The New York Red Bulls prepare to play against Atlanta United in a preparation game, that will include three 30-minute periods.
Patrick Seagrist, whom the Red Bulls moved up in the 2020 MLS SuperDraft to get, looks forward on taking the field to showcase what he has learned in the preseason.
“At training this week, there’s been a lot of high intensity and being able to work together as a unit,” said Seagrist. “We’re going into Friday, making sure that we as a team can play together, defend together and press together. It’s our main focus. So I'd say I'm very excited to be able to play my first professional preseason, and just eager to incorporate everything we've learned this week into it.”
Midfielder Marc Rzatkowski, who’s heading into his third MLS season with the Red Bulls, sees all the new guys with a lot of willingness to understand the team’s system.
“First of all, they all have really great characters,” noted Rzatkowski. “So this is very important because they’re willing to learn; they want to know the system and how everything goes here. I try to show my best to help them, but I think they are clever enough and smart enough to learn the system.”
Head Coach Chris Armas and his coaching staff look forward on observing Seagrist in a game setting. The left-back, who played collegiate soccer at Marquette University, understands that every minute counts, as he works on understanding what the coaches want from him.
“You’ll always learn something new every day, just every little detail matters, as opposed to college, sometimes you can get a little leeway,” he said. “And then here at the professional level, every half second counts, every little movement or space, every little margin counts. And it's important to just be able to be detailed in every sort of way.”
Rzatkowski, who played 2,317 minutes in 2019, made sure to highlight that although Friday’s game against Atlanta is a preseason friendly, it’s always “special” to play against them.
“For sure, it's preseason, and it's a friendly game, but still, it's always a special game against Atlanta. So I'm excited for the new season,” he said. “And for me, it's always better to have games instead of training, but I know how important training is for us and for the whole team that we get the rhythm and everything right. So it's very important for us to see how we're going to play Friday, and the next games.”
