USL Championship Side Birmingham Legion Announces Signing of RBNY Forward Serge Ngoma on Year-Long Loan

On Friday, USL Championship club Birmingham Legion announced the signing of Red Bull New York homegrown winger Serge Ngoma on a year-long loan through the 2026 USLC season.

Ngoma, 20, has been in Birmingham, AL to finalize personal terms with the Legion for a couple weeks at this point, having spent most of the 2026 preseason away from the RBNY first team.

The North Plainfield, NJ native broke into the RBNY senior team in 2022,  having joined the club's academy in 2017. Since his ascent to Major League Soccer, Ngoma has made 43 appearances across all competitions for the Red Bulls, scoring four goals. Becoming a regular with RBNY II in 2021, Ngoma scored four goals for the Baby Bulls in 24 matches and quickly rose the ladder to MLS, but has since faced many unfortunate setbacks due to injury.

He missed almost the entire 2023 season with a resurfacing hamstring injury and was absent for an additional five months in 2024 with a knee injury. He featured in a career high 24 matches across all competitions in 2025, but only managed to start seven of those matches, logging a season-high 81 minutes in the U.S. Open Cup Quarterfinals against Philadelphia Union (Aug. 13).

He has only completed a 90-minute match once in his professional career, back in August of 2021 for RBNY II.

Ngoma became one of the league's more highly-exciting prospects after scoring two goals in the summer of 2022 between ages 16 and 17, but has since faded into the background in New York behind players like Julian Hall, Mohammed Sofo, Andy Rojas, Rafael Mosquera and Tanner Rosborough.

While the move represents a step down for Ngoma, it's a tremendous opportunity for the young talent to get a consistent run of first-team football for the first time in his career. Ngoma has shown that he has the quality to compete in MLS, but has not been a consistently reliable figure at that level and could benefit from being trusted with the responsibility to drive the Legion's attack in 2026.

Birmingham is looking to return to the USLC playoffs after two disappointing seasons and have turned to multiple former MLSers in this offseason, including Bryce Washington and Romario Williams, as well as late 2025 additions in Sebastian Saucedo and Peter-Lee Vassell. Former RBNY winger (although he did not play a match for the club) Tyler Pasher is one of the longest tenured players at the Alabaman club, having signed for the side in 2023.

Notably, the USL Players' Association voted to authorize its bargaining committee to call a strike. The goal is to reach a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) for players in the USL Championship, with matches set to start tonight, Mar. 6.

Empire Soccer Report Episode 9 is live!

In this episode of Empire Soccer Report, James Birle talks about the latest RBNY transfer news, provides a recap of the club's 1-0 win against the New England Revolution and previews the upcoming match against CF Montreal: