After the New York Red Bulls' first game of the 2017 preseason, head coach Jesse Marsch made his priorities clear: this preseason is about the team's CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinal that starts on February 22, and that means it is about getting players minutes on the field. Or as he put it in a post-match interview widely circulated by RBNY:
"For us, we have to accelerate our process here because we have a very important game in about 26 days. So, you know, the emphasis was to come down here and play MLS competition immediately.