Bradley Wright-Phillips still recalls one of his first impressions of Red Bull New York star Julian Hall when he was coming up through the club’s academy.
Hall was still with the club’s MLS Next Pro team playing against New York City FC’s developmental squad when Wright-Phillips remembers him coming into the match and “sprinting everywhere.”
“I tell [then Red Bull II coach Ibrahim Sekagya], he’s gonna die,” the Red Bulls legend recalled to The Post in a phone conversation this week with a chuckle. “When you make your debut, you have so much adrenaline. And I’m thinking, he just got on and started sprinting everywhere. After like five minutes, he was dead.”
Wright-Phillips — the greatest goal scorer in Red Bulls history — has had a front-row view of Hall’s development into one of MLS’ top young players and now a promising star for the U.S. men’s national team. The Red Bulls legend, who has worked with Red Bulls II since roughly 2023, worked with Hall to the point where the young footballer even gave him a shoutout during an interview on TNT after the USMNT’s win over Chile, when Hall scored his second of three national team goals during the window.
Hall described Wright-Phillips as a “role model” for him and someone he viewed as having helped him reach “this place right now.”
“He was someone that was there every single day for me,” Hall told The Post. “Any questions I had, he was there. I mean, I feel like that was why he wanted to be there, to inspire the younger guys that were coming through. He definitely inspired me and he definitely helped me get to this place right now.”
The place that Hall is referring to has been a season for the Red Bulls where he forced his way into the starting lineup, usurping former Bayern Munich star Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting, and scoring 10 goals this season for his club.
He earned an MLS All-Star nod in the process and, after snapping a 12-game goal drought with the winning goal against New York City FC before the international break, Hall went on to score three goals and record an assist in his first senior national team call-up.
Wright-Phillips, who was the MLS Golden Boot winner in 2014 and 2016, knows a thing or two about finding the back of the net, and Hall noted one his biggest pieces of advice as one of the main reasons for his goal-scoring prowess this season.
“I think one main thing was staying in the box and between the posts,” Hall explained. “Because when I was younger, I was running all over the place on the field and with the second team, and he would always yell at me to go back in the middle. That’s kind of where I’ve been living this season and it pays off. That’s why I feel like everyone needs to be coachable, and you gotta listen to your elders because they know what they’re talking about.”
Wright-Phillips remembers that bit of advice, recalling how Hall would go after the ball on the side “you can’t score” and “fighting defenders.”
“I’m saying to him, there’s moments for that where you help the team, but there’s moments where you also have to think about Julian,” the Red Bulls alum said. “And I thought that was very important for him to just stay in the width of the 18-yard box because that’s where he’s going to get paid. That’s why people are talking about him now.”
Before this season, Wright-Phillips said that the two would have conversations three times a week, but due to his schedule with Apple TV and the World Cup, it hasn’t been “as much as I would have liked.” The two have exchanged messages over the past few weeks while Hall was with the U.S. men’s national team, he said.
And Wright-Phillips made sure to check in with another Red Bulls alum, Tyler Adams, who was part of the USMNT roster this past window, to make sure Hall and rising Red Bulls star Adri Mehmeti were doing well during their first national team call-ups.
“He’s like, ‘Yeah, fine. Yeah, no worries at all,’” Wright-Phillips said he heard back from Adams.
It’s safe to say that Hall left his first call-up to the USMNT knowing that Mauricio Pochettino and his staff liked what they saw from him.
Hall said that they expressed that they were “proud of me for the games that I did well in” and that the overarching message to everyone was to keep that same “heart” and “passion” that they showed with the national team.
“Just to see him from that first MLS Next Pro game to watching him now under the lights and on the big stages is special,” Wright-Phillips said.
