HANOVER, N.J. – It didn’t start as a superstition, these things rarely do. But now, New York Red Bulls midfielder Sean Davis can’t imagine any other routine prior to home games.



For Thursday’s win-big-or-else playoff tilt against Atlanta United, Davis won’t be arriving to the stadium from his apartment located a matter of minutes from Red Bull Arena. Instead, he purposely extends his commute to an hour’s drive up the Garden State Parkway. All so he can see his family, and sleep in the room where he grew up.



“Even though I live in Jersey City—my [teammates] do the commute easily–—it just kind of has been the routine that I’ll stick with,” Davis told The Athletic.



Davis’ strange routine has origins in common sense. As a rookie out of Duke in 2015 he lived in a friend’s basement in Kinnelon, located about 60 miles north of his parents’ place in Holmdel. His new home...