St. Louis CITY FC Scouting Report: Despite Everything You Will Read, I'm Not Taking This Lightly

The MLS website, one month ago...

With all due respect to the opposition, I didn’t remember the last time the Portland Timbers played a tough game until I checked Ye Olde Form Guide – which, just to note it, will be rendered useless by the overbearing ads on the right side within weeks. Some days, I think Don Garber has made crushing the spirit of amateur independents his personal mission…

At any rate, I’d date Portland’s last tough games to the second half of May when they played Seattle at home followed by a road game in Orlando. Just one point from six in there. Counting forward, they have two more soft-on-paper games to go before, per the proverb, shit gets real. That starts with…

St. Louis CITY FC
3-12-6, 15 pts., 21 gf, 34 ga (-13); home 2-4-4, away 1-8-2
Last Results: LDLLWLDLLL (1-7-2)
Strength/Location of Schedule
v SD (1-2 L); v SKC (2-2 D); @ MIN (0-3 L); @ COL (0-1 L); v SJ (2-1 W); @ POR (1-2 L); @ LAG (3-3 D); v ORL (2-4 L); @ HOU (0-1 L); @ RSL (2-3 L)

Those are the (brutal) basics, but let’s unpack some further details.

There’s the (comparatively) stronger home record, I suppose, though 12 match days separate St. Louis’ two home wins. Perhaps noteworthy: they have been good for one home draw per month since April, generally in the middle of the month, so arguably they’re due.

In all seriousness, 2025 has put a lot of hurt on St. Louis and their fans and, outside a two-hour window between 4:00 and 6:00 p.m. PST Sunday, they have my sympathy. I don’t know enough to offer a deep read on everything that has gone wrong, but I do see they’ve been without some expected heavy contributors – e.g., Eduard Lowen, Tomas Ostrak and, to a lesser extent, Henry Kessler – for two-thirds to half of the season. (I have vague memories of people hyping Rasmus Alm, but…) I’d check the current availability report for additional, or even new, injuries, but that looks to have been abandoned as well…

Per the latest intelligence I’ve gathered, I’d expect Sunday’s lineup to look like a mash-up between the ones trotted out in the 3-3 draw versus the Galaxy and last weekend’s loss versus Real Salt Lake – a 4-3-3, with specifics depending on availability. Moving on to the things I’ve seen and the numbers I know.

A failure to deliver goals from their big names feels like a good place to start – e.g., guys like Marcel Hartel (2 goals, 3 assists), Cedric Teuchert (3 goals, 1 assist), barely managing even supporting numbers. Joao Klauss leads the line both literally and statistically, with one-third of St. Louis’ goals scored, but a one-third of a small number (e.g., 21) doesn’t add up to much (i.e., 7 goals). Against that, expecting an easy stroll through the park is a damn good way to get mugged, so let’s talk about those players, plus some others, at their best.

Wrong Klaus, fun movie.

Klauss is a moron, who has learned everything he knows from the New York Po…sorry. I mean, Klauss is still a wrecking ball and, bluntly, I think St. Loujs head coach David Critchley could do worse than stick him close to Kamal Miller. Between inter-changing and having a good leg for a shot, Hartel and Teuchert can be damn slippery operating in the space behind Klauss; I’ve mostly seen them play/combine outside-in, but I don’t have a huge sample. Celio Pompeu, a 50/50 starter, gives them a good player to isolate 1-v-1 and a little more around the outside, so that’s something else to watch. Finally, and this is one Timbers fans may remember, modest numbers aside, Simon Becher is a pain in the ass: he started the two games I reviewed for around an hour – the lost cause versus Orlando and last weekend’s stupid heartbreaker at RSL - decent speed, good size, reasonable feet, able to stretch the backline or post up against it. For what it’s worth, I suspect Critchley will throw Klauss and Becher at the Timbers back four in the hopes of shoving them around. Again, not a crazy choice…

Besides saying the numbers speak for themselves (1.61 goals allowed /game), I don’t have much to add on the defense. I have the impression the now-departed Olof Mellberg prioritized it to a suffocating extent, and a looser impression that Critchley decided to experiment in the opposite direction – an argument supported by St. Louis goals against rising to 2.2/game over their past 10 games. I can’t imagine Roman Burki has lost that much and therefore count him a victim of the Critchley’s mania. The seven goals I watched them give up between Orlando and RSL – which included a gift and an own-goal respectively - certainly backed up the impression. When I run their recent defense lineups against the total minutes for each minute played by all the players listed, this looks like a defense in the midst of either a scramble for healthy bodies or a rebuild, aka, a lot of instability.

Pulling the lens out farther, I noted two more things as I watched St. Louis:

1) They didn’t press near as much as they used to; and

2) expect balls over the top to isolate their attackers (Klauss, especially) against a single defender; but, also

3) St. Louis held close to even in possession in every game I reviewed and actually tried to use the ball. When attacking a compacted defense, they seem to like overloading wide spaces with five to six players moving inside-out to provide options for laddering the ball up the field.

That wraps up the Scouting Report. As for how the Timbers handle it, I’d go with some guiding principles:

1) Never think or play like you’re out of it. Cherche la weak spot, because it’s probably there.

2) With the exception of keeping the CBs connected to manage balls over the top and, maybe holding back one more player in the event St. Louis keeps either Becher or Pompeu higher (hold that thought), I’d encourage Portland to cheat forward and get on their defense. If Pompeu starts, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Critchley keep him high and left to pin in Juan David Mosquera.

3) Finally, the sum and weight of circumstances will likely force St. Louis to take the game to the Timbers, with the ball and all. That plays to Portland’s general strengths and I’d like to see more minutes for Kevin Kelsy than Felipe Mora, but to see Mora get in at or around the 60th in the event he doesn’t start. Fin.