Editor's note: This piece originally ran in August 2020 as a retrospective on the roots of the Hudson River Derby leading up to the first match-up of the season between New York City FC and the New York Red Bulls. With the sides set to meet again for the first time in 2021 as part of Heineken Rivalry Week, the time is right for another trip down memory lane in recognition of the history of one of the league's top derbies and some of its most memorable fixtures.
New York City is famous for the contentious feuds waged for the hearts of its sports fans, and since 2015 it has been no different in Major League Soccer.
While the New York Red Bulls and NYCFC have yet to meet in the postseason, there have been plenty of flashpoints between an MLS original and one of the league's flashier recent additions, and more history is likely to be written when the two meet on Saturday for the first time in 2021 as part of Heineken Rivalry Week (8 pm ET | FS1, FOX Deportes).
Roots of the Rivalry
For nearly two decades, the Red Bulls (née MetroStars) were the only MLS game in town, with a reputation for heartbreak in a town that worships success.
In 2013, a partnership between baseball's New York Yankees and Manchester City of the English Premier League resulted in the awarding of an expansion franchise to begin play at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx in 2015. And it was just about that time that the Red Bulls' culture began to change.
RBNY won their first major trophy later that year, the 2013 Supporters' Shield, and then captured the honor twice again in the five years since NYCFC first took the field. The Cityzens are still looking for their first silverware, but they've reached the playoffs in four consecutive seasons and are defending Eastern Conference regular season champions, not bad at all for a club still in its early years.
Memorable Moments
The Red Bulls owned the early days of the fixture, and after taking all nine points from their 2015 meetings, began 2016 by adding insult to injury with a 7-0 drubbing of NYCFC on May 21, 2016 at Yankee Stadium (highlights below).
The short-term humiliation proved a pivotal movement over the long term in NYCFC's favor. The teams have split their 12 most recent meetings between the sides in all competitions, with five wins for each and a pair of draws sprinkled in.
Among the best moments? When David Villa's hat trick bested Bradley Wright-Phillips' brace in a 3-2 NYCFC win in 2017 (highlights below), and a 2-1 Red Bulls win on Daniel Royer's highly disputed Bastille Day brace last year.
MLS Regular Season
After the Red Bulls' 2015 dominance and the 7-0, this has been one of the more balanced derby matches in MLS in terms of results on the field.
2020: The sides split their matchups in 2020, starting with a 1-0 result that went to the Red Bulls on August 20. It was a 58th-minute strike from RBNY's Kyle Duncan that proved to be the difference that was aided in part by a rare goalkeeper error from Sean Johnson. The next one featured much more fireworks, as it was the Cityzens who emerged with an emphatic 5-2 victory powered by a hat trick from Valentin Castellanos, who opened the scoring in the 12th minute before adding a pair of late goals.
2019: Each team won 2-1 on their home ground. Royer's disputed brace came in the Red Bulls' home win (highlights below), and Brazilian striker Heber scored a goal in each leg of the season series in his first season with NYCFC.
2018: The sides took four points each from their three meetings. Villa scored the last of his five goals in the fixture on Aug. 22 (below), when 10-man City gutted out a 1-all draw.
2017: Perhaps fed up from the first two years, NYCFC took seven points from nine, beginning with a state-making 2-0 victory at Red Bull Arena that featured a goal from Jack Harrison, now of Premier-League bound Leeds United.
2016: Well all remember the Red Bulls' 7-0 spring romp. But first-year City manager Patrick Vieira proved his mettle quickly, orchestrating his club's first victory in the fixture fewer than two months later. The Red Bulls still took the season series after a 4-1 win in late July.
2015: The Red Bulls swept all three regular season meetings against NYCFC's Jason Kreis-led expansion side, outscoring the Cityzens 7-2. Wright-Phillips scored the first three of his 12 total goals in the derby across all competitions.
U.S. Open Cup
Despite geographic proximity, the sides have met only twice in America's historic cup competition. The Red Bulls won both fourth-round meetings,
