Stefano Bonomo joins Sacramento Republic for 2019

Stefano Bonomo has signed with Sacramento Republic for the 2019 USL Championship season. He joins former NYRB II teammate Rafael Diaz on the team’s roster.

Bonomo was released by the New York Red Bulls in June 2018, having played a career total of one minute for the first team. But he was among the longest-serving players in the history of New York Red Bulls II, compiling a total of 64 appearances in four seasons with RBNY’s USL team.

He had a stop-start career with the Red Bulls. Drafted 39th overall by RBNY in the 2015 SuperDraft, Bonomo skipped off to Europe to try his luck at landing contract abroad - but head coach Jesse Marsch kept the door open for his runaway draft pick’s return, and ultimately the player signed with NYRB II in July 2015. He contributed regular appearances to the II-team’s all-conquering 2016 season, including an entertaining cameo in the 5-1 USL Cup Final win over Swope Park Rangers.

His standout moment arrived in 2017, when he was only able to play about half a season due to injury, but finished the year as the II team’s top scorer with 13 goals in 16 appearances.

That performance won him a first-team contract for 2018, but he remained predominantly a II-teamer and was let go in the summer. Bonomo moved on to Tampa Rowdies, joining the club in July and contributing three goals in nine appearances in USL.

Sacramento is getting a proven goalscorer at the USL level, capable of extraordinary sustained scoring if he can ever find his way back to the circumstances of the latter half of the 2017 season.

Once A Metro wishes Bonomo every success at his new club.