St. Louis CITY FC Scouting Report: In 2024, You Can Totally French the Bully

Great live band, massive goddamn loss.

This Saturday gives the Timbers yet another chance to prove they’ve earned that finger-tip’s hold on the playoff line. Staying there or, gods forbid, climbing higher means winning against teams like…St. Louis CITY FC. And I will never, never get tired of shouting “CITY” the same way Howard Stern emphasized the “N” in “WNBC” in his mediocre biopic.

The Basics & the Big Picture
3-4-8, 17 pts., 23 gf, 25 ga (-2); home 3-2-3, away 0-2-5; 11th West, 23rd overall
Last 10:    LTWTTWLLLT
Venue:      AHHAAHHAHA

St. Louis is not the punch-you-in-the-mouth-and-steal-all-your-points team they were in 2023. Confidence sustained the belief they could bully other teams into submission and I’m pretty sure that dried up by the beginning of April 2024. If not then, the beginning of May finished it off. The 2-1-7 record they had by May 5, 2024 only looks worse after a string of losses (v LAFC, @ CIN and v SEA) landed themwhere they are now (see above).

On a raw numbers level, they hew close to average for goals scored and allowed (the average across MLS is currently 24.03 goals coming and going) and their stats leaders are Joao Klauss (5 goals, 3 assists), Celio Pompeu (3 goals, 3 assists), Samuel Adeniran (2 goals, 1 assist), and Tomas Totland (2 goals, 2 assists). Also of note, their assist leader, Eduard Lowen, who has three goals (plus one assist) has played just 379 minutes this season. That’s due to a hamstring injury and doing the right thing by his wife who has had some medical issues. And good for him for doing that.

I built my impression of St. Louis CITY 2024 on stats and highlights review of the home win over Chicago Fire FC, the home loss versus Los Angeles FC, and the road loss at FC Cincinnati, plus the stats and longer looks at the home loss versus the Seattle Sounders and last weekend’s wild road draw at Inter (Asshole) Miami CF. Some details aside – e.g., I expect them to get all up in Portland the same way they did against Chicago (and Miami; honestly, MLS’s big-spending darlings basically handed them a loaded gun) – I didn’t see a ton of what Portland typically does in all my review. Still, LAFC and Seattle offered some smart pointers as to how to absorb St. Louis’ pressure and break them – e.g., they don’t have a ton of ideas outside of turning the ball over in dangerous places, so don’t let them – but, bluntly, Seattle had no goddamn business winning that game (per either numbers or eye-test). I can, however, see Portland riding out the pressure and wrecking St. Louis a la LAFC, even without a Denis Bouanga to call our own…