When Bradley Wright-Phillips takes a minute to look back on his career with Red Bull New York, there are a lot of accomplishments to point to.
He is the club’s all-time goals leader (108) and helped lead the Red Bulls to three Supporters’ Shield titles during his six-plus seasons with the organization.
But as Wright-Phillips paused to look back at his career ahead of Saturday’s induction into the Red Bulls’ Legends Row prior to their match against FC Dallas, there’s one milestone that he never reached that still weighs on him.
“I think not winning a Cup,” Wright-Phillips said when asked by The Post about the one particular moment that defined his career in Harrison. “I got a lot of friends around the league that won Cups. Guys I played with, guys I just know through the game.”
Wright-Phillips had been part of some of the most successful Red Bull teams in the club’s history during his time there, reaching the conference finals on three occasions (2014, 2015 and 2018). In 2013, 2015 and 2018, the Red Bulls had held the league’s best record through the regular season, but they never lifted the MLS Cup.
“When you talk about some of the best players in the league, you talk about them winning MLS cups, and it doesn’t hurt because I didn’t win it. It hurts because we had the teams to win it,” he said. “I think that’s what the struggle is. Even now, I think you guys see when we open up the new training facility, Thierry Henry was here, and you’d think Thierry Henry has got bigger things on his plate. This man’s won everything: World Cups, European championships, Golden Boots, and everything you can ask. And he brings up to me [that] we didn’t win the Cup. It’s something that doesn’t leave me. I wish we did. I think we had the squads to do it. That’s the one thing that stands out.”
While Wright-Phillips feels strongly about what could have been, it doesn’t take away from the specialness of the moment Saturday, when he joins former teammate and Red Bulls great Luis Robles as the second player to be inducted into Legends Row.
The former footballer called it “humbling” to be bestowed the honor by his former club.
In all, Wright-Phillips made 195 regular-season appearances in a Red Bull New York uniform and was the league’s leading scorer in 2014 and 2018 and became the first player in MLS history to have three seasons with 20 or more goals.
The Red Bulls great, who now serves as a commentator on Apple TV’s coverage of the MLS, had originally only come to the United States in order to train with Henry, whom he called his idol.
“I didn’t plan for any of this,” Wright-Phillips said. “I just wanted to come here, score some goals, prove that I wasn’t in my dad and my brother’s shadow. And then all of a sudden I have these kind of accolades. … But it’s amazing.”
