There is something about the story unfolding at Red Bull’s training facility in Morris Township, New Jersey.
Among the players working through pre-season drills ahead of the MLS campaign’s resumption is a 25-year-old English centre-back whose journey has taken him from the heights of the Premier League to non-league football and back again — and who is now auditioning for a fresh start on the other side of the Atlantic.
Rhys Williams departed Liverpool when his contract expired on June 30, bringing to a close a fifteen-year association with a club he joined as a ten-year-old.
It is a timeline that tells two very different stories simultaneously: one of extraordinary loyalty and patience, and another of unfulfilled potential that never quite found the consistent platform it needed.
His defining Liverpool moment came in the 2020/21 season, and it arrived in the most dramatic circumstances imaginable.
With Virgil van Dijk, Joe Gomez and Joel Matip all sidelined through injury, manager Jurgen Klopp turned to Williams and Nathaniel Phillips to hold together a Liverpool defensive line that had been stripped to its bones.
Williams made 19 first-team appearances that season, playing in both the Premier League and the Champions League, and contributed to the club securing a top-four finish and Champions League qualification.
For a player who had been developing through the academy system, it was a moment of genuine, high-stakes exposure at the very highest level.
What followed, however, was a series of loan moves that never quite built into the sustained first-team career that debut season suggested was possible.
Swansea, Blackpool, Aberdeen, Port Vale and Morecambe, with each move offering something different, but none providing the consistent platform that would have kept him in the Premier League conversation.
He returned to Liverpool for the final year of his contract, featuring primarily for the Under-21 side before leaving quietly at the end of June.
Now New York Red Bulls have brought him in on trial, with the 25-year-old appearing at the facility on June 24 and integrating into first-team training.
Head coach Michael Bradley spoke openly about the situation, choosing careful words that nonetheless suggested genuine interest.
“We’ve enjoyed having him fit in in a really good way,” Bradley said.
“We’re still trying to piece everything together — not just in Rhys’ case, but from a bigger picture perspective in terms of how we use the summer window, where we are in terms of salary cap and international spots.”
“We’ve really enjoyed having him with us.”
“He’s made training better, and so we’ll continue to see how things evolve.”
The context matters.
Red Bull sit fifth in the Eastern Conference and have conceded 32 goals in 15 MLS matches — a defensive record that makes reinforcing the backline an urgent summer priority.
Williams has Championship, League Two, and Premier League experience in his locker.
New York could offer him exactly what his career has been missing which is regular first-team minutes in a stable environment.
The door appears open.
Both parties seem willing to walk through it.