The New York Red Bulls completed their first full day of preseason at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida. Thirty-one players made the trip to Florida, seven of them draft picks from the 2020 MLS SuperDraft.

Among the 31 players is John Tolkin, who recently became the 25th academy product to sign a professional contract with the club. The 17-year-old is living his second preseason with the First Team.

“It feels a little bit different, definitely last year just coming from the Academy and joining the First Team guys, you really don’t feel you’re part of the team. You really don’t feel it as much,” Tolkin said. “Now that I’m coming here this year, there’s more experience. Signing the contract, I feel like a more team-player, more part of the team. I got to know the guys a lot more, and now I can help the draft picks a little bit with my experience from last year.”

Right-back Kyle Duncan knows that it takes time to understand the team’s philosophy and sees these first days as an opportunity to give advice to the new faces in the camp.

“It’s been pretty good, workouts have been pretty intense. We’re trying to get some of these new guys going, and get to know them a little bit better,” said Duncan. “Other than that, I hope they learn quickly because learning this system takes some time, but at the same time, we’ll be there beside them helping them along the way.”

Duncan, who got 13 starts in 2019, took time after training to give pointers to left-back Patrick Seagrist.

“I was speaking to Patrick [Seagrist] today, and I told Patrick, ‘Our system is based off of going all the way, going all out, and at the same time, you have to realize who’s behind you as well in these small games,’” described Duncan. “On the field, you know you’ll have your players behind you, like your center-backs since Patrick and I play outside backs, you have Tim [Parker] and Amro [Tarek] to cover, but in these small games like we were just playing retention lines, the way it happened was that the two forwards would just stay right behind the offside line, and we would have to press.

“Chris would tell us to go all out, but at the same time we have to realize who’s behind us, so I was telling him, ‘If I go, you cover in, and if you go, I’ll cover in.’ So I was just giving him advice.”

Head Coach Chris Armas sees these early days as an important moment to consolidate the trust in the team.

“I think the first thing, I know we always talk about the team and like there’s no ‘I’ in team type of thing, but there’s an ‘I’ in individual. And I think it starts with each guy taking care of their job, and if each guy can do their job, if each coaching staff member can do their job, then I think it will help the players do their job,” Armas explained. “If each player/person does their job, I think then you can start to trust the guy to your left and trust your guy to the right, and then you can really see how good a team can be. Before you start to think about how the team can operate as one, you have to have each guy taking pride in what they do.”

Although he’s still only taking his first steps in the First Team, Tolkin is aware of what Armas wants from them.

“You can definitely see that it works [team’s style], and you can see it in games, that it works. It’s just being aggressive, and don’t worry about what’s behind you, you just have to trust each other, and he’s right.

“I think once the first guy goes, then everybody follows.”

With the first hours complete, Armas is optimistic with what he has seen on the field.

“I would say that what I’m seeing right now is a team that’s playing very hungry. They’re hungry for the philosophy, they’re loving, they’re pressing, and they’re counter-pressing. [You see] their relentless nature against the ball that we want to represent, so I see a big commitment,” the Red Bulls Head Coach highlighted. “I see a good fitness level from the team. I see a togetherness that’s very interesting over two days. It’s always about energy, that’s coming together and building, so I’m excited for what I’m seeing so far and a lot of optimism in the first couple of days of preseason.”