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(Photo by Kaitlin Marold - JSN)

Red Bulls sign Harrison native Omar Sowe and Goalkeeper A.J. Marcucci from USL Bulls

The talent pipeline for the New York Red Bulls continues to produce more talent from their USL Championship side and directly heads to their first team. On Saturday morning the club signed Striker Omar Sowe and Goalkeeper A.J. Marcucci to their first MLS contracts.

This club has developed local New York & New Jersey players that have excelled on their USL Championship club and none were more valuable than Tyler Adams and Derrick Etienne Jr. who were a part of the USL Championship club back in 2016. But as we continue to see local players continue to grow and do well like John Tolkin, new additions are coming and it's about to get better.

For the first time in the club's history since Red Bull Arena was built in Harrison, NJ back in 2010, one of the town own will finally call that soccer stadium home as the Red Bulls signed Striker Omar Sowe. Since signing with the club to perform at their second division club,

Since being with the USL club back on August 16th, 2019 Sowe has appeared in 41 matches scoring 15 goals and two assists, since coming from the academy under 18 side. The Red Bulls believe he is the future of the club and we shall see what he can do for this season, but we all know he is for the future.

“We are pleased to promote Omar to the first team,” Head of Sport Kevin Thelwell said. “Omar has been a rising talent since he joined the organization. We hope he continues to carry over his positive progression to the first team.”

Then the club decided to make another signing on this day, about two hours later. the club signed their goalkeeper from West Chester, Pennsylvania in A.J. Marcucci who has signed his deal with the Red Bulls towards the end of this season with three option years.

“It is a pleasure adding A.J. to our first team roster,” Head of Sport Kevin Thelwell said. “A.J. has worked extremely hard to where he has got to in his career, beginning at the NCAA Division III level, and we hope to see him continue to grow at the next level.”

This is exciting news to see an academy-level prospect getting their chance to sign with the big club, at the same time it's also interesting to see where the new goalkeeper will fit at the same time. But what this also shows is that these rumors about the Red Bulls academy well has dried up are sadly misspoken. Now it's time for these players to go out and prove these doubters wrong.