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Football stars Striker Bradley Wright-Phillips

Striker Bradley Wright-Phillips (99) of the Red Bulls after scoring in a playoff match against D.C. United in November. “He did basically everything for us,” his teammate Dax McCarty said.

 football stars bradley wright phillips

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Julio Cortez /Associated Press

HARRISON, N.J. — It is hard to argue with the results, even if the cold, spare statistics of soccer suggest otherwise. Bradley Wright-Phillips and his teammates insist that Wright-Phillips, their high-scoring, heel-clicking striker, has been a more efficient player, and the Red Bulls a better team, since he avoided the net-bending feats he accomplished in 2014.

A goal is precious in this sport. Wright-Phillips managed 27 of those celebratory moments in 2014, tying the league record. He scored a more reasonable 17 last season, when Kei Kamara of the Columbus Crew and Sebastian Giovinco of Toronto F.C. succeeded him as the league’s scoring leaders. Yet the Red Bulls won more matches in 2015 and finished at the top of the league table, and Wright-Phillips felt a great burden melt from his 5-foot-8 frame.

“Growing up, I wasn’t a big guy; I struggled to hold on to the ball,” Wright-Phillips said last week as he prepared for the Red Bulls’ season opener against visiting Toronto on Sunday. “You talk about pressure. That’s when I felt I had to score goals. Because I felt I was only good at one thing, at putting the ball in the back of the net.

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Fans with a cutout of Bradley Wright-Phillips outside Red Bull Arena before a playoff match against D.C. United. 

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Julio Cortez/Associated Press

“But now I feel I can bring more to the team, and it’s slowly helped me to stop thinking about goals.”

Can a pure striker truly ever stop thinking about scoring goals? As another M.L.S. season begins this weekend, it is fair to ask whether soccer fans and numbers nerds are ready for such blasphemous thoughts, or whether any single statistic can take the full measure of a player.

Wright-Phillips had seven assists in 2015, compared with only two in 2014. He tracked back more often on defense. His time of possession was greater. Yet the goals-scoring race was always the foremost graphic on every telecast, and in that regard, he had retreated from his record-tying year.

“Strikers are judged on goals,” said Dax McCarty, who has played behind Wright-Phillips in the Red Bulls’ midfield the past two and a half seasons. “I know that from the media and fans’ perspective, it’s easy to just pigeonhole strikers with their strike rate. How many goals did they score? How many games did they play? Goal rate. It’s an easy stat.

“But Bradley is so much more than just goals,” McCarty added. “The year he tied the record for most goals in a season, he was all about goals. But he did more for us last year. The way he was unselfish with defending. The way he held the ball up against bigger center backs. The way he got assists. The way he made runs from behind. He did basically everything for us.”

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Wright-Phillips, left, scoring on D.C. United goalkeeper Bill Hamid.

 

Credit

Julio Cortez/Associated Press

The Red Bulls are an odd, overachieving bunch, as fans of the league learned last season. With a low payroll and high-pressure tactics, Coach Jesse Marsch’s team somehow wrung 60 points from 34 matches to capture the Supporters’ Shield as the team with the top regular-season record. Despite the loss of center back Matt Miazga to Chelsea in January, there is good reason to think the club will continue its quiet success.

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Preparing for his second season in charge, General Manager Ali Curtis made a minimal ripple in the free-agent market during the off-season, instead signing several homegrown talents to fill out the roster. That means the Red Bulls still stand as a stark counterpoint to their struggling, free-spending neighbors at New York City F.C., and to Sunday’s visiting Toronto team, which has last year’s league most valuable player, Giovinco, as well as Michael Bradley and Jozy Altidore.

Wright-Phillips, 30, is about as high profile as it gets for the Red Bulls, though his older brother and teammate, Shaun, 34, was once a far greater name. From 1999 to 2005, Shaun scored 26 goals in 153 matches for Manchester City, while Bradley managed only two — in 32 games over three seasons — for the club before he was sent packing to a lower division.

Since Shaun joined the Red Bulls last year in midseason, their roles are now reversed, yet there is no sign of sibling jealousy. It is just Bradley’s turn.

“Everybody thinks he’s changed,” Shaun said of Bradley. “But that’s the brother I’ve known since we played Sunday league football. He’s always been a goal scorer, always worked hard and always entertained the crowd. Now he’s just getting his chance to do it on a big stage, and he’s rising to the occasion.”

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The brothers hang out at Bradley’s Whippany, N.J., home. They play video games — the only time Shaun said he can be mean. Their families mix and mingle. This is a good time for everyone, and could grow even better if Shaun cracks the Red Bulls’ starting lineup on occasion and Bradley holds his preseason form.

It is an unusual form, actually, and is difficult to characterize. Bradley Wright-Phillips is certainly more of a chaser than a target striker, yet despite his size, he can perform effectively at close range with his back to the goal.

“I feel like I’m quick enough, and on my day, I can be dangerous in the box,” Wright-Phillips said. “I’m not too complicated. I don’t think I’m great on the eye. I work hard. I try to outwork defenders, and that’s it. I like to get in the box and finish.”

Or hold the ball. Or pass. Wright-Phillips has no great plan to match Kamara’s or Giovinco’s goal production this season, and he did not want to talk about becoming the Red Bulls’ career scoring leader (he needs 17 more goals to equal Juan Pablo Angel’s 62).

For now, a fresh season beckons. If Wright-Phillips scores, he scores. If he creates, he creates. No big deal. His teammates already know that their striker can do much more than strike.

“I can’t wait,” Wright-Phillips said of Sunday’s opener. “It’s been too long. I just want to go to bed so early and bring on the next day.”