St. Louis CITY FC/Leagues Cup Scouting Report: A Mirror Into Portland's Past

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Won’t lie. I would have loved to see the Timbers draw FC Juarez. If you haven’t watched the penalty shoot-out for their loss at St. Louis CITY FC, do yourself a solid and watch it. I’ve never seen a ‘keeper do that and it was a delight…

Speaking of Portland’s actual opponent…

In the interest of making these posts more reddit-friendly, and with apologies to people who come to this space for long-form content, I’m reducing Scouting Reports to literally five things I’d tell anyone about St. Louis CITY FC…well, aside from some basics – e.g., they have struggled to actually win all season, even at home, and that they have experienced some heavy turnover of (very late; farewell, Tim Parker, sweet prince). With that out of the way…allons y.

1) A Smarter Press, an Absent Wrecking Ball
St. Louis still defends quite high and leaves a fair amount of (exploitable) vertical space within that shape, but I haven’t seen them run the drunk-octane high-press that served them so well in 2023. The wrecking ball from the subtitle is Joao Klauss, who did as much as any player to make that work. He hasn’t appeared a ton in 2024 and hasn’t even made the bench during this Leagues Cup. At any rate, they have pressing triggers within that high defensive line and release them pretty effectively if a team can’t take them out of it. Related…