A SCARF DANGLES IN THE LOCKER of New York Red Bulls goalkeeper Luis Robles. It’s a woolen swipe at New York City FC, calling the franchise “second-class citizens” in their own stadium.

There’s truth to that, of course, with New York’s newest soccer club taking residence in the stadium of its part-owners, the Yankees, for want of a home of its own. But it’s a barb the Red Bulls and its fans feel they’ve earned after putting in almost two decades of service in Major League Soccer. Never mind that the Red Bulls played at Giants Stadium until 2010, mostly as the MetroStars,

This is all the point. It’s the very reason for having a second MLS team in New York: forging a rivalry.

And this intra-city competition, conceived in a boardroom somewhere high up in MLS’ Fifth Avenue headquarters, has quickly gotten heated. The enmity was evident from the start and got ugly last month, before the Red Bulls beat the expansion team for a third time in their three meetings this year.

Underpinning that rivalry are the none-too-subtle differences between the two clubs. That’s what makes a good competition—a clash of ideas and identities. One that was driven home when the Red Bulls dismantled another team, traditional arch-rivals, D.C. United, in a 3-0 victory on Sunday.

NYRB is now something entirely different from what it used to be. This winter, it went from having an $11.3 million payroll, up there with the highest in the league, to one of just $3.6 million, the lowest in MLS. (That’s all per MLS Players Union figures, which are probably imperfect but give a good enough impression of a team’s overall direction.) Not so long ago, the Red Bulls carried a $15 million payroll, which then topped the league.

But after the best two seasons in a mostly futile existence—clinching the Supporters’ Shield and then falling a single goal short of just the second MLS Cup appearance in the club’s history—the blueprint was redrawn. Instead of “A few stars and some other warm bodies,” the club is now designed as “A balanced team without stars.”

It was such a dramatic philosophical reversal that it initially didn’t sit well with the club’s beleaguered fans, who wondered if the ownership had finally lost interest and was merely becoming miserly. And that’s to say nothing of the firing of beloved manager Mike Petke, one of the few fan favorites the club ever produced, who had overseen those two high-flying seasons.

The man behind it all was new technical director Ali Curtis, who presented the ownership with a clearly defined vision.

“Their belief about the way to achieve success has changed,” he told SI.com in the spring. “And I think they have placed a greater priority on really bringing in a team of folks that understand this league and have been around this league and understand the nuances, the coaching landscape, the youth development landscape and the union and CBA landscape.”

So that’s what management did. And the results have been staggering.

While NYRB were no slouches in recent years, it was built entirely around Thierry Henry and his wit and whims. And on days when his aging and battered legs dragged, or huis ideas simply couldn't solve opposing defenses, things often fell apart.

Henry’s retirement last winter would ordinarily have induced something of an identity crisis. Except that Curtis hired Jesse Marsch and instructed him to forge an actual team, a carefully assembled outfit of complementing players. Marsch built a side that presses high, moves fluidly, and creates chances with abandon.

For the first time in memory, a collective responsibility demands equal effort in the Red Bull locker room, rather than every ball being delivered to Henry in hopes he’d do something helpful with it.

With nine games to play, the Red Bulls are 12-7-6 and the best team in the East. If it collects a decent return on its games in hand, it will lead not only the Eastern Conference but the Supporters Shield race as well. The Red Bulls have won eight of its last 11 games and have a favorable schedule for the remaining season.

Meanwhile, across the Hudson River, where the team that prides itself on actually being in New York plays, NYCFC’s inaugural season has been a bit of a shambles. The fans have come and they’ve gotten a solid product—especially considering the unexpected stadium kerfuffle—but on the field it’s been disjointed and inconsistent even by the standards of an expansion team.

It’s kind of a funny thing. NYCFC is what the Red Bulls once were: a club that signs aging European stars and hopes the last fumes in their tanks are enough to propel an entire club forward. The MetroStars and their rebranded successors once brought Roberto Donadoni, Lothar Matthaus, Youri Djorkaeff, Rafa Marquez, Tim Cahill, Henry, and a slew of aging American stars stateside, with very mixed results.

NYCFC has now started its existence by bringing in David Villa, Frank Lampard, and Andrea Pirlo—towering names of the European game. It’s a classic Red Bulls play.

And just as it was in New Jersey, the NYCFC approach has been a hit-and-miss affair. Villa has been a smashing success, putting the offense on his back and posting 15 goals thus far, tied for third most in the league. But Lampard has played just three times in the year since he’s signed, never once completing his 90 minutes and putting up no goals or assists. Pirlo has played more regularly but hasn’t had the kind of influence expected of him yet.

Meanwhile, the sky blue club and its league record $17.8 million payroll are below the playoff line—in spite of its expansion to include 12 teams—and have lost four of its last six.

THERE’S A CONVENIENT METAPHOR for this new dichotomy roaming these teams’ respective midfields. Namely, the trios of Sacha Kljestan, Dax McCarty, and Felipe Martins on the New Jersey side of the Hudson and of Pirlo, Lampard, and Mix Diskerud on the New York side. The former, while experienced and relatively well known, contains no big names—with respect to Kljestan and his accomplishments with the U.S. national team and his three Belgian championships with Anderlecht.

The latter has only stars, since Diskerud is one of the most popular young players on the U.S. men’s national team. As the poorest of his NYCFC peers, he, at $750,000 annually, still makes more than Kljestan—and more than McCarty and Martins combined. Tally the entirety of those trios’ take-home pay and the NYRB bunch makes a shade over $1 million and the NYCFC band makes a tidy $9 million.

Yet it’s been the NYRB midfield that has looked the best in the entire league while NYCFC’s has struggled to supply Villa and whoever has ambled about beside him. That’s because Curtis and Marsch assembled a midfield carefully and thoughtfully, thinking of strengths and weaknesses and purpose and skills. NYCFC just got the biggest names it could get, regardless of the fit. This underscores the essence of a rivalry that has also become a battle of ideologies.

To longtime Red Bulls supporters, the three head-to-head contests this year must have sometimes felt like they were playing against an earlier incarnation of themselves.

But eventually, the club got with the program and realized that the teams that win consistently in MLS and ultimately lift the big trophy are the ones that are balanced and deep and have a clear playing style. So that’s when the Red Bulls became something new just as NYCFC became…the Red Bulls of old.

While it may conflict with the ethos of the budding club, NYCFC will eventually have to mimic the Red Bulls again if it wants to find success in North America.

Leander Schaerlaeckens is a freelance soccer writer. Follow him on Twitter.