The Red Bull brain trust, lead by GM Erik Soler and coach Hans Backe, has continued to shape New York's roster as the 2010 season comes ever closer.  The team has signed two midfielders, Carl Robinson and Joel Lindpere, and attempted to sign a right back.  The team is taking shape, and although there are certainly still some missing pieces it is clear that Soler and Backe have a solid idea of the direction they would like to take the roster.

In front of a roaring crowd of 40-50 people, New York dramatically won the preseason Mickey Mouse Cup*, defeating Toronto 4-0 and asserting themselves as the best team in the league that happened to be playing Toronto FC on the night of February 27th.  Yes, the victory was meaningless, but it was actually less hollow than it could have been.

Another solid addition to a well stocked trophy case, the Mickey Mouse Cup is right up there in historic team victories with the La Manga Cup and the 2008 Western Conference Championship.  When the cupboard is as bare as Metro's, it is hard for fans to stick their nose up at anything.

If it seems like things with Metro have been pretty quiet of late, that is probably because they have been.  With the team in preseason down in Bradenton Florida, things have slowed down a little bit.  Still, the camp hasn't been entirely uneventful.

New York finished up a 9 day stint in Bradenton yesterday, before heading to Orlando for a Disney sponsored MLS preseason tournament.  The team has continued with its steady flow of trialists, including Maynor Suazo (brother of much more famous/talented David Suazo) who was kicked out of camp after only one day for being unfit.  That is slightly refreshing compared to Juan Carlos Osorio, who signed Walter Garcia even though he was visibly pregnant and at least 40 pounds overweight.

The New York Red Bulls waived four players before its preseason trip to Florida.  Danny Cepero, Carlos Johnson, Walter Garcia, and Matthew Mbuta were all let go by team management.

With the number of players brought in to training and rumored to be headed to the squad, it is no surprise that players were let go and we will surely see more cuts in the future. Still, some of the players the team picked to let go were a bit surprising.

Danny Cepero had been with New York for three seasons, and led the team to the 2008 MLS Cup Final with fantastic play while John Conway was suspended.  He got significantly more playing time in the 2009 season, where his play (along with that of the whole team) dipped significantly. Highly athletic, Cepero has great reflexes but his sense of positioning was seriously flawed.  On a side note, he scored a goal off a goal kick, which wasn't very important but can still be considered freaking awesome.

The oldest supporters club in Major League Soccer

One of the most intriguing aspects of soccer from around the world is the unprecedented support that fans put behind their teams. To a large extent, what is happening in the stands is a spectacle itself and often nearly as exciting as the action on the field.

Singing, jumping, flags, smoke bombs, flares, etc all bring a special atmosphere to games that typical American sports lack.  Various MLS supporters groups have been attempting to replicate the passion and intensity of European and Latin American fan groups in America.

One of the most notable is New York's fan group, the Empire Supporters Club.

The New York Red Bulls wrapped up its last game in La Manga, Spain this afternoon, defeating Norwegian team Stromsgodset IF, 2-1. The team will be training in La Manga until Thursday, when it returns to the New Jerusalem to continue its preparation for the upcoming MLS season.

The Red Bulls had a successful time in Spain, going 2-0-1 in friendlies against Polish, Russian, and Norwegian opponents.

It is important not to get extremely carried away with results of friendlies, considering the most we can see are highlights and the other teams didn't always field strong squads. Still, the trip to Europe has been reassuring for a few reasons:

After an excitingly futile 2009 season, the dire need for change within the Red Bulls front office has been clear to anyone following the team. Still, despite the rapid speed with which information (including the apparently petty opinions and desires of New York's soccer fans) travels, the team's overlords in Austria took a long time to shake things up.  This can be chalked up to patience, incompetence, ignorance, or any other number of adjectives I am far too lazy to list. Regardless of why, Red Bull took months to replace former coach Juan Carlos Osorio and hire a new GM, but since they finally got around to making these changes I can't complain too much.

Welcome back. After a long, and somewhat eventful off-season that saw multiple hirings and shuffling about of the Metro front office (more on that later) the beginning of the 2010 MLS season has finally arrived. Sure, we are still months away from kick off, but the preseason is officially here.

Hans Backe, New York's shiny new coach from Sweden, began practice on Tuesday, and the consistently exhilarating roster building process known as the MLS Super (thanks for asking) Draft took place on Thursday afternoon. Thanks to everyone's favorite student of the game, Juan Carlos Osorio, Metro was rewarded for its awful season with the number 2 overall pick in the draft, amongst other well placed selections.

Richie Williams, who had a prominent role in this years draft due to Backe's recent arrival and Erik Soler's lack of familiarity with the American college game, stated before the draft that he was interested in drafting the best available player with each pick, as opposed to choosing according to specific needs or positions. With the highly coveted 2nd pick of the draft he did just this, selecting the University of Virginia's Tony Tchani.

Tchani is a central midfielder who had an excellent Combine, usurping Ike Opara as the blogosphere's unquestioned 2nd pick of the draft. Although there are questions about how MLS ready Tchani really is, and his ability to see the game (which is critical for a central midfielder), a significant amount of MLS teams wanted to trade up to sign him, so although it wasn't exceptionally original it was certainly a safe pick.