St. Louis CITY FC Scouting Report: Needing and Wanting. Or Vice Versa

Why not 9 center backs? Why not 13?

To get the big dodge out of the way, who knows what to make of St. Louis CITY FC right now, what with Olof Mellberg getting shit-canned for an unmissable lack of results and, I’m told, a hard kink for fielding eight center backs in his starting XIs? At any rate, he’s gone, replaced by interim head coach David Critchley…who, for the record, guided the team to its first win since mid-March.

To compile this dossier, I jumped around about…65 minutes’ worth of real-time footage of St. Louis’ 0-1 road loss at the Colorado Rapids and their gently weird 2-1 home win over the San Jose Earthquakes. Normally, I’d put more time into the road game, but suspect the coaching change to color their approach in enough ways that I think that anyone bored and restless enough will benefit more from watching long outtakes of the San Jose game. If nothing else, and barring injuries (looking at Cedric Teuchert here), I’d expect the team that lines up against the Portland Timbers on Sunday will look more like the starting XI versus San Jose. I’ll dig into that more below, but let’s start with…

The Facts
Record/Stats
3-8-5, 14 pts., 13 gf, 21 ga (-8); home 2-3-3, away 1-5-2
Last 10 Results: LLDDLLDLLW
Strength/Location of Schedule
@ SKC (0-2 L); v CLB (1-2 L); v VAN (0-0 D); @ LAFC (2-2 D); @ SEA (1-4 L); v SD (1-2 L); v SKC (2-2 D); @ MIN (0-3 L); @ COL (0-1 L); v SJ (2-1 W)

Clearly, things have gone coach-firingly bad for St. Louis this season and, based on the time I put into the San Jose win, I’m not sure now firmly they’ve turned the page. Big picture, St. Louis kept games tighter until recent weeks (see losses at Seattle and Minnesota), but the defense still tilts toward the stronger side of the league average. The attack, unfortunately, leans harder in the other direction. Still, soothe – which bring me to…

Talking Point No. 1: The Timbers Have to Match “Playing for Their Jobs right now” Intensity
That’s it. St. Louis looked listless and gun-shy at Colorado, at least until they had to chase the game after Darren Yapi’s 41st minute goal forced them to chase the game (weird one; also kinda notable; here's the other one by Josef Martinez). They also defended deep (to the point of nesting) in the stretches I watched and played like they forgot St. Louis’ hard-pressing tradition. Maybe the game plan tilts toward allowing shots from range, or maybe that's just what Mellberg's approach encouraged indirectly by way of tactics. I saw more pressing versus San Jose and, again, I expect to see that against the Timbers, road game be damned. St. Louis may press and foul half as hard as they used to, but Portland should come ready to battle…like, really battle.

St. Louis CITY FC 0-0 Portland Timbers: Feeling Good (No, Really) Context-Free

A young Paul Giammati was the butt of the "wNbc" bit.

I don’t actually have a ton of blow-by-blow notes for the Portland Timbers' goal-less draw at St. Louis CITY FC (“wNbc!”), even though the game amounted to a series of isolated escapes from a general muddle. In all honesty, I’m mostly thrilled to see the Timbers keep their second clean sheet of 2024.

That’s not to say St. Louis didn’t come close here and there – e.g., Timbers understudy ‘keeper, James Pantemis, made a save on a Celio Pompeu shot through a thicket of bodies toward the end of the first half and Portland came within the width of Claudio Bravo’s lower leg of going down 0-1 in the 75th minute – and even that immediately followed Eduard Lowen hitting the right far post with a free kick. Tim Parker came close with a header at the 15th too (or thereabouts), Zac McGraw had to run down a through-ball (hat-tip to Joao Klauss for whiffing the shot!), but I doubt even the most rabid St. Louis fan would argue they stormed the castle. You’ll see nearly all of that in the highlights, but about 60% of the total run-time is devoted to dudes picking up yellow cards, with most going to St. Louis.

Portland had their chances – e.g., Jonathan Rodriguez’s shot to the far post around the 3rd minute (before he largely faded into anonymity) and another shot by Evander around the 17th – but their shooting statistics and lowly xG get the story mostly right.

And yet, even if this arguably counts as the Timbers least impressive attacking performance of 2024, it might count as something just as important: one of their more coherent playing performances. Unlike countless prior outings (well, not countless; they’ve played literally 18 games, so this can be quantified), Portland players looked generally connected and less like total strangers than they have across multiple halves of multiple games this season. Given how rare (more or less) wire-to-wire competence has been this season, I see that as something to celebrate.

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…

Getting Reacquainted with St. Louis CITY FC, the Humiliation of Fatherhood

Keep talking motherfucker. Day's coming...

[Standing Disclaimer: While I have watched…just a stupid amount of MLS over the years, I don’t watch the vast majority of games, never mind all of them. As such, it’s fair to take anything below that isn’t a hard number or a physical trophy as an impression, a couple steps removed.]

Thumbnail History

They came, they saw, they straight-up rolled some teams – including five straight to start the season. Hell, St. Louis CITY FC even rolled Sporting Kansas City 4-1 at home all the way at Week 32 of the season. The fact the same team that put them to the sword over a lopsided two-leg series in the first round of the 2023 MLS playoffs sums up St. Louis short-‘n’-sweet history in MLS: impressive, but visibly incomplete.

Best Season

I feel good saying 2023…

Long-Term Tendencies

They went wildly over the median on goals scored – i.e., 62 scored versus the 46.8 average – and, as well as the defense did, it seized failure with both hands often as not. Almost certainly related, St. Louis played an aggressive press, aka, one of soccer’s great “yes/no” propositions, there is no try, only do, etc.

Identity: Your son beating you at a sport for the first time.

Joy Points: 1, because making the playoffs in your one and only season makes your history brighter than eight other teams. (Also, index for how these work is below*.)

[Ed. – There is no point to a “names to know” section on a team entering its second season…]

Where They Finished in 2023 & What the Past Says About That, If Anything

First in the Western Conference and a genuinely impressive fourth overall. To be completely frank, I did not like this team from the jump and wanted them to fail – mostly because I hate pressing teams. Shit’s ugly. Going the other way, they effectively ambushed the six of the first eight teams they played and staked them to 18 fast points early in the season. And yet, and to their very real credit, St. Louis picked up a healthy share of wins throughout the season. I won’t pretend I don’t think they’ve been found out, but they had a great season for any team, never an expansion team.

Notes/Impressions on the Current Roster/State of Ambition

I don’t know enough to comment on the St. Louis front office’s state of ambition beyond acknowledging they did pretty damn all right in Year One. Even with the occasionally useful Niko Gioacchini and the infatigable (and pissy) Jared Stroud moved on to new and exciting professional opportunities, St. Louis comes in to 2024 with a good core. Having 2023’s goalkeeper of the year and MLS vet Tim Parker to organize the defense looks like a sound foundation to me and, so long as you have that and a competent midfield, all it takes to get your local team close to competitive is a couple smart attacking pieces. They seem to have those in Eduard Lowen and Joao Klauss, so long as he can stay fit. My best guess puts this team at playoff-competitive in 2024; add some talent – I hear they have an open DP spot- and they could make some actual noise in MLS’s Western Conference…that said, I’m still waiting for this team to get found out. The way they could go either way feels like a big deal for 2024.