will be Euro bound once he gets playing time (that he wasn’t getting with the Red Bulls anyways.

    I do agree about the gold cup however.

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  25. Your right Red Bull have been awful… Horrible stadium, horrible to spend money on players, horrible to spend on our youth systems.

    DeRo was the highest scoring player on Toronto both years he was there.. Tchani is too raw, and now is able to actually play on a squads first team (which he could not beat out Tainio). Keep the crying up, and btw the Metrostars died when Red Bull took over, why hold onto a horrid past of owners who had no clue.

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  26. If the stadium was in the 5 boros it would draw more people. Harrison is not that convenient, especially for people from Long Island. And the neighborhood around the stadium is not suberb. (yeah, I know, the Spanish Pavillion and El Pastor are awesome). Definitely not worth the trip for lots in the area. Plus there is zero local ads to build interest. Some people in NY don’t even know we have a team. I’m a rbny fan, but holding out hope for the cosmos to start playing in Willets Point, the Atlantic Yards, the west side yards or somewhere else in NYC.

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