Anatole Abang joins Camp

The New York Red Bulls saw the number of players in camp increase by one Saturday as Cameroonian forward Anatole Abang joined the team in Orlando for Saturday’s return to double training sessions.

If you saw this on Twitter and did a Google search, you probably didn’t find anything.

Here are a few vitals: The now 18-year-old Abang played 10 matches for the Cameroonian U-17 national side in 2012 and is currently in the player pool for the U-20 team.

At 6’1” and 160 lbs, Abang is strong in the air with decent one-v-one ability. While very young, Abang comes into a Red Bull camp that doesn’t have a ton of strikers and Jesse Marsch and his staff will take the next few weeks to evaluate the Cameroonian youth international.

Connor Lade’s New Opportunity

After a strong rookie campaign in 2012, fourth-year Homegrown defender Connor Lade strikes me as a bit of a paradox.

Appearing in 26 matches during his first MLS campaign, the Livingston, NJ product was called “The player of the season” for Red Bull in 2012 by none other than Thierry Henry. Despite it, a mixture of injuries and other circumstances have limited the versatile defender and midfielder to just 11 MLS appearances the last two seasons; and Lade also spent part of 2014 on loan with the New York Cosmos.

Back in camp with a clean bill of health, Lade indicated Saturday that he feels he fits well into the system Marsch is looking to implement and sees fresh opportunity for increased playing time under the new manager:

“Anytime you have a new coach you do your best to kind of show them your best during preseason,” Lade said. “You kind of wipe the slate clean and start new. There’s always going to be opportunities there. I’m just working my hardest to show them what I can do and how I can help the team.”

Marsch picked out Lade as one of a number of players he’s been pleased with in the early stages of camp Saturday.

Plan for Sunday’s match vs. USF

The Red Bulls open up their preseason match schedule on Sunday with a friendly against the University of South Florida.

As expected, Marsch will put out two different XIs for the closed-door match against the Tampa-based Bulls, to allow for evaluation of most players in a game situation.

“We’re trying to put a team on the field that I think understands how to play and then commits to each other. It’ll be a good first test to get ourselves going and I think everyone is excited for tomorrow.”

Fans can follow the match live via @NewYorkRedBulls on Twitter beginning Sunday at 10am ET.