New York Red Bulls head of sport Jochen Schneider outlines club vision | MLSSoccer.com

Offering warm praise for head coach Gerhard Struber, who he’s known since the dawn of Struber’s coaching career in Austria, Schneider believes last week’s valuable 2-1 road win in Atlanta stabilized RBNY’s summer swoon. He maintained, in the face of several probing questions about the club’s direction, that he can help the Red Bulls secure the MLS Cup title that has eluded them and their previous incarnation (the MetroStars) since the league’s dawn in 1996.

“The goal is to win trophies. There is this chance in this league,” said Schneider, who replaces now-Everton director of football Kevin Thelwell. “We have to find the right triggers.

“This is what this sport is about, especially in this league, where all the teams are so close together, not like in Germany, where you can say already today who will win the league. So this is amazing and therefore I’m happy to be here and to help the club to grow,” he added, making sure to declare that “we are not a farm team,” in reference to RBNY’s relationship with RB Leipzig (Germany), RB Salzburg (Austria) and the other clubs in their global network.

Schneider’s previous post was at star-crossed German giants Schalke 04. But he’s quite familiar with the Red Bull ecosystem, having worked under Ralf Rangnick and others for several years in multiple “energy-drink soccer” outposts. Notably, he acknowledged that RBNY’s scouting department needs investment and personnel, including on the youth side as they hunt talent for one of the more ambitious academy operations in MLS.