Former teammates meet on a weekly basis in Major League Soccer. It’s, as New York Red Bulls goalkeeper Luis Robles calls it, “the brutal part about professional sports, we’re all just passing through.”
There’s another such occasion Saturday night at Red Bull Arena when the Red Bulls host Columbus Crew SC, but this one is a bit different. You see, Mike Grella wasn’t just any former teammate for Robles.
“He’s truly a special player, a special guy,” Robles said after training Friday. “We used to play cards a lot, we used to play golf. You miss those moments and it’s always sad to see those guys leave, but I’m glad he’s gone to a place where he’s playing. When we spoke to him in Columbus, he likes it a lot, his family likes it a lot and that’s all you can ask for.”
Grella, the 31-year-old crafty winger, played three seasons with the Red Bulls. He was a regular starter in his first two years, starting 58 of the 65 matches he appeared in with 16 goals and 13 assists.
His third season, though, was cut short because of season-ending knee surgery in July, 2017. Grella was waived by the Red Bulls and acquired by the Colorado Rapids in the 2017 Re-Entry Draft before being traded to the Crew on Dec. 15.
In his first appearance with Columbus, Grella came off the bench to score the late winner against San Jose on April 28. It was his first MLS goal since scoring against the Crew on Oct. 16, 2016.
Those two very different milestone moments in Grella’s life were emotional for Red Bulls coach Chris Armas, who is very close to Grella and shares a similar upbringings on Long Island.
“Mike is tremendous,” Armas said. “It was great to see him in Columbus when we went there last time. You see he battled a knee injury and it was hard to watch him go through it and I’ll tell you, it was hard to hold back the tears when he scored his goal back on the field.”
Even though he was busy preparing for a match against the Philadelphia Union, Armas said he immediately texted Grella to congratulate him on the goal. Grella hasn’t scored since, but he has started four matches and come on as a substitute five other times. That includes last Saturday against Orlando City SC when he provided the assist on Wil Trapp’s dramatic stoppage-time winner.
“There’s the other part of Mike where he’s such an interesting player,” Armas said. “In our country, we typically don’t produce players like Mike Grella, who produced a lot of greatness here in goals and in attacking ways made us different because he can unbalance teams with dribbling, with passing, when you think it’s left, it’s right. Its incredible the mind he has for the game and the final third, specifically and his ability around the goal.”
In Columbus, Grella also talked about how special Saturday night will be for him. Grella has faced his former team once before — a 1-1 draw at MAPFRE Stadium on June 9 — but this will be different. He’ll have family in the stands, many of whom still live in his home town of Glen Cove on Long Island. And of course he’ll be back at Red Bull Arena where he enjoyed so many special moments.
“It will be exciting,” Grella said. “We have a lot of quality and so do they. It will be a really exciting game. Playing at Red Bull Arena is always a good time anyway, so I’m looking forward to it.”