Schwarz on Tactics: “Principles are the Same”

New York Red Bulls head Sandro Schwarz has changed how the team looks on the field in 2025 to match the veteran talent like Eric Maxime Choupo-Moting and Emil Forsberg. These alterations have placed Red Bull in an unfamiliar position to fans. Instead of a team seemingly built to create chaos and take advantage of moments, they are building with the ball and have longer stretches of possession.

Despite these changes, Schwarz doesn’t feel as if this changes the team’s overall principles. There is still a high-energy pace and players are still expected to keep an intensity that has come to define the club over the last decade.

“It’s not a question about our structure,” said Schwarz to the media on Friday. “It’s more our principles are the same. We want to play very intense, very dominant as well in most situations, most of the game. It starts every time with our defending behavior. What is clear when we compare the first four games in our season to last season, it is that we have more ball possession. We have higher numbers in this situation.”

Possession stats were an issue for those analyzing the team over the years. Last year in particular, Red Bulls confounded pundits, particularly in the playoffs where they appeared, to the naked eye, like they were losing every stat other than what mattered, the final scoreline. They rode that wave to the MLS Cup Final where only the thinnest of margins saw them lose to the LA Galaxy.

Through four games, Red Bulls have shown a different look. One that has seen them play defensively stout. Before last week’s game against Orlando, the team hadn’t surrendered multiple goals this season. Schwarz’s frustration with the club after, showed just how important the shape of the club will be and why that intensity is so important to the new style he is implementing.

“It’s a big step for us in our development,” said Schwarz. “This is our next step. Which is important for us to improve what happens after losing the ball. Not that we have only transition moments. When we win the ball in higher positions, also when we lose the ball with a higher average of numbers in ball position, we have to be very clear, very aggressive and very strong in these duels. In our counter press.”

Red Bulls will be hoping to continue that development under Schwarz’s new tactics tonight against a Toronto FC team that hasn’t been very good to start 2025. The opposition has one point through the first month and shows little signs of improvement. Still, MLS is a league of upsets and New York will have to be careful not to fall into a trap that hands Toronto their first win of the season.