#Empty Hudson River Derby will be bereft of usual chaos

Valentin Castellanos of New York City FC and Red Bulls’ defender Aaron Long are seen during the most recent Hudson River Derby in 2019.
Corbis via Getty Images

In a line of some truly deafening Hudson River Derbies, the next iteration will surely be its most silent.

As the teams announced last week, the Red Bulls and New York City FC will restart their seasons against each other August 20 at Red Bull Arena — without the normal fanfare of derby day.

Past derbies have included Andrea Pirlo and Frank Lampard depicted with canes, the crowd-silencing 7-0 thrashing at the hands of NYCFC at Yankee Stadium in 2016, and the same club’s exhilarating 3-2 comeback the next year in front of a raucous Yankee Stadium.

This time will not feature the same pomp and circumstance, at least on the field. In eight days, the 17th Hudson River Derby will be a rivalry match distilled to its purest form: two teams who really don’t like each other desperately vying for a win.

Both teams have struggled for form this season. In 12 MLS matches this year (including NYCFC’s knockout games in the MLS is Back tournament), they have combined for four wins. Both teams have failed to score multiple goals in a match on more than one occasion (five tries for Red Bulls, seven for NYCFC), and New York City is languishing outside of an uber-early playoff picture a season after winning the Eastern Conference last regular season.

This is still a mammoth match. It just won’t quite feel like it.

If we’re lucky, the taunts from the crowd will be duly replaced with audible trash talk from the players themselves. If New York City scores a decisive goal, they’ll be no fans in red for them to shush.

This is the reality of the MLS — and sports at large — for now, although FC Dallas announced Tuesday that it was selling tickets for its game against Nashville SC. It is still unclear whether the Red Bulls and New York City will play in front of fans for MLS’ “Phase 2” games (starting after September 12).

But an empty stadium isn’t all that bad.

The MLS is Back tournament in Orlando showed how intense crowd-less games can still be, while the NBA’s restart has given an interesting peek into the jawing that fans would normally not hear or notice. This writer actually prefers his broadcasts without enhanced sound (if possible) for that very reason.

This match should be full of that intensity, even if the empty stands lining the field won’t reflect it.

Of course, those missing elements will be especially noticeable in a match like this. It’s not hard to imagine — in an alternate world — the hordes of fans packing into Red Bull Arena on a sweaty Thursday night.

Most of those fans would be in red. Others, in blue, would have just arrived via the PATH train. Some would view the Thursday night game as weekend kick-off, splurging on plastic cups of beer while fans in the South Ward bang on a drum for 90 minutes.

It would’ve been a great night.

If you can adjust your expectations, it still can be.